By Thomas Boswell
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
When Jim Bowden saw my hand in a splint, he laughed. "Did you punch the TV watching us play?" asked the general manager, whose Nationals have lost eight of 10 after last night's win over the Pirates. "My leg should be broken from all the stuff I've kicked."
Nick Johnson (arm in a cast), Austin Kearns (elbow encased in ice) and Ryan Zimmerman (nursing a bum shoulder) joined the morbid fun. "I know how you did it," one said, making the universal gesture of smacking your palm against your forehead in disbelief after watching a bonehead play.
"I'll be as good as new in five weeks," I said.
"So will we," Bowden shot back.
By the all-star break, starting with Ronnie Belliard's two-homer return to the lineup last night, Bowden figures his halt and lame, including closer Chad Cordero and catcher Paul Lo Duca, should be back.
But between now and then, what torment awaits Nats fans? For every 10-9 win on an Elijah Dukes walk-off homer last week or 7-6 win last night on a two-run homer in the ninth by Lastings Milledge, how many other games will resemble the limp 4-0, 5-0, 6-1, 4-1, 10-1 and 6-0 beatings the Nats have suffered in just the last 10 games?
In the last two years, the team hasn't taken out a nickel's worth of insurance -- in the form of big-name free agent signings -- to buffer itself from just such a disaster.
D.C. shelled out $611 million for this? On Opening Night, the whole city was full of waterfront joy. In two months or two years, that mood probably will return. But not now.
The Nats have been cruising along for two years, living the bright side of their Plan. Spend on the minors and ballpark amenities. Use the big club to hold tryouts, hoping to find a star in the remainder bin. And promise fans the world (series) someday.
Now, the worse-case scenario, in the form of a hurricane of injuries to a fragile, low-budget team, has arrived just as a new stadium, built at public expense, is opened. Great park plus cheap team minus bad luck equals rotten karma.
Suddenly, a new phrase rises to mind -- "margin of safety." You'd think businesspeople such as the Lerner family, who've already sunk $500 million in the Nats, and an old victim of the caprices of sport such as Stan (14 division titles, one champion) Kasten, would include concepts such as worse-case scenario and margin of safety in a master plan.
But apparently they didn't. The Lerners and Kasten have been so successful in the past that they barely imagine failing. As Kasten says of his new park that averages 30 percent empty seats, "When we win, they'll come." He never says "if." Just a footnote on repeating great success: How'd that work out for Joe Gibbs?
For two years, people like me have nagged the Nats to waste perhaps $10 million a season in extra just-to-please-the-fans payroll. Nobody here waited 33 years for Senators III. Now maybe the Nats can grasp why it might have been smart to build a bonfire of cash on a winter day, call a news conference and set it ablaze. Sign somebody, anybody. Call it an investment in goodwill, PR to placate the impatient, or plausible deniability if a disaster season hits as you open a new park. Or just call it common sense.
Now, when attendance should be growing by thousands a night as summer arrives, the Nats are going backward, drawing fewer people during their recent seven-game homestand (28,510 per night) than in the 28 mostly frigid home games that preceded it (29,142).
The Nats can claim their attendance still is up 31 percent from RFK in '07 after 35 dates. That jump isn't much worse than the average 38 percent gain in attendance that's been the norm for new parks that have opened since 1992. The Nats can cite lousy weather that has cost them walk-up sales. And with normal injuries, they'd probably now be a bland but respectable team.
But that's the point. Why cut it so close? Just as revenue is exploding, almost doubling from RFK levels, how can a franchise run the risk of alienating its fans or defusing its new-park buzz? When cash finally is gushing in, why run any risk of looking penny-wise?
"After they bought the team, there were promises that they'd sign free agents by the time the new park opened. I guess they changed their minds," one veteran baseball executive said this week. "It's a shame to see these empty seats -- especially right behind home plate. In pricing [tickets], it looks like they may have misjudged their market.
"Will the Lerners let Kasten spend what it takes to win? It's still an open question."
"I have every reason to believe we will [spend], when the time comes. We have certainly spent plenty on the stadium upgrades and on rebuilding our minor league infrastructure," Kasten said. "And who exactly is it we should have signed or re-signed?"
That's the rub. The insurance-policy theory sounds airtight. Until you get down to cases.
"On [re-signing] Alfonso Soriano, at $90 million, we had to think," Kasten said. "But at $126 million, there's nothing to decide.
"In theory, if we had kept our entire '06 team that lost 91 games, we'd still have Soriano, Liván Hernández, José Guillén, José Vidro, Ryan Church and Brian Schneider. Perhaps with that group we'd win some more games this season. But their total salaries are $50 million. Except Soriano, which of them would fit into our future?
"Do you want us to pay Guillén $36 million for three years, like Kansas City?"
A good illustration of the Nats' dilemma is Aaron Rowand, the gritty center fielder, batting .325 entering last night's games, who just helped the Giants sweep four games here. Last winter, could the Nats have outbid sub-.500 San Francisco for Rowand, who got $60 million for five years? Probably. But at 30, he's only had one season with more than 69 RBI. Is that a good-faith housewarming gift to fans or a waste of resources?
"All contracts are nuts now," a Giants executive said. "Rowand is worth it to us."
At the moment, the Nats are infatuated with their improvement in the minor leagues. Their teams at Class AA (Harrisburg) and high-Class A (Potomac), where most of the game's hottest young talent is found, have flirted with the best records at those levels this season. But the Lerners shouldn't get too happy. Look closer.
The players the Nats have drafted highest and touted most -- such as Potomac's Chris Marrero (batting .230 entering last night) and Ross Detwiler (5.76 ERA) -- have miles to go. Justin Maxwell (.233 at Harrisburg), Cory VanAllen (injured) and Mike Burgess (76 strikeouts in 222 at-bats at low-Class A Hagerstown) aren't quick answers. Garrett Mock and Tyler Clippard, up from Class AAA for starts against the Giants, didn't look any more promising than the rotation already at Nationals Park.
Building a franchise from the bottom up is the best method. But it takes years. And signing free agents periodically along the way -- not just as "last pieces of the puzzle" but as an integral park of gradual improvement -- should be part of that process. This winter, Ben Sheets, C.C. Sabathia, Orlando Hudson and Rafael Furcal will be available. Get one, at least. No excuses.
For now, the only helpful attitude for Nats fans, as they sweat out a desperate few weeks, is the mordant humor of the career big leaguer. The game wants to eat you up, burn you out. But you have to laugh, remind yourself that seasons and careers are long.
Perhaps to keep their sanity as they wait to play again, Zimmerman, Johnson, Kearns, Lo Duca, Cordero and the rest have hatched a plot.
"Maybe we can all go on rehab to Potomac [in Class A ball] at the same time. They've got a good team, but we can probably make it," Zimmerman said, grinning. "If we help 'em win their season championship, Lo Duca says, maybe they'll give us rings."
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