The First Rule Broken

I wonder sometimes if sportswriters are paying attention. I wonder if the lesser ones just take the words their idols wrote before the season, look at the standings, and then make up pointless lists. Our latest Nats bashing comes from Larry Dobrow of cbssportsline.com. Larry decided that a list of the best and worst organizations in baseball had to be made, and that he was the man for the job. His bottom four is Texas, Washington, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. Well three out of four ain’t bad, but the inclusion of Washington is just plain silly. If somehow this were the same ownership group that ran the team that was in Montreal, and the first two seasons in Washington then he has a point. But since the team was sold and now has some of the best minds in baseball running the show Larry misses the mark. Let’s look at what Larry has to say about the Nationals and then tear it apart and show why he just isn’t very smart.

This situation should be nigh-impossible to screw up: great sports market aching for a winner, shiny new stadium about to open, well-heeled ownership group. And yet can't-sit-still GM Jim Bowden feels the need to keep scrapheap finds like Ronnie Belliard and Dmitri Young around for ... what, really? Making quick work of the postgame buffet? Simply indefensible.

I can defend it, and if it can be defended then it is not indefensible. Ronnie Belliard might be one of the best utility infielders around, so really why not keep him if you can. Belliard is signed for a relatively low salary and most likely will be the back up infielder next year. When he was in that role briefly in the beginning of the season he delivered many key pinch hits to either start or end game winning rallies. As for Dmitri Young, does no one pay attention to the batting title anymore? Is having a career .295 batter filling in for the forever injured Nick Johnson or coming of the bench really a bad thing? Also why does he feel the need to make fun of them for their weight? He calls them scrapheap finds, and then bashes keeping them. I have a table sitting beside my chair at home that someone was going to throw away. I use it as a place to keep my remotes and sit my drink on when I am eating dinner or watching TV. It serves a good purpose and was a nice find. If it actually were junk it wouldn’t be a find. Also take a second to compare the stats of Ronnie Belliard and Josh Barfield and then ask an Indians fan who they want at second.

This team should've been riding the player-development bandwagon from the first day they arrived, as a shell of a franchise, in D.C. A few 75-win seasons might be good for morale, but they're getting in the way of a bunch of 95-win ones down the road.

Now he takes the time to bash the team by laying out Stan Kasten’s plan. He lays out the team’s plan in order to bash the team. In whose mind does this make sense? He also mentions the first day they arrived. I am sorry to disappoint him, but that wasn’t the same ownership group. That ownership group and team president Tony Taveras is the reason that it is a shell of a franchise. Since the new owners have taken over they have been riding the player development bandwagon. They have spent large amounts of money to hire the best scouts, they have had two excellent drafts, and they are signing key veterans that can help the young players adjust to life in the majors. My main question really is did this guy do any research before he decided to rip a team. He rips them for signing two bench players acting like these are the only moves that will happen between now and next year, and then he lays out Stan Kasten’s plan as the way they should be moving. So his argument is pretty much, “They are doing what I think they should be doing, but I didn’t bother to research anything, and Keith Law and Ken Rosenthal says they are bad so I will say they are bad.”