2008 Viewed from the Capital–Take a Sad Song and Make it Better

Baseball’s newest franchise took one step forward in 2008 and then promptly took three to the rear. A Washington Post online survey rated the opening of the new Nationals Stadium as the top event for the team and the 102 losses as the second most notable event. That is a fair summary of how it went: the good seemed gone in a day; the bad stayed all season long.

The worst single day for baseball in Washington in 2008 came on August 15th when Jim Bowden–or someone–failed to sign Aaron Crow. The inability to see beyond the few hundred thousand dollars separating Crow and the Nationals, to grasp the larger and symbolic significance, made for a doubly bad day for baseball in DC. So, whether it was Bowden, Stan Kasten or the Lerners themselves, that decision has been magnified a hundred fold since August as the season of 102 losses and the Lerner’s decision not to pay stadium rent all conspired to create an impression of a team unwilling to invest in its own future.

Fast forward to the Teixeira bidding where the reasons why free agent prizes of this off-season are reluctant to sign on with the Nationals became all too apparent. It is certainly not a franchise that is building toward a crescendo, more like one that can barely carry a tune.

The small stuff matters and the Lerners are getting an education for new owners that makes one wince and wish that remedial course work was available for those wishing to re-live this recurring bad dream. This incarnation of Marley’s Ghost is too often seen when new owners take the helm and I for one have seen it before. I was in Atlanta when Ted Turner tried managing his team from the dugout in the early 1980’s. It took him a decade before learning that hiring wise and patient baseball men was needed to build a winner. In his new book “Call me Ted,” Turner admits that he made mistakes for a long time, trying “five-year plans” that seemed to morph into nothing except new five-year plans.

Stan Kasten was there for the best and the worst of the Braves and must know that John Schuerholz was the secret ingredient necessary to turn the Atlanta Braves from one of the worst organizations in baseball into a perennial winner. Ted Lerner sounds so much like Ted Turner. It would be great to think that the elderly head of the Nationals’ ownership group can step in as he did with the Teixeira bidding and give some badly needed direction to the operation. The negotiations with Mark Teixeira should be one of those “Ah-hah!!” moments when the mirror is held up and you see who your worst enemy really is.

But rather than focus on all of the mistakes that were made by the Nationals in 2008, the team should be determined to put it all behind them, to focus 100 percent on the future. The management of the Nationals need to sign on for those courses, bite the bullet and make a very sad song a bit better.

The ability to sign Adam Dunn or someone to carry the load in the middle of the lineup would be a big plus, but the most important date in 2009 will come on August 15th, one year from the 2008 debacle. By then the Nationals should have concluded a contract with two of the top ten picks in the June free agent draft. Stephen Strasburg is head and shoulders above the crowd coming out of college next year, but he is represented by Scott Boras and will be harder to sign than Crow. The Nationals have to show that they have learned their lessons, that night school may have been tough, but they put in their hours and now know the score.

Then they will need to sign Ryan Zimmerman to a long term deal if he is willing to stay in town. The signing of Strasburg and other high draft picks in 2009 will signal to the guys in the locker room that the ownership group is committed to building a winner sooner rather than later. If they can do those things; if Obama throws out that first pitch for the Nationals in the new stadium; if the team can avoid the cellar somehow. If, if, if….. Franchise building can be an ugly business at times.