Beyond Bryce

UPDATE: Anyone care to translate this sentence into English for me?

Mike Rizzo: "I seem confident that we should sign the guys that we want to sign out of the draft."

At this rate we're going to need a Rosetta Stone to decipher all the Stan and Rizzo-speak coming out of Nationals Park in the next 48 hours. However, two questions come immediately to mind:

1. Doesn't telling people you seem confident suggest that you are not confident?

2. Who are the guys that they drafted that they don't want to sign?

*****

It's deja vu all over again. With less than 60 hours to go, the Nationals are still on the clock to sign the number 1 overall pick in the June amateur draft. And just like last year, despite having more than two months to negotiate, the deal won't get done until T-minus 30 seconds before the deadline. That's the nature of the process, and unlike Stan Kasten, I'm disinclined to get all angsty about it.

I'm guessing Bryce Harper ends up as the highest paid amateur position player in draft history, raking in a few dollars more than Mark Teixeira got just on principle and to salve Scott Boras's ego. Harper will sign because between a deep 2011 draft class, a new collective bargaining agreement that could completely revamp the draft, and the ever-present risk of injury if he returns to play junior college ball, there's too much risk in waiting another year. But signing Harper won't be enough to consider the Nationals' 2010 draft a success.

Beyond Harper are three pitchers. San Diego State left-hander Sammy Solis (2nd round pick) and high schoolers A.J. Cole (4th round) and Robbie Ray (12th round). These three are the real keys to victory. Harper + Solis = a good draft. Harper, Solis and Cole; a great draft. All four? It's hard to call that anything other than the best draft of 2010.

Three years ago the Nationals were in a similar situation. August 2007 saw the Nats come to terms with three talented left-handed pitchers. First rounders Ross Detwiler and Josh Smoker and 6th rounder Jack McGeary. Here's what we wrote at the time:

Pitchers in particular are a tricky bunch. If 3 years we'll probably be lucky if one of our top 3 lefties profiles as a front-of-the-rotation starter. Maybe Detwiler will never be better than a lefty set-up guy. Maybe Smoker's arm will fall off. Maybe two years at Stanford will kindle an unrealized passion for Buddhism and McGeary will move to Tibet and moonlight as a sherpa with a 92 MPH fastball. It's much, much too soon to say. But that's why you need so many talented youngsters, and why you need to take them whenever you find them.

Still sounds about right. And the same is true of Solis, Cole and Ray. That's why the Nats need to do what it takes to bring them into the fold on Monday night. Solis is probably the surest bet to sign. We also know that Ray was in town for a meeting with the coaches and front office. If the team is serious about continuing to rebuild the farm system, none of these guys will be packing for college on Tuesday morning.

Kasten: Harper in DC by 2013

Stan speaks, sans translator

On Saturday Nationals' President Stan Kasten spoke to fans (and 20-odd bloggers) before the Nats-Reds game. He covered a range of topics from the Philly Phan Invasion to Strasburg-mania. He also touched briefly on Bryce Harper.

Speaking in the abstract, because this was 24 hours before Mike Rizzo confirmed what everyone has known for months, Stan noted that Harper's path to the majors would be greatly accelerated by moving out from behind the plate. Based on his "conversations with baseball men" Kasten observed that a young catcher could take 4 or 5 years to develop.

On the other hand, an outfielder with Harper's bat and physical tools could conceivably be major league-ready in two years. So there you have it. The plan all along was to draft Harper, move him to right field and have him playing behind Strasburg and Zimmerman by 2013. Dave Cameron has some thoughts on the pros and cons of this approach here.

Stan also repeatedly mentioned that "signing quickly" would be key to Bryce Harper's development. Way to play it cool, Stan.

Bryce Harper and the Tao of Rizzo

"Talent without character doesn't work. Your lack of character will make you stumble somewhere along the line." - Washington Nationals' General Manager Mike Rizzo

Never have I seen a clearer statement of Rizzo's organizational philosophy. The Rizzo ethic stands in clear contrast to Jim Bowden's "Tools uber alles" approach and penchant for giving talented but troubled ballplayers a second home. Based on the early results, you'd have to call this a clear win for the Tao of Rizzo, wouldn't you?

Here's the thing, though. The corollary to Rizzo's first sentence is "Character without talent doesn't work either." In fact, I'm pretty comfortable asserting that a lack of talent has tripped up many more ballplayers than have been laid low by a fundamental character deficiency. Given a choice everybody wants high talent, good character players. That's about as uncontroversial as wanting smart, good-looking kids.

The question is, what ratio of character to talent do you need to be a success? More importantly, if character is what we do when no one is looking, how the hell do you measure character? On a practical level, it becomes a circular argument: "Mike Rizzo puts a premium on character, so any guy he brings in must be a good character guy." Likewise, doesn't Rizzo have to say that any player he pursues has good character? After all, if you value character you wouldn't be interested in fractuous trouble-makers.

On the flip side, other teams might rightly suspect that any player the Nats are looking to unload comes with some baggage. (Josh Willingham improved his batting stroke this offseason by clubbing baby seals, you know.)

In conclusion, no one questions Bryce Harper's talent. So the more you see Nationals' front office-types defending Bryce Harper's make-up, the surer you can be that he'll be holding a Nationals' jersey in June. After all, if Rizzo's interested, Harper must be a good guy; and if Harper wasn't a good guy the Nats wouldn't be interested, right?

Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?

Children's National Medical Center is hosting a benefit at Nationals Park this Sunday, April 25th when the Nats host the Dodgers. One third of every ticket sold through this link will be donated to the Pediatric Diabetes Care Complex in DC. The Nationals have been involved with this project through their Dream Foundation for several years.

If you're going to the game anyway, get your tickets here. If you weren't going, now you have an excuse. It's for charity! Once they knock out childhood diabetes, CNMC can start trying to figure out what ails Jason Marquis.

The link to order tickets is: www.nationals.com/childrensnational

Speaking of the youngsters, Past a Diving Vidro has a thoroughly depressing look back at the Nats stars of the future past, circa 2005. If this really is the first in a series we may all need medical care before Kevin makes it to 2009.

I love it when a post title works on multiple levels.

The Final Countdown

Nice of MLB to schedule an off day today. It's not as though Nats fan could use a distraction in the next few hours. By 12:01 tomorrow morning Washington will have concrete evidence that the franchise has either reached a turning point or that this generation of fans is wasting its time on the club. The stakes really are that high.

Forget Strasburg, Boras, Kasten, Rizzo, MLB, the players' union, the draft, the collective bargaining agreement and the future of sports in America. These next hours are about the Nationals and their fans. Plain and simple. Either the ownership, management and front office staff will step up and commit to making the Nationals competitive, or they will tacitly admit that they are perfectly happy to settle for a publicly funded stadium, steady media and merchandising profits and exclusive membership in the baseball owners club. Winning? Nice if it should happen, but secondary to protecting baseball's status quo.

Who the hell appointed the Nationals guardians of the best interests of baseball? Giving Strasburg $12M, $20M or $50M is "bad for baseball"? Says who? It might be bad for the owners, the commissioner, the league. Hell it might even be bad for the players and future draft picks if MLB institutes a salary cap and a hard slotting system. But bad for baseball? Baseball survived the Black Sox, the Negro Leagues, World War II, franchise relocation, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds and a tied All-Star Game. Baseball thrives everyday in dirt lots, American Legion fields and high schools and colleges all over the world. Stephen Strasburg could blow out his arm the day after signing or win 300 MLB games and baseball wouldn't change one iota.

I don't root for MLB, Bud Selig or the Lerners' financial portfolio. Signing Stephen Strasburg would be good for the Nationals. Having the best young pitcher in the game pitching in DC, NY and LA rather than Ft. Worth would be good for Major League Baseball. Having kids in Oakton, Anacostia or Silver Spring dream of growing up to be the next Stephen Strasburg would be good for baseball. Everyone agrees that Strasburg is a special talent. Why should I care whether the price of that talent is "record-breaking", "astronomical" or "outrageous"?

The Nationals have done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt. Sure, they were "in" on Mark Teixeira, but at the end of the day they didn't get it done. Likewise with Aaron Crow. They negotiated, but when the clock struck midnight they were left holding a pumpkin. This year, the team has gone overslot to sign not one of their draft picks. Stephen Strasburg is not only all the eggs, he's the basket too.

In conclusion, a special word to Rob Dibble: "You sir, are an asshat." Quoth the Nasty Boy:

"And by the way, if you're the Lerners and Stan Kasten, you can't worry about what the bloggers and the media think of you. You can't bankrupt yourself and the system for one player."

News flash Dibbs. Bloggers are fans. I know for a fact that most Nats bloggers are also ticketholders. Which makes them paying customers. And if the Lerners and Stan Kasten are in the business of ignoring their customers now, DC residents probably have a right to be slightly put out at the $600M life-size chess board they built for King Teddy and the royal court. And, as an aside, if signing Strasburg is going to bankrupt the franchise or the "system" then wasn't the whole Teixeira negotiation (involving tens of millions more dollars over many more years) just a sham? What do you know that we don't, Rob?

For the next 12 hours, the clock is ticking on much more than just the Strasburg negotiations.

Zimmermann to Andrews to Strasburg

You may not know this, but the NTP gang has been inconspicuously absent from Nationals Park since the Randy Johnson rainout of June 3, 2009. Two plus months of not subjecting ourselves to live Nats baseball. Well, that all ended this weekend. On Friday NTP Dave was in attendance to see the fellers take their sixth straight game (with an able assist from the first base ump.)

Last night I journeyed down SoCap in search of bobbleheads and managed to snag a win in the bargain. Seven in a row is seven in a row, but all is not sunshine and lollipops for the Nationals. Garrett Mock was effective, but he pitched worse than his final line and there's no starting pitching relief on the horizon. John Smoltz, anyone?

The latest news on Jordan Zimmermann only compounds the problem. In case you've somehow missed the wailing and gnashing of teeth emanating from across the Natmosphere, J-Z's most recent MRI "caused concern" with the Nats crack (cracked? quack?) medical team. This sparked a referral to Dr. James Andrews, which "caused concern" among Nats fans. Now, no visit with Dr. Andrews is ever just a pleasant social call, but there's no sense organizing the mass suicides until Zim'nn's surgery is actually a "complete success and he should be ready for Spring Training." In the meantime I'm more interested in the impact of this news on the Strasburg negotiations.

Buster Olney, based on what appears to be nothing at all, is reporting that "real doubts are beginning to emerge that the Nats will be able to sign Stephen Strasburg." First of all, this is just lousy sentence construction, either by B.O. or MLB Trade Rumors. I can't believe anyone doubts that the Nats are able to sign Strasburg, the only question is whether they're willing to meet his price. "Nats unwilling to sign Strasburg" would be a better encapsulation. But I digress..

There are two potential lessons to be drawn from Jordan Zimmermann's current predicament that could impact the Strasburg signing in very different ways.

Lesson #1: Talented young team-controlled starting pitching is a commodity of unparalleled value, and the more of it you have the better off you are.

Lesson #2: Even the best pitchers are one elbow twinge away from a potentially career-altering visit with James Andrews.

Taking lesson one to heart would suggest that the Nats should pay the freight for the most talented amateur pitcher of the decade and hope for the best. Heeding lesson two would cause the team to avoid committing record setting sums of money a twenty one-year old right arm, no matter what its pedigree. The next eight days just got a little more interesting.

Cordero, Bray, Storen

Let's pay a visit to the Wayback Machine, shall we?

The year is 2003, and the Montreal Expos have just drafted a highly regarded closer out of a California college with the 20th pick in the first round of the MLB draft. Chad Cordero signs on June 27, 2003 and makes a brief, tantalizing 11-inning appearance for the big club. Over the next 4 seasons he averages 76 innings and 32 saves, including a league leading 47 saves for the 2005 Washington Nationals.

Unfortunately the workload takes a toll on The Chief who pitches just 4 major league innings in 2008 and undergoes surgery to repair a torn labrum. Having lost velocity on his already average fastball he's unceremoniously dumped at the end of the season. In 2009 he hooked up with the Mariners organization but has yet to make so much as a rehab appearance.

Jump back into the machine, and fast-forward one year.

It's 2004 and the basically rudderless Expos organization selects a relief pitcher from the College of William & Mary with the 13th pick in Round One. Bill Bray signs on July 30, 2004 and begins his professional career with 5 unremarkable innings in the Florida State League. His major league debut comes almost 2 years later. Over 3 seasons (112 innings) he compiles an 8-7 record with a 3.86 ERA and 3 saves out of the bullpen.

In 2009, coming off his best season, Bray injures his elbow and opts for Tommy John surgery, putting him out 6 months to a year or more.

Time to bring the Wayback Machine back home.

It's 2009 and the Washington Nationals, the only team in baseball history to have two Top 10 picks in the same year, use their 10th overall selection in the 2009 amatuer draft to select Stanford University closer Drew Storen. Storen signs on June 10, 2009 for $1.6 million, significantly less than players taken with the 10th pick in years past.

No Pressure Steve

Roughly 24 hours from now, San Diego State RHP Stephen Strasburg (aka "The Messiah") will be selected by your Washington Nationals as the first overall pick in the 2009 MLB amateur draft. By virtue of being the greatest collegiate pitcher since Mark Prior/Ben McDonald/Christy Mathewson, Strasburg will be in line to recieve a guaranteed contract totaling somewhere between $15M and the last Chrysler bailout. But that's no reason to think you'll see him take the field for the Nats in '09. Why should he?

Draftees have until August 15th to sign their contracts, and Stephen (via Scott Boras) figures to use every second of that leverage against the team. Again, why not? He's not going to blow out his arm between June 9th and August 15th, and there's really no advantage to him signing early unless the Nats lock Stan Kasten in a closet and throw out an opening bid of $35M, reduced by $500,000 every day Strasburg remains unsigned. (Don't hold your breath for that one.) By August he'll be at least two months removed from organized baseball after having pitched a pretty heavy load for SDSU. The odds of him adding a couple dozen MLB innings to his resume are not good.

But more than that, why should Stephen Strasburg be in a rush to join this organization? The big league team is slouching toward historic awfulness. Double-A Harrisburg (where he'd likely start his career) is just as bad. It's a continent away from his home and family, and the second he sets pen to paper all those ridiculous expectations floating around in the ether, "Frontline starter," "All-Star," "Cy Young winner," "Hall of Famer" will begin to crystalize.

If Strasburg doesn't immediately pitch a perfect game, reverse global warming and successfully implement a two-state solution in the Middle East, there will be no shortage of former boosters ready to label him a bust, the next in a long line of failed No. 1 picks. Who needs that? For comparison, look just up the road in Bal'mer. Orioles catcher Matt Weiters was a top 5 pick, the consensus best position player prospect in baseball. He dominated the minor leagues, and debuted to more fanfare than anyone since Ichiro crossed the Pacific. Now he's hitting .140ish. And he'll get a much longer leash than Strasburg.

2009 is a lost season for the Nationals, and not "Lost" in a good, mysterious tropical island kind of way. Think Sleestaks. Do you really want your memories of this baseball wasteland to include an overworked struggling Stephen Strasburg? Odds are neither does he. Welcome to Washington, Stephen. We'll see you next year.

2009 Would Be a Good Year to Ignore the Slotting System

Of course, every year would be a good year to ignore MLB's slotting system. It's a poorly constructed quasi-salary cap arbitrarily imposed, albeit not well enforced, by the Commissioner's office. The slotting system also manages the impressive double whammy of harming both the amateur players and the clubs not smart or independent enough to just pretend the stupid thing doesn't exist. Well-run clubs negotiate with their draftees while paying little more than lip service to Bud Selig's misbegotten monstrosity. Cheap clubs use it as an excuse not to sign expensive talent (which is probably the only thing keeping it alive). However, all that may be about to change.

Per the always excellent Shysterball, a judge in Ohio has overturned an NCAA rule that prohibits collegiate athletes from retaining the services of a professional advisor to assist in negotiating contracts. (As a side note, the plaintiff in the case, OSU lefthanded pitcher Andy Oliver, is a potential selection for the Nats at pick 10 this June.) The decision is abundantly reasonable, and frankly this is one of a host of NCAA regs that probably ought to have been invalidated by a court about five minutes after they were enacted.

The decision doesn't touch directly on the MLB draft, but as The Common Man notes, you can see a path from dismantling the NCAA's amateur athletic rules to challenging the structure of the professional entry drafts for the major sports. When the cult of "amateur athletics" finally surrenders the last of its mythos, the structures that have kept young athletes subservient to the leagues and players unions of which they aren't even members will likely begin to decay in short order.

Imagine a world where talented young players negotiates with the Yankees, Dodgers, Pirates and Twins on the open market, playing off one against the other. There are obvious downsides to this free market utopia. Baseball does have a history of allowing a few teams to horde young talent while smaller market clubs acted as mere feeder systems for the big boys. But there are ways to address those imbalances among the teams without consigning amatuers to indentured servitude.

All of which is to say the Nats would be smart to take the best possible advantage of having the first and tenth overall picks, and the top second, third and fourth round picks, etc. this season. Both because no Nats fan wants them to have a high draft pick again anytime soon, and because the opportunity afforded the club in this June's draft may be on the verge of extinction sooner than any of us expected.

2009 Draft: First Things First

WaPo beat writer Chico Harlan has provided the first of what is sure to be a deluge of 2009 profiles of San Diego State pitcher Stephen Strasburg. Strasburg, the only collegiate member of the USA's 2008 Olympic Team in Beijing and owner of a 23 K game against Utah, is expected to be the top pick in June's MLB amateur draft. And that top pick, of course, is held by our very own Washington Nationals, the consolation prize for being baseball's most inept franchise in 2008.

If Strasburg were to be selected first overall in June, he would join a less than distinguished club. Being taken with the first pick may not be the kiss of death for a pitcher's career, but it's no guarantee of future competence, let alone success. As the Post notes, eight pitchers have been selected with the top pick in the last 20 years. One, Tampa Bay's David Price, had a nice debut in late 2008 and performed pretty well in the Rays' run to the World Series. Another, former Oriole Big Ben McDonald had a very good career cut short by recurring injuries. The other six (with apologies to Luke Hochevar, who's certainly young enough to improve) are a collection of injury-plagued mediocrities.

Nevertheless, the Nationals are yolked to Strasburg at least as long as he remains the consensus best player in the country. He has another season of SDSU baseball ahead of him, but barring an injury, the consensus seems unlikely to change. This team simply cannot afford to pass on the best talent available, a player Jim Bowden, with his usual measured restraint, called "as good a pitcher as we've seen in the draft in 10 or 15 years."

Combine that whiff of desperation with the fact that Stasburg is represented by Scott Boras, and there are already hints of blood in the water. Chico Harlan suggests a signing bonus north of $6M, but you can expect Boras to use that number as a starting point for negotiations. The Nationals, having been burned by MLB's slotting system and roundly condemned for last year's Aaron Crow fiasco, may as well pick out a nice barrel now, because they're going to be over it this summer.

For more on Strasburg and the Nats, here's the Director's Cut of Chico's article and Dave Shenin's excellent Olympic-centric piece.

Lucky 13

Sorry Cubbies, you're not allowed to be the "best team in baseball" from now on. The "best team in baseball" simply does not blow a 4-run lead and lose to the Washington Nationals 13-5. Dropping two out of three at Nats Park in April is one thing. But you're getting awfully close to losing the season series. No self-respecting World Series caliber team drops two sets to the worst team in all of professional sports ever. So be afraid, be very afraid.

Is Willie Harris Belliard or Da Meat Hook?

One of the many pitfalls of running a terrible team is that you're constantly afflicted with the curse of the mediocre player having a career year. In 2007 Ronnie Belliard and Dmitri Young spun Spring Training signings into two-year, multi-million dollar contracts. I'd say the Belliard contract has been a good deal, the Young deal, not so much (even with his impending return to baseball activities.)

Willie Harris is poised to repeat the pattern this offseason. The Nats have expressed interest in resigning the utility man, though negotiations haven't really kicked in just yet. On the heels of his first career multi-homer game, Big Willie is hitting .255/.342/.455 and is tied with Lastings Milledge for the team lead in homers, with 12 long balls. But Harris's career line is a much less sparkling .248/.323/.345, which suggests that this year's power surge is something of a fluke.

There's no question that Willie has value as a left-handed bat who can come off the bench and play all over the field. He's only 30, and if he gets a two-year deal on the order of what Ronnie Belliard got, in the $3.5M range, it could be another nice signing to bolster the bench. But if the Nats go crazy for another average guy having an above average year on a terrible team, watch out.

Crow Calls

Aaron Crow's appearance on Baseball Digest Daily's weekly radio show generated a lot of buzz in the Natosphere. I know for a fact that Mike from Hendo's Hutch was listening in to the Nats former top draft pick. You can listen to the show for yourself, so I won't bother with a transcript, but after hearing Aaron's side of the story I'm inclined to think that this is a deal that wasn't ever going to get done. Crow is where he wants to be, following in the footsteps of his former Mizzou teammate, Arizona's Max Scherzer and hoping for a better deal in 2009. The Nats have two top ten picks next season. Maybe that's the optimal outcome for everyone.

As the Crow Flies

In the aftermath of the Crow non-signing, opinion has split quickly and decisively into two camps: either "Bowden is unfit to manage a Dairy Queen, much less a major league baseball team!" exemplified, as per usual by Steven at FJB or "Crow's an over-entitled prima donna and his agents are morons!" most commonly found in the comments at Nats Journal. There's more than a grain of truth to both of these positions and, as the slightly more level-headed proprietor of Nationals Farm Authority notes, "there is more than enough blame to go around to both parties."

Based on imperfect knowledge of the negotiations, which is all that any of us have, my initial reaction is to side with the team on this one. If Crow and the Hendricks brothers were looking for a $8-9M deal and a major league contract as recently as 3 days ago, that suggests to me that their expectations were unreasonable from the get-go, and that they thought "The Plan" could put the Nats over a barrel. If so, there's a very good chance that they overplayed their hand. Crow will go back into the 2009 draft, considered to be deeper in frontline pitching talent. Maybe he'll get a better deal, maybe he won't. Maybe he'll blow out his elbow and become another draft day cautionary tale to frighten college juniors. In any case he's postponed his major league career, and the attendant chance at big money, by at least a year, which ought to have factored into his and his agents' thinking.

As for the Nationals, this is a blow, no sugar-coating it. The front office has been deflecting attention from the "product" on the field (losers of 8 straight!) for the past two seasons by pointing to the farm system and yelling "Build from Within!" until they were hoarse. That's all fine and good, but you can't do that and then very publicly skimp on topflight amateur talent. The stadium won't be brand new next season and the team is running out of avenues to misdirect fan attention. The future sure as heck isn't now, and if it doesn't get here soon, there might be nobody left to see it.

That said, you can't lay this failure solely at the feet of Jim Bowden. The signing of a top draft pick is an organizational initiative. If Bowden fell spectacularly short over $700-800K, then so did the Lerners and Stan Kasten. There are no winners here, but as a wise man once wrote, "there is more than enough blame to go around".

UPDATE: Spin is in, but even taken with a grain of salt, you can't say that JimBo is reticent about the negotiations process. I'm curious. Given what we know now, one-sided and self-serving as it may be, what should the Nats have done about Crow? Avoided him altogether in the first place? Paid the $9M? Met his last minute $4.4M demand? What's the "right" play?

For me, the most disheartening part of the interview isn't that they wouldn't pony up $4M for Crow, it's that they wouldn't have signed Marcus Jones and J.P. Ramirez but for the failure with Crow. That's the red flag in this conversation. If Ramirez is worth $1.6M he's worth it whether Crow signs or not. If you draft 50 guys, you ought to budget to sign 50 guys at whatever they're worth to you. A franchise, particularly this franchise, should never be in the position of having to choose between draft picks. Pick the guys you want, and stick to the numbers you have in mind. That's fine. But don't short the budget. That's dangerously close to CHEEEA...

Draft '08: Something to Crow About?

No professional baseball franchise (except possibly the Pittsburgh Pirates) issues a post-draft press release that reads:

Hoo, Boy! Folks, we just f&@%#d that up ROYALLY! I wouldn't bet a red cent on seeing our first round pick in the majors this decade. After that? Well, I'm not saying the cleaning crew got blitzed last night and rearranged our draft board alphabetically without anyone noticing, but I'm not saying they didn't, either. To be perfectly honest, after the 10th round we let Skippy, the owner's idiot nephew, make every third pick. Really sped things up too. And I think we've got a fair chancing of getting Kimbo Slice, Drew Henson and Big Brown to agree to terms.

No, draft picks are the like the children of Lake Wobegon; everyone's above average. All the hitters are "potential impact bats" and all the pitchers are one developing pitch away from being good enough to start in the majors today. Granted, for a Nats prospect that's not a particularly high bar to clear.

So when you look at Aaron Crow, be mindful of the struggles of Ross Detwiler in Hi-A ball with Potomac. Remember that Destin Hood is a much less polished version of the not-especially-polished Michael Burgess. But also know that Daniel Espinosa probably just became the Nats middle infield prospect closest to his major league debut, and adding Adrian Nieto to a catching corps that includes Jesus Flores and the under appreciated Luke Montz would go an awful long way to shoring up a key position down on the farm.

A talent pipeline can't really be said to exist until it flows all the way from Hagerstown (or Florida or Vermont) to Washington, and you'd be right in thinking that we're not there yet. But a series of drafts that combine quality with quantity can make that happen. Is 2008 one of those drafts? We'll know soon enough.

Planning a weekend of baseball

I do love this time of the year. Last night, Nate, Watson and I participated in our annual Fantasy Baseball Draft. We've been doing Fantasy Baseball for about 5 years now, and it's been close friends with a consistent group of managers. With the very last pick of the draft, I picked up Paul Lo Duca. I have FLop too, but will admit it's because I think he'll be traded. A bench player to maybe become a starter elsewhere.

The draft also means we're days away from the big event. Opening Day. My Dad is coming up for the exhibition game, and Nate and I are enjoying our preview experience that night. I expect to be there about 4:30, enjoying some time in the new park. We're section 223 this year, which is second level beyond the first base line. In looking over the directory, I'm pleased to note our seats are by Five Guys, but far from Ben's Chili Bowl.

Sunday, of course, is the big day. It's gonna be crazy. I'm so excited.

I'm using Saturday to figure out transport. Yes, Metro is the way to go, and I'm using Saturday to see how bad the walk is from the Orange Line to the ballpark.

Our tickets arrived last week, and I'll admit I'm disappointed we didn't get any commemorative tickets this year. The whole batch didn't arrive in a cool box this year, and the tickets are just mass printed computerized tickets. It's a shame, too, because I have my 2006 tickets framed with the pennant from that year in my office, and my 2005 ones framed in my home office with the Washington Post Poster, and was planning something for the first and last tickets from 2007.... but 2008 just isn't that interesting. It's a real shame.

I'm just counting down the days.

Drunken Sailors, Ahoy!

Just when you think you know an ownership group, the Lerners go and pay some preppy Northeastern-type roughly $2 million ($1.8M contract + $200K or so for college) not to play college baseball for Stanford. Hell you could probably convince Stanford to ditch their entire football program for $2 million. But that's beside the point. The point is, Hallelujah! the front office got it done. Twenty out of twenty top draft picks signed (the complete breakdown is here), three premium left-handed starting pitching prospects, and an honest-to-God infusion of resources into the minor league system.

As is turns out, maybe there is more to "The Plan" than just the marketing brochure. Relatively quietly the Nats went out and spent $5 million to bring LHPs Ross Detwiler, Josh Smoker and Jack McGeary into the fold. Add in another $630,000 for OF Michael Burgess and $495,000 for P Jordan Zimmermann, and that's 5 top-flight prospects for less that what the Tigers paid their 1st round pick, P Rick Porcello (reported in the $7M+ range.) Perhaps there is a happy middle ground between overpaying for everything just on principle (Yankees) and never ponying up the cash for anyone (Twins).

This year's draft haul was the result of the intersection of multiple factors. A bad 2006 Nationals club snagged the #6 overall pick (Detwiler) and two picks for losing top free agent Alfonso Soriano (Smoker & Zimmermann) plus one more additional pick to compensate for the loss of Jose Guillen (Burgess). But McGeary is a different story. Everyone knew he was arguably a first round talent, and everyone knew he was committed to putting that talent to work for Stanford University. So he slid, out of the first round, through the supplemental round, all the way to the 6th round, where the Nats took a gamble on him. And last night the Lerners made sure that gamble paid off.

Securing 6 of the top 100 picks in one draft requires a combination of good luck and bad baseball. It's unlikely the Nats will see a confluence of events like that again soon (God willing), so they did very well to take full advantage, drafting and signing talented players like Detwiler, Smoker and Burgess. Guys like McGeary though, are available every year, and all it takes is a willingness to do what's necessary to sign them. I'm not saying that we should expect to land a top prep pitcher in the sixth round every year, I'm just saying that Nats fans (and the organization) need to remember that you don't need a half dozen high picks to get premium talent. Not every high schooler who has committed to college is worth a $2M signing bonus, but some are. And if the Nationals can get one, they should take him and sign him. Pay the talent, not the slot.

Pitchers in particular are a tricky bunch. If 3 years we'll probably be lucky if one of our top 3 lefties profiles as a front-of-the-rotation starter. Maybe Detwiler will never be better than a lefty set-up guy. Maybe Smoker's arm will fall off. Maybe two years at Stanford will kindle an unrealized passion for Buddhism and McGeary will move to Tibet and moonlight as a sherpa with a 92 MPH fastball. It's much, much too soon to say. But that's why you need so many talented youngsters, and why you need to take them whenever you find them.

Congratulations to the Lerners, Stan Kasten, Jim Bowden, Mike Rizzo, Dana Brown and the scouting staff for putting their money where our mouths have been for the past two months. Just remember, now that you've done it once, we'll be expecting it every season. At least until you sign Andruw Jones and Johann Santana and bring home that first WS trophy!

Best Available Player

That's all I'm asking. With the sixth overall pick in this year's amateur draft I want the Washington Nationals to select the best available baseball player. With 5 of the first 70 picks there's plenty of time to go with toolsy, projectable types. Hell, in the eighth round we can even get Trader Jim an "Endy v.6.0." But with the first pick I want the best available ballplayer.

I want Uncle Teddy, Cousin Mark, Stan the Plan and P.T. Bowden to belly up to the bar, pry open the change purse, and lay out all the cash required to sign a genuine, bona fide, electrified monor... err, prospect. I don't care if his agent is Scott Boras, Scott Proctor or Scott Speedman. I don't care if "slot" money is $4.5 million and this kid is asking for $8.5M and a white tiger. Don't care. Get it done. Best Available Player.

I'm behind "The Plan" in all its inscrutable, opaque glory. Staff up, invest in the farm, run the Nats like a season-long tryout camp. It's all good. But June 7, 2006 is the day when the rubber meets the road. If the team passes on the best guy on the board, one day after announcing the new stadium's substantially increased ticket price structure, we'll know we've been sold a bill of goods.

The kid wants too much money? So what?! You're not spending it on securing Tony Batista's long-term deal. The agent is a pain in the ass? So's Bowden. Lock the two of then in a room together, there's no potential bad outcome. The guy wants a spot on the 40-man roster? Simple calculation: Is he better or worse, right this moment, than Jimmy Levale Speigner.

When the number six pick rolls around, there will be a potentially great player on the board, be it Matt Wieters, Rick Porcello, Mike Moustakas or Smilin' Ross Detwiler. Take him. Or else.

UPDATE: Smilin' Ross Detwiler it is. Time will tell if he works out for the Nats, but it's a good, solid pick, and that's all I ask.