Captain Bowden: Man Of Action
He's in charge! A Man of Action! A Man who knows what he wants, and how to get it! He's just the leader for this team! The leader for the future!
Or so he wants us to believe.
The latest Jim Bowden PR Pablum: He's scouring the minors, turning over every rock, prodding every nook, looking for the one piece that'll help shake the team out of its doldrums.
He believes that the key to shaking the team out of its offense slump is by calling up a youngin' or two from the minors.
That's a good idea, I suppose.
Then he gets to the list of names: Zimmerman, Casto, Blanco.
Let's take those in reverse order.
Blanco has to come up soon; his rehab time is almost up. But it's another chance for Bodes to take credit...
Casto is an interesting prospect, who's come out of nowhere to be very effective for Single-A Potomac. But it's still Single-A!
Zimmerman has hit very well recently, after struggling early with Double-A Harrisburg. But he's still just two months out of college. The bat probably isn't quite ready, even if the glove is.
Regardless, Bowden just make a big show, strutting and preening, showing how wonderful he was because he thought of the future, and wouldn't, gosh darnit, trade any of these prospects because he cares about the future.
Yet he has no qualms about calling them up, potentially hurting their development?
And he doesn't care about how calling them up so early would start their arbitration clock tick-tick-ticking?
Bodes can't have it both ways.
It seems to me that Bodes wants to keep up with the Joneses (and the Schuerholzes).
I just see Bowden looking to the south and seeing how Atlanta is winning with rookie after rookie flooding their lineup. And he wants to emulate that. Golly, if it's working for them, it can work for the Nats, right?
(Nevermind that Frank doesn't especially seem to like Rookies...)
What I found especially interesting about all this though, was that Bodes doesn't realize that New Orleans exists, other than as where he keeps his outfield cache.
Brendan Harris would be (and has been) a viable alternative to Vinny's hamburger knee. Rick Short, who's battling an injury now, would be just as, if not more, effective as Carlos Baerga on the bench.
They are both realistic options that could provide the spark and the upgrade this team needs. And they're upgrades that wouldn't hurt the team's long-term plans.
But they're not as flashy. And because Harris was a Minaya acquisition, he couldn't take proper credit.
So Bodes will instead don his leather pants and strut around while squawking, insisting that he's the man for the job and that he knows how to take action.
By now we've learned to not listen to what he says, but what he does.
And he's done a whole lot of fiddling while the Nationals have started to smolder.
Or so he wants us to believe.
The latest Jim Bowden PR Pablum: He's scouring the minors, turning over every rock, prodding every nook, looking for the one piece that'll help shake the team out of its doldrums.
He believes that the key to shaking the team out of its offense slump is by calling up a youngin' or two from the minors.
That's a good idea, I suppose.
Then he gets to the list of names: Zimmerman, Casto, Blanco.
Let's take those in reverse order.
Blanco has to come up soon; his rehab time is almost up. But it's another chance for Bodes to take credit...
Casto is an interesting prospect, who's come out of nowhere to be very effective for Single-A Potomac. But it's still Single-A!
Zimmerman has hit very well recently, after struggling early with Double-A Harrisburg. But he's still just two months out of college. The bat probably isn't quite ready, even if the glove is.
Regardless, Bowden just make a big show, strutting and preening, showing how wonderful he was because he thought of the future, and wouldn't, gosh darnit, trade any of these prospects because he cares about the future.
Yet he has no qualms about calling them up, potentially hurting their development?
And he doesn't care about how calling them up so early would start their arbitration clock tick-tick-ticking?
Bodes can't have it both ways.
It seems to me that Bodes wants to keep up with the Joneses (and the Schuerholzes).
I just see Bowden looking to the south and seeing how Atlanta is winning with rookie after rookie flooding their lineup. And he wants to emulate that. Golly, if it's working for them, it can work for the Nats, right?
(Nevermind that Frank doesn't especially seem to like Rookies...)
What I found especially interesting about all this though, was that Bodes doesn't realize that New Orleans exists, other than as where he keeps his outfield cache.
Brendan Harris would be (and has been) a viable alternative to Vinny's hamburger knee. Rick Short, who's battling an injury now, would be just as, if not more, effective as Carlos Baerga on the bench.
They are both realistic options that could provide the spark and the upgrade this team needs. And they're upgrades that wouldn't hurt the team's long-term plans.
But they're not as flashy. And because Harris was a Minaya acquisition, he couldn't take proper credit.
So Bodes will instead don his leather pants and strut around while squawking, insisting that he's the man for the job and that he knows how to take action.
By now we've learned to not listen to what he says, but what he does.
And he's done a whole lot of fiddling while the Nationals have started to smolder.
posted by Chris Needham at
9:43 AM
2 Comments:
Frank Robinson is in a jam. he's already used Hector Carrasco and he needs to put in another righty.
With Randy St. Clare forced to join the Eric Milton scouting crew, Frank calls upstairs.
"Jim, do we have anybody else who can pitch? I need a righty, pronto!"
Jim looks at a video feed from the bullpen. There sits Ryan Drese and Esteban on their days off. Strangely enough there appears to be uniforms moving around with nobody in them. He blinks. Sure enough completely empty uniforms. Who has Frank been using all this year?
"Sorry, Frank. Nobody here."
"Dammit, Jim. What about that young kid, or the scraggly young kid, or the other guy, what's his name, the one with no arm left? Are they all gone?"
Jim looks again. He sees the ghost uniforms but none of the players Frank describes. It's his own fault, Jim thinks. He let the offense's issues take precedent when he should have been thinking pitching, pitching, pitching.
"Don't worry, Frank. I'm on it. Let me just bring up the waiver wire"
Everything will be fine now, thinsk Jim. I'll fix everything...
By
Harper, at 8/04/2005 11:46 AM
..and I thought I was angry! :)
By
Chris Needham, at 8/04/2005 3:41 PM
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