Message #675404

[NatsDad14]

For the first time since Major League Baseball assumed ownership of the Expos in 2002, the franchise appeared to have some certainty about its future. After years of dragging its feet, MLB announced in September that it was moving the team to Washington, D.C., for the 2005 season. The renamed Nationals finally had a home after two years of splitting home games between Montreal and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Not so fast. The deal between MLB and Washington, which called for a publicly funded stadium, began to unravel in December. The D.C. council reneged on that agreement, amending the financing plan to call for at least half the money to come from a private source. MLB abruptly shut down the Nationals’ business and promotional operations. But hold on again. A week later the council, the mayor’s office and MLB reached a compromise, and a divided council narrowly approved it. The new deal allows the city to pay for the ballpark with tax money while searching for private financing, and splits the liability for cost overruns and missed deadlines evenly between the city and MLB.

True stability won’t arrive until the Nationals get a real owner. The team has operated under tight financial restrictions for years, and the Expos were held to a strict draft budget and allowed to have just a skeleton staff, with 11 full-time scouts in 2004.

Considering those handicaps, scouting director Dana Brown has done an admirable job. His first draft in 2002 netted three of the franchise’s Top 10 Prospects in first baseman Larry Broadway and righthanders Clint Everts and Darrell Rasner. Chad Cordero zoomed to the majors after being taken in the first round of the 2003 draft, which also produced righthander Daryl Thompson, third baseman Kory Casto and outfielder Jerry Owens.

It’s too early to tell how the 2004 draft crop will stack up, but lefthander Bill Bray looks like another first-rounder on the fast track. Righthander Collin Balester also has potential, and the organization’s need for catching was addressed with the early selections of Erick San Pedro and Devin Ivany.

Though the club’s draft efforts are encouraging, the reality remains that its farm system is one of the worst in the game. Former general manager Omar Minaya, who bolted for the Mets in October, strip-mined the franchise of most of its top prospects—including Jason Bay, Cliff Lee and Grady Sizemore—in a failed 2002 playoff run. Minaya swung a couple of nice trades in 2004 to get Francis Beltran, Ryan Church and Brendan Harris, but the system remains depleted.

Until a real owner buys the team, MLB has appointed former Reds GM Jim Bowden as Minaya’s replacement. Bowden quickly made several aggressive moves, signing free agents Vinny Castilla and Cristian Guzman to contracts totaling $23 million and trading with the Angels for outfielder Jose Guillen. But with the franchise’s long-term future up in the air yet again, its short-term direction is uncertain as well.

The Nationals’ first season in Washington was a success, as the team staged a surprising playoff run and finished .500 despite being the majors’ lowest-scoring club. The struggles of free-agent acquisitions Vinny Castilla and Cristian Guzman contributed to the Nationals’ offensive woes, though a trade for outfielder Jose Guillen worked out well. The team’s strength was its pitching staff, which finished with the ninth-best ERA in baseball, thanks largely to a terrific bullpen and the emergence of John Patterson in the rotation.

But while the Nationals came together on the field, their front-office future took longer to materialize. By the end of the season, there still was no new ownership group in place. MLB still controls the club and it’s uncertain how long the appointed general manager, Jim Bowden, will remain with Washington, though he was given a six-month extension with a new ownership group pending. The Nationals also will have to wait until 2008 for a planned $440 million ballpark to be completed, leaving them in RFK Stadium for two more seasons.

Bowden dismissed farm director Adam Wogan on Oct. 17 and named vice president of ballpark operations Andy Dunn interim farm director. Wogan’s firing came after another difficult year for Nationals affiliates, who combined for a .438 winning percentage. The system’s top two prospects entering the year, lefthander Mike Hinckley and first baseman Larry Broadway, suffered from injuries and confidence problems.

Washington tried to reinstitute its instructional league program for the first time in five years, planning on holding it at special assistant to the GM Jose Rijo’s complex in the Dominican Republic. But construction on the hotel where the players were to have stayed was behind schedule, and the program was scrapped without the players ever getting on the field.

There was some good news, however. The big league club got some help from the top of the farm system, as Ryan Church emerged in the outfield and Gary Majewski was a revelation out of the bullpen. Prospects like Collin Balester, Ian Desmond, Armando Galarraga, Kory Casto and Frank Diaz had breakout years. And of course, first-round pick Ryan Zimmerman zoomed to the majors.

The Guzman and Castilla signings deprived the club of its second- and third-round picks, so scouting director Dana Brown tried to make up for it by drafting high-upside outfielders Justin Maxwell and Ryan DeLaughter in the fourth and fifth rounds before bolstering the organization’s pitching depth with college arms. The returns on Brown’s recent drafts have been encouraging, particularly given the lack of resources at his disposal under the tight fiscal restraints imposed by MLB ownership when the franchise was in Montreal. But Brown—who received a one-year contract extension—and his scouts still have managed to find talent, signing All-Star closer Chad Cordero and eight of the players on this Top 10 list in his four years with the team.

The Nationals finally found some stability in their second season in Washington, as a new ownership group led by developer Ted Lerner took the over the reins of the franchise from Major League Baseball in late July. Former Braves executive Stan Kasten became team president, and general manager Jim Bowden and his staff were given the security of knowing their jobs were no longer in limbo.

Bowden’s major offseason acquisition, Alfonso Soriano, joined Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez as the only members of the 40-40 club. Though Bowden knew there was a high risk Soriano would leave as a free agent after the season, he held on to his all-star left fielder at the trading deadline. When Soriano signed a $136 million contract with the Cubs, Washington was left with two draft picks in return.

Soriano's big season and Ryan Zimmerman's 110-RBI rookie year didn't pay off in the standings, however. The Nationals finished in last place in the National League East at 71-91, 10 games worse than in 2005. Washington let manager Frank Robinson go after the season, replacing him with Mets third-base coach Manny Acta.

But the Nationals are about the future, not the present. With a new ballpark set to open in 2007, they spent 2006 trying to build a long-term foundation by acquiring as many young players as they could through trades, the draft and the international market.

Though he didn't spin off Soriano, Bowden did make some slick trades during the summer. He acquired big leaguers Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez from the Reds and pitching prospects Luis Atilano (Braves), Matt Chico and Garrett Mock (Diamondbacks), Shairon Martis (Giants) and Jhonny Nunez (Dodgers) without giving up anyone in Washington's long-term plans. Bowden made another nice move in December, dispatching declining veteran Jose Vidro and $12 million in salary obligations to the Mariners for outfielder Chris Snelling and righthander Emiliano Fruto.

For the first time in five years, the Nationals could spend freely in the draft. Though they had two first-round picks and two second-rounders, they didn’t have to worry about signability like they had in the past. Though they didn't sign second-round righthander Sean Black, they landed two legitimate first-rounders in outfielder Chris Marrero and righthander Colten Willems and went over slot money to sign shortstop Stephen King (third round), lefthander Glenn Gibson (fourth) and righty Hassan Pena (13th).

All told, Washington spent $5.3 million on the draft, the 10th-highest amount in baseball. The Nationals also signed

16-year-old Dominican shortstop Esmailyn Gonzalez for $1.4 million. They trumpeted that bonus in their official press release, making a statement that they will be major players in Latin America for years to come.

The end result of all the moves is that Washington has vastly improved the depth in its farm system, though it will take some time for the talent to progress to the upper levels. The Nationals hope to build their club with homegrown talent, much like the Braves did under Kasten.

To that end, the Nationals hired Diamondbacks scouting director Mike Rizzo as assistant GM and vice president of baseball operations. Washington added 10 scouts, including former Devil Rays GM Chuck LaMar, in November to augment a scouting staff that had been ravaged during MLB’s ownership. Even with a skeleton staff, scouting director Dana Brown has proven resourceful with help from scouts like Tony Arango, who signed the first three prospects on this Top 10 list.

It's a measure of just how low expectations were for the Nationals in 2007 that they won 73 games and finished 16 games out of first place, yet Manny Acta garnered manager-of-the-year consideration for getting his team to overachieve in his first year at the helm. Washington, in its first full season with the Lerner family installed as owners and Stan Kasten as club president, embraced a youth movement with an eye at fielding a competitive, exciting team when their new Nationals Park opens in 2008.

Ryan Zimmerman turned in his second straight solid season, giving the Nationals confidence that they have a cornerstone player to build a franchise around. Other young players made positive impressions in varying amounts of big league exposure, as rookie Matt Chico led the beleaguered pitching staff in starts (31) and innings (167), Jason Bergmann made a successful conversion from the bullpen to the rotation, and rookies Shawn Hill and John Lannan also showed promise as starters. Nationals fans also got a glimpse of their potential center fielder of the future when Justin Maxwell jumped from high Class A to the majors for a 15-game cameo and swatted a grand slam in his third at-bat.

Freewheeling general manager Jim Bowden made just one significant trade in 2007, acquiring powerful but raw outfielder Wily Mo Pena from the Red Sox. Instead of bolstering the system through trades as it did in 2006, Washington focused on building through the draft, where it had five picks in the first two rounds. The Nationals spent $7.9 million on the draft, the fifth-highest figure in baseball.

The first four players they drafted—lefthanders Ross Detwiler (first round) and Josh Smoker (supplemental first), outfielder Michael Burgess (supplemental first) and righthander Jordan Zimmermann (second)—rank among the top 10 prospects in the system. So does lefthander Jack McGeary—who received a $1.8 million bonus, a record for a sixth-round pick, plus the money and permission from Washington to attend classes at Stanford from September through May for up to three years. Outfielder Jake Smolinski (second round) just missed the Top 10.

The aggressive approach to the draft paid immediate dividends, as Washington's system is already far deeper and flush with more high-impact talent than it had a year ago, when it ranked as the worst system in baseball. Assistant general manager of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and scouting director Dana Brown have co-existed very well, and there are no signs of a power struggle that some feared when Rizzo joined the organization in mid-2006 after a successful run as the Diamondbacks' scouting director.

The Nationals may not be blessed with many prospects in the upper levels of their organization, but their player-development system has made strides under farm director Bobby Williams and minor league pitching coordinator Spin Williams. Washington has instituted organization-wide philosophies, alleviating the too-many-cooks syndrome that hampered its prospects in the past. The club held instructional league for the first time since the franchise moved to Washington, giving young players a chance to build on lessons from the season and focus on developing specific skills.