Posse81
January-27th-2005, 02:46 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39921-2005Jan26.html
Nats Are Beating O's To the Punch
By Thomas Boswell
Thursday, January 27, 2005; Page D01
Every winter in the lucky locales that have two big league teams, there is a war for the hearts and wallets of fans.
From New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to the San Francisco Bay, these offseason battles to sign free agents and make major trades are an annual ritual. The ability to pull off such complex personnel moves, or botch them, helps define rivalries, generates year-round interest in baseball and, ultimately, shifts fan loyalties and attendance toward the winner.
In the huge Washington-Baltimore market, the first offseason competition between the low budget, no-owner, juggle-on-a-shoestring Nationals and the rich, out-to-sign-more-stars Orioles is almost finished. Before the new Nats ever play a game in the District, they have already scored a stunning offseason knockdown of the Orioles.
With spring training less than three weeks away, the Orioles are flat on their backs. Despite having two co-general managers and a wealthy owner, the Birds have been completely shut out from any moves of consequence. On Tuesday, Carlos Delgado joined Carl Pavano and Richie Sexson on the list of players who have said no to Baltimore bids.
"Disappointed? I'm not," said owner Peter Angelos, maintaining that the Orioles bid as high as they thought was prudent.
"I don't think we can sit here and say we're not disappointed," Orioles Executive Vice President Jim Beattie said.
Ah, the wonders of seamless internal communication. Perhaps Mike Flanagan was just semi-disappointed.
Now, what's left in the remainder bin for the Orioles? Magglio Ordo�ez, the slugger who had two surgeries on his left knee last year? By now, all the solid bets are now off the table. Only out-and-out gambles remain.
The only good news for Orioles fans is that former Aruban knight Sidney Ponson has presumably sworn off personal water vehicles forever. That alone, however, may not be enough to prevent an eighth consecutive losing season in Baltimore.
Meanwhile, the Nats, who looked like an overmatched featherweight, have given their new fans -- as well as all of this market's undecided voters -- more than they could reasonably have imagined. Sometimes, apparently, one interim general manager with no owner to please can be better than two general managers who must report to an owner who's often larger than life.
Nats GM Jim Bowden has done an admirable job of minimalist renovation on the old Expos fixer-upper. This winter, he's added the reigning NL RBI champion, Vinny Castilla (35 homers, 131 RBI), at third base and a new right fielder, Jose Guillen, who hit 27 homers and drove in 104 runs for the Angels last year. Bowden has also added one of the better all-around young shortstops in Cristian Guzman, an excellent fielder who hit .274. That in itself would have been a fine winter's work.
But just when it looked as though the Nats would be blanked in their attempt to add a creditable starting pitcher, they signed veteran Esteban Loaiza last week. He won 21 games in '03 and was 9-5 with the White Sox in '04 before a late-season slump as a Yankee.
There's a hole in the r�sum� of every new Nat. Castilla has altitude-inflated Denver numbers. Guillen has a reputation as a clubhouse problem. Guzman seldom walks. Except for one season, Loaiza has merely been a .500 pitcher who eats up innings.
But what can you expect? Bowden has no clue what kind of players the Nats' future owners will want or at what pay rates or for how many years. Besides, MLB wants the Nats' payroll to remain low to help attract the highest bids from potential owners. So, Bowden has had to sign players at reasonable or cheap prices and, except for Guzman, to short-term contracts.
Yet Bowden has managed to put together a heart of the order -- Castilla, Guillen and Brad Wilkerson -- that hit 94 homers last year. Second baseman Jose Vidro is a perennial .300 hitter. Outfielders Juan Rivera (.307 in 391 at bats) and Terrmel Sledge (15 homers as a rookie) are promising. Catcher Brian Schneider, a solid hitter, led the majors in throwing out runners the past two seasons (47 and 48 percent). Are the Nationals, who lost 95 games last year, close to being a winning team yet? Probably not. But is their front office trying to put an entertaining product on the field immediately? Absolutely.
Perhaps that good-faith effort is part of the reason that Washington already has deposits on 17,830 season tickets.
Partial season-ticket plans aren't even for sale yet. The only fan complaints so far are that there aren't enough expensive box seats at RFK for everybody who already wants to buy them. "This is such a hot ticket," one Nats' front office worker told The Post's Tom Heath.
If the Orioles thought that their fan base was in jeopardy when the Expos were first relocated, what must they feel now? Within a few months, the Nationals may have new owners with deep pockets and fancy aspirations.
Now is the time when the Orioles should be trying to win new friends, not drive away old ones. Their goal should be a win-win atmosphere in which both franchises flourish and, in many cases, share the same supporters. The adversarial Angelos may not grasp that many fans wanted the Nats to get a Castilla but also hoped the Orioles would get a Delgado or Sexson.
The Orioles may not yet understand the worst damage this idle offseason has done them. Angelos is still haggling with baseball over a "compensation agreement" from the sport for daring to put a team in Washington.
His most infuriating and baseless demand is that the Orioles should get more than half the revenues -- perhaps 60 percent -- of any future regional cable TV network.
This offseason's radically opposite results have put such greedy demands in an ugly light.
The Orioles have everything on their side -- profits, tradition, a classic ballpark and a team on the verge of becoming a winner again. Yet they either can't or won't improve their product on the field. Why should they be rewarded by baseball for ineptitude?
Until they get an owner, the Nationals have nothing on their side -- except a modest budget, a dreary history and the task of selling tickets to fans for several seasons in a stadium with few amenities. Yet, if the hamstrung Nationals can make so much progress in one winter, why should they give the lion's share of any future revenues to the Orioles? It's preposterous.
If the Orioles want to prosper in their new two-team market, let them do it the old-fashioned way -- by competing and earning it.
So far, while the Orioles appear to sulk and stumble, the Nationals and their skeleton-crew front office are eating their lunch.
Nats Are Beating O's To the Punch
By Thomas Boswell
Thursday, January 27, 2005; Page D01
Every winter in the lucky locales that have two big league teams, there is a war for the hearts and wallets of fans.
From New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to the San Francisco Bay, these offseason battles to sign free agents and make major trades are an annual ritual. The ability to pull off such complex personnel moves, or botch them, helps define rivalries, generates year-round interest in baseball and, ultimately, shifts fan loyalties and attendance toward the winner.
In the huge Washington-Baltimore market, the first offseason competition between the low budget, no-owner, juggle-on-a-shoestring Nationals and the rich, out-to-sign-more-stars Orioles is almost finished. Before the new Nats ever play a game in the District, they have already scored a stunning offseason knockdown of the Orioles.
With spring training less than three weeks away, the Orioles are flat on their backs. Despite having two co-general managers and a wealthy owner, the Birds have been completely shut out from any moves of consequence. On Tuesday, Carlos Delgado joined Carl Pavano and Richie Sexson on the list of players who have said no to Baltimore bids.
"Disappointed? I'm not," said owner Peter Angelos, maintaining that the Orioles bid as high as they thought was prudent.
"I don't think we can sit here and say we're not disappointed," Orioles Executive Vice President Jim Beattie said.
Ah, the wonders of seamless internal communication. Perhaps Mike Flanagan was just semi-disappointed.
Now, what's left in the remainder bin for the Orioles? Magglio Ordo�ez, the slugger who had two surgeries on his left knee last year? By now, all the solid bets are now off the table. Only out-and-out gambles remain.
The only good news for Orioles fans is that former Aruban knight Sidney Ponson has presumably sworn off personal water vehicles forever. That alone, however, may not be enough to prevent an eighth consecutive losing season in Baltimore.
Meanwhile, the Nats, who looked like an overmatched featherweight, have given their new fans -- as well as all of this market's undecided voters -- more than they could reasonably have imagined. Sometimes, apparently, one interim general manager with no owner to please can be better than two general managers who must report to an owner who's often larger than life.
Nats GM Jim Bowden has done an admirable job of minimalist renovation on the old Expos fixer-upper. This winter, he's added the reigning NL RBI champion, Vinny Castilla (35 homers, 131 RBI), at third base and a new right fielder, Jose Guillen, who hit 27 homers and drove in 104 runs for the Angels last year. Bowden has also added one of the better all-around young shortstops in Cristian Guzman, an excellent fielder who hit .274. That in itself would have been a fine winter's work.
But just when it looked as though the Nats would be blanked in their attempt to add a creditable starting pitcher, they signed veteran Esteban Loaiza last week. He won 21 games in '03 and was 9-5 with the White Sox in '04 before a late-season slump as a Yankee.
There's a hole in the r�sum� of every new Nat. Castilla has altitude-inflated Denver numbers. Guillen has a reputation as a clubhouse problem. Guzman seldom walks. Except for one season, Loaiza has merely been a .500 pitcher who eats up innings.
But what can you expect? Bowden has no clue what kind of players the Nats' future owners will want or at what pay rates or for how many years. Besides, MLB wants the Nats' payroll to remain low to help attract the highest bids from potential owners. So, Bowden has had to sign players at reasonable or cheap prices and, except for Guzman, to short-term contracts.
Yet Bowden has managed to put together a heart of the order -- Castilla, Guillen and Brad Wilkerson -- that hit 94 homers last year. Second baseman Jose Vidro is a perennial .300 hitter. Outfielders Juan Rivera (.307 in 391 at bats) and Terrmel Sledge (15 homers as a rookie) are promising. Catcher Brian Schneider, a solid hitter, led the majors in throwing out runners the past two seasons (47 and 48 percent). Are the Nationals, who lost 95 games last year, close to being a winning team yet? Probably not. But is their front office trying to put an entertaining product on the field immediately? Absolutely.
Perhaps that good-faith effort is part of the reason that Washington already has deposits on 17,830 season tickets.
Partial season-ticket plans aren't even for sale yet. The only fan complaints so far are that there aren't enough expensive box seats at RFK for everybody who already wants to buy them. "This is such a hot ticket," one Nats' front office worker told The Post's Tom Heath.
If the Orioles thought that their fan base was in jeopardy when the Expos were first relocated, what must they feel now? Within a few months, the Nationals may have new owners with deep pockets and fancy aspirations.
Now is the time when the Orioles should be trying to win new friends, not drive away old ones. Their goal should be a win-win atmosphere in which both franchises flourish and, in many cases, share the same supporters. The adversarial Angelos may not grasp that many fans wanted the Nats to get a Castilla but also hoped the Orioles would get a Delgado or Sexson.
The Orioles may not yet understand the worst damage this idle offseason has done them. Angelos is still haggling with baseball over a "compensation agreement" from the sport for daring to put a team in Washington.
His most infuriating and baseless demand is that the Orioles should get more than half the revenues -- perhaps 60 percent -- of any future regional cable TV network.
This offseason's radically opposite results have put such greedy demands in an ugly light.
The Orioles have everything on their side -- profits, tradition, a classic ballpark and a team on the verge of becoming a winner again. Yet they either can't or won't improve their product on the field. Why should they be rewarded by baseball for ineptitude?
Until they get an owner, the Nationals have nothing on their side -- except a modest budget, a dreary history and the task of selling tickets to fans for several seasons in a stadium with few amenities. Yet, if the hamstrung Nationals can make so much progress in one winter, why should they give the lion's share of any future revenues to the Orioles? It's preposterous.
If the Orioles want to prosper in their new two-team market, let them do it the old-fashioned way -- by competing and earning it.
So far, while the Orioles appear to sulk and stumble, the Nationals and their skeleton-crew front office are eating their lunch.