A Veteran Speaks - Does the Team Listen?

Josh Bard Offers Commentary On The State of the Nats on XM Radio

This morning, Josh Bard was interviewed on Baseball This Morning – an excellent radio show on XM channel 175.

The hosts wanted to ask Bard (who has been on successful teams like Boston, Cleveland and San Diego all when those franchises were winning ball games and contending for playoff spots) what it would take to turn the fortunes of the Nationals around.

One of the hosts, Buck Martinez (a former catcher and manager himself) pointed out that Bard offers the Nats some much needed leadership and a veteran presence in a crucial position on the field.

When asked about what the Nats could possibly do to take an abysmal season and draw any positives that could help the team going forward. He said that the team needs to forget about what’s happened to this point and start doing some of the little things right. It may not pay immediate dividends in terms of wins and losses, but the mentality of the club will change.

“We’ve got to get back to fundamentals,” Bard said. “When you have a young pitching staff like we have, you have to play good, solid, fundamentally sound defense and ensure that every time they make a good pitch an out will be made behind them.”

Very sound advice indeed. The way the Nats have been playing lately I wonder why anyone would want to pitch for them. Cristian Guzman looks like he regrets signing that extension and Ronnie Belliard appears to be moping around the dugout and looks dissatisfied with his diminished role. Julian Tavarez also looks like he finally woke up from that drunken stupor and realizes he did, in fact, go home with the fat chick from the bar.

Bottom line? We aren’t talking about professionals here. These are guys who would rather be elsewhere. Bard made reference to the attitude of a professional athlete.

“Playing good defense isn’t going to get you a big contract,” said Bard, “but it sure does help a team win ball games.”

One of the hosts then asked him about that philosophy: how does a ball player set aside personal financial gain in order to play for championships.

“I know no other way than to play to win,” said Bard. “When I was in San Diego, I learned from guys like Mike Cameron and Trevor Hoffman who taught me about all of the little things to show your teammates you care about the team. I mean Mike [Cameron] always gave up his body whenever he had the opportunity just to make an out and show his pitchers how much he wanted to help them win. Trevor taught me about playing hurt and giving of your body to help the team.”

So with that, I propose a serious overhaul and we need to dump Guzman as soon as anyone offers us more than a used jockstrap for him and Belliard needs to go as well. I believe both could be valuable elsewhere: Guzman doesn’t have the range for a long-term solution at SS, but if he can find a niche on a team in contention now, he’s certainly a good hitting SS and can help a team in need at that position; and if Belliard can ever learn to accept a backup role or if he can find a team in desperate need of a 2B full-time for a short period of time, he’s be useful to that team. But on a team with a 26-62 record, they appear to be collecting paychecks.

Julian Tavarez needs to go. He shouldn’t even be on a major league roster. I can’t believe someone out there would actually give up a wooden nickel for him so it’s time to cut ties and move on.

Go with Alberto Gonzalez and Anderson Hernandez at SS and 2B respectively and we’ll have solid defense up the middle with Nyjer Morgan in CF. Bard can be the infield leader behind the plate full-time (even if his defensive skills have diminished, he makes a great leader behind the plate and certainly has more pop in his bat than Wil Nieves). Live with Willingham and Dunn in the corner OF spots until you’re forced to trade Nick Johnson and then move on of them to 1B and call Elijah Dukes back up.

The Nats truly are at a crossroads. They are relying HEAVILY upon young, impressionable players and having guys around them like Guzman, Belliard and Tavarez who are aging veterans going through the motions teaches these kids the wrong way to play.

If the Nats want to break the culture of losing, it’s time to cut the losers before you turn all of these future Nats into losers.

Nationals Issue A Letter Of Apology

Unlike some other Nationals bloggers out there (I’m looking at you NatsNQ) I am cool enough to receive the letter sent via e-mail from the Nationals:


To Fans of the Washington Nationals,

No one is more dissatisfied in the first half of the 2009 Washington Nationals season than we are. Like you, we had hoped that some of our younger players would have matured faster and that the addition of some of our new veterans would have significantly improved our record from a season ago. Our hope was that solid club leadership would emerge on and off the field and that some intangible combinations would begin to click resulting in many winning streaks.

We definitely do see significant pieces materializing for the future, and there have been many close, exciting games and optimistic bright spots: Strong outings by John Lannan, the home run and RBI production of Adam Dunn, the All-Star selection and 30-game hitting streak of Ryan Zimmerman and the recent addition of speedster Nyjer Morgan. Much of the season, however, has been defined by weak relief pitching, poor defense, and youthful inconsistency. We have tried to work through this period with patience and focus but now we are faced with mounting losses which are beginning to take a toll on our entire roster. Clearly, some changes are required as we prepare for the second half of the 2009 season and, more importantly, build for a competitive future.

Today, we announced that manager Manny Acta is being replaced on an interim basis by Jim Riggleman, veteran manager, and currently the Nats bench coach. Both the Ownership and the entire Washington Nationals organization have the highest respect for Manny Acta and the role he has played in the short history of the Nationals. However, it is our belief that a fresh attitude and approach is necessary as we set out to improve our performance for the remainder of the year. We want to send a strong message to our clubhouse and our fans that the status quo is unacceptable. We believe that more is expected of everyone in the organization.

Baseball operations will be reevaluating all our players and our options for improvement over the next several months. We hope to sign our 2009 draft choices by the August deadline. We hope these new additions will join an already exciting Nationals youth movement headed by the likes of Lannan, Jesus Flores, Alberto Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmermann and Craig Stammen on our current roster, and the likes of promising Minor League stars like Chris Marrero, Michael Burgess, Danny Espinosa, Derek Norris and Drew Storen, among many others. But, we also will be determining the viability of trades or roster upgrades that can be made without doing damage to the farm system or the developing talent we expect to blossom within the next two years.

When we bought the Washington Nationals in the middle of the 2006 season - just under three years ago - we committed to a patient, long term approach, building a strong farm system and core foundation that would deliver a perennial and consistent contender; to provide a second-to-none family entertainment value at Nationals Park; and to investment and involvement in the metropolitan Washington, DC community. Today we remain steadfastly committed to each component of that mission. We are proud to represent the National Pastime in the Nation's Capital, and we are proud to call the Capital area home.

We know we have a way to go, but the end result will be all the richer for the early days we've spent together at Nationals Park. We are getting better. We want you to be with us as the pieces of the puzzle come together. Your support is powerful to the Nationals and baseball in Washington. Thank you for your continuing patience and your commitment to a shared dream.

Sincerely,
Washington Nationals Baseball Club


A lot of it seems like some lip-service, but these back-to-back statements tell me exactly what I want to hear and what I, as a Nationals fan, expect going forward:


We want to send a strong message to our clubhouse and our fans that the status quo is unacceptable. We believe that more is expected of everyone in the organization.


They delve into the details of what Nats fans know as “The Plan” in the subsequent paragraph but if this incarnation of The Plan is the status quo then it’s time to recheck The Plan. You can see in the post below about my feelings regarding the direction of the franchise. Hopefully this letter marks the rock-bottom of the free-fall we’ve seen over the past four years.

There are references to calling the Capital area “home” which tells me that this letter was issued by the Lerners themselves (or at least from the highest reaches of this franchise). I hope the authors realize that I intend on keeping a copy of this letter and holding it up as proof that you have made a commitment to turning this franchise around and that you have told me that it will be worth my while to continue following this team.

Manny Acta Fired

The Last Of The Old Regime Is Gone - Can We Turn It Around?

Well, I took a few days off to visit friends in Vermont (and no, I didn't get a chance to see a Lake Monsters game) and I come back to this news. It’s finally over. The Manny Acta era came to a merciful end last night when the team returned to Washington.

I applaud the move; Manny’s been on borrowed time since mid-April when the team – yet again – started so poorly.

From my perspective, Manny Acta wasn’t THE problem. This organization bred a “culture of losing” during the Acta era – a belief that “losing is acceptable” as long as the team heads toward a long-term goal.

Stan Kasten used a similar method to drag the Atlanta Braves out of the mire in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The problem is that Kasten came to Washington thinking the exact same methods would apply; but Washington’s situation was different than Atlanta’s.

Atlanta has a similar apathetic fan-base for its professional sports teams as Washington does. The problem is that Atlanta wasn’t a football town like Washington is. Atlanta will back a winner regardless of which sport it is – Washington would likely do the same but the Nationals, Capitals and the NBA team (assuming anyone really cares about the NBA) will ALWAYS have to compete with the Redskins.

Kasten wasn’t afforded the luxury Atlanta presented him with. Here in Washington, the Redskins rule the sports pages. You must do something remarkable to compete with them.

So with a brand new, jewel of a ball park the Nationals set out on their quest to build a winning ball-club in Washington – only they wanted to do so slowly like Kasten did in Atlanta. They carted out Manny Acta with a bunch of vagabonds passed off as major leaguers and built a 158-252 record over 2 ½ seasons. The end result was Kasten found Washington to be more apathetic than Atlanta and that’s the grossest miscalculation he made.

On the field, there just didn’t seem to be any accountability for the horrible mistakes players were making – at least not uniformly. I understand that players need to be treated differently because not all players are alike, but really? Physical errors, mental errors, lack of fundamentals were killing this team and only a select few seemed to have action taken against them (Dukes to the minors, Hernandez and Willingham forced to platoon, etc.) while others seemed to go unscathed (Hanrahan receiving multiple chances, Guzman not benched, Cabrera coddled despite repeated bad outings, Milledge receiving continued support in CF, etc.). Problem is, when things are going THIS badly you have to do something and it has to be done across the board. Everyone needs to be put on notice that a lack of the basics will result in a trip to Syracuse or to the bench. Manny only ever disciplined those he deemed as problem children and not necessarily as pandemic to the team. Manny lacked consistency – a plague reflected in the team’s play.

This spiraling effect took the team to the depths of awful they find themselves at now. This organization needs a change in philosophy and Acta had to go to make it happen.

In order to break free from this culture of losing, The Nationals need to follow the model of … The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The franchise was the epitome of losing under Hugh Culverhouse and was the laughingstock of sports from 1976-1994. Malcom Glazer buys the team before the 1995 season and stands in front of a camera and says, “the Bucs stop HERE;” as if to say, “if you have a question about how this franchise is run, it falls on me – rest assured I will turn this around.” He fired Sam Wyche and brought in Tony Dungy who put a focus on the team. He identified as recipe for success and he implemented it. In Dungy’s first season (1996) as head coach, the Bucs finished 6-10, but they went 5-2 in their last seven games. Then in 1997 they changed their uniforms from the old creamsicle orange and a logo of Lance the happy pirate to red and pewter and a logo of a skull with crossed swords emblazoned on a tattered flag. They took the new look and added it to their new attitude and the team went 10-6 and earned a playoff spot. After an 8-8 season in 1998, the Bucs would then make the playoffs four straight years culminating in a Super Bowl championship in 2002.

All of this playing in a league where parity rules; and the Bucs broke 14 years of futility in just two years and made a successful run of winning seasons. The Arizona Cardinals couldn’t do, the Detroit Lions still can’t do it. The trick for the Nationals is model after Tampa – NOT after Detroit.

Ideally, the Nationals need to do more than to fire Manny Acta. They now have the “interim” tag on two MAJOR positions in the organization: general manager (Mike Rizzo) and field manager (Jim Riggleman). They need to address these openings quickly and get people they deem as important on board or else they run the risk of perpetuating the culture of losing.

Futility can end in success as long as the organization has a clear goal and a focused path to that goal. Is firing Manny Acta part of that plan? I certainly hope so, otherwise we may be the Detroit Lions of Major League Baseball – and with the Redskins ruling the sports world of Washington, the Nationals just can’t afford that anymore.