First in War, First in Peace, Last in the NL East

So, uh, what’s going on down in D.C.? Is it possible that the Nationals are the worst run franchise in sports? With Matt Millen no longer involved in Detroit, and basketball not mattering enough to me for it to be considered, I think that this may be the case.

I guess a good place to start is with Jim Bowden, who served as their GM until he resigned this spring. Why did he resign? Well, it didn’t really have anything to do with him being just terrible at his job, even though he was, as shown by his failure to trade Soriano, and extensions of Dmitri Young and Ronnie Belliard. No, he resigned because he was being investigated by the fucking FBI. I swear that’s true. Allegedly he’s been skimming money off the top of signing bonuses paid to Latin American prospects.

But now that Bowden is gone there’s hope for the future, right? I mean, they’ve got some good young talent, maybe they can rebuild. Or, maybe not. They have the first pick in this summer’s draft, and would be crazy not to take Stephen Strasburg. But he’s a Boras client, and it will take a huge signing bonus to get him, possibly double what’s ever been paid before. Will the Nationals be willing to do that? They managed to not sign their first round pick from last year’s draft, so nothing is guaranteed.

And then there’s this business with Lastings Milledge. The Nationals don’t really have all that many players with any sort of a high ceiling. There’s Ryan Zimmerman at third, the face of the franchise who was just locked up with a five year contract extension. There’s Adam Dunn, who’s clearly not an up and coming player, but as their marquee free agent signing from this winter, and someone who actually doesn’t suck, who should be in the lineup every day. And there’s Lastings Milledge. He’s basically the only centerfielder on their roster, with a really quick bat and still a lot of potential. He started to put things together in the second half of last season, where he played pretty well. Then he started this season struggling a little, so the Nationals did what any poorly run, irrational franchise would do: they sent him down to the minors. Seriously. The Nationals aren’t going to contend this year, they don’t even have a realistic shot at fourth place in the division. So why not give Milledge at bats against major league pitchers to work his problems out? Demoting him makes no sense at all; it’s not good for him, and it’s not good for the team.

So with Milledge toiling away in the International League, that Nationals found themselves in need of a centerfielder. They decided to use the always entertaining, slightly unhinged Elijah Dukes in that role, even though he’s more of a corner outfielder. Well, at least that was their plan. But then Nationals’ manager Manny Acta benched Dukes for showing up like five minutes late to a pregame stretching session. Now, Dukes has had some issues with authority; you figure that if he was late because he was busy texting pictures of a gun to people whose lives he’s threatened, as he’s done before, then the benching might be merited. But he wasn’t. He was late because he was away at some community outreach event, signing autographs and speaking to little league players. Seriously. But in the National’s zero-tolerance, zero-common sense locker room, he was benched and fined $500. The baseball gods were clearly angered by this, as they smited his replacement, who broke his ankle while making a catch in that game. As for the fine, the little league, uh, league, is taking up a collection to pay it, not because Dukes needs the money, but more as a show of solidarity and to thank him and all sorts of things. And the worst part is that I have no doubt the Nationals will be willing to take their money.

Right now the Nats are 2-10, and seemingly incapable of even spelling their team name correctly on their uniforms. Don’t expect any sort of improvement soon.