The Slanch Report

I like hating on the Washington Nationals because I think they are most poorly run franchise in Major League Baseball. Jim Bowden, the GM is absolutely awful and makes bad decision after bad decision. For example, why was Ronnie Belliard signed to an extension? Or Christan Guzman? Or Dmitri Young? Or how about the fact that Bowden is being investigated for impropriety regarding taking a cut of signing bonuses from international players? Or maybe that the team just wasted $20 million on Adam Dunn who will not help the team NOT finish in last in their division over the next two years and may hurt the development of some of the only young prospects that the Nationals have. Then there is that the Nationals are the only team that has gone to arbitration this year, and not only that, but they LOST the case.

So the latest news, that the tenth best prospect on the team, Esmailyn Gonzalez who the team believed was 19 years old is actually Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo a 23 year old. Oops!

The Nats signed Gonzalez/Lugo in July of 2006 to a $1.4 million bonus, the largest the team has given to an international player. At the time, team president Stan Kasten equated the signing to when the Braves had signed Andruw Jones and Rafael Furcal in the mid-90s as showing the Nationals were going to be competitive in signing the best players.

Gonzalez put up excellent numbers last year in the Gulf Coast League, but looking at his numbers with this new information they are much less impressive, “Those are great numbers,” a scout told SI.com, “but you should be hitting that well if you’re that much older than your competition.”

And of course, the signing was engineered by Jose Rijo, special assistant to Bowden (and also subject of an investigation regarding impropriety with bonuses) and a man named Basilio Vizcaino, who helps prepare young players in hopes that they eventually sign big Major League deals and reward him with a percentage of a signing bonus.

Way to go Nats, but hey, you might only lose 90+ games this year instead of 100, so there’s that…

[MLB.com]