Planetary Nats Blog

Back in June, 2006 I came across a link for the Nationals Park Web Cam. It was very cool. I could click on it and watch the slow but steady progress as the stadium was built. The cam had an interesting feature in that you could select the time for an image – typically there was a new one every 20 minutes or so – and you could watch the minute-by-minute changes in the stadium. The thing is, on a project as large as this, it was difficult to see anything significant that changed in a 20 minute timeframe. In fact, were it not for the moving cranes and the slightly changing shadows, one might not notice the difference from one image to the next. In fact, it was often difficult to tell whether anything changed from day to day. It took some scouring of the images to notice that a new girder had been placed, or a more concrete poured.

Sometimes it would rain (or snow) and the camera would be obscured. Sometimes the camera would be down for a day or two. I would look at the cam every day, but I would probably have been better served to look at the cam once a week, or even once every couple weeks. It was only on this longer time scale that one could see progress being made. [As an aside, follow the link above and do just that... pick a day and go one week by one week... it is an interesting progression.]

Nationals Park is our team’s home for the next thirty or so years… and while it is a building, it is a good metaphor for the Nationals as an organization.

What didn’t happen with Nationals Park is that the city didn’t go to stateoftheartballparks.com, click on ‘New Stadium’, ‘Add to Shopping Cart’, ‘Check Out Now’, pay with a credit card, and wait for the stadium to show up on the UPS truck. Similarly, fans shouldn’t expect that of the Nationals, either.

I have been stewing about this issue for weeks, and last night’s game gives me the perfect opportunity to write about it: two important pieces of the Nationals future had spectacular games last night, and in the process, helped the entire team have one of their better outings of the year. As painful as this season has been to watch, last night we got to see a glimpse of what is possible with the Nats of the future.

Hitting for the cycle is one of those batting achievements that happens only slightly more often than pitching a no-hitter, and Cristian Guzman was spectacular last night hitting for the cycle last night. Of course, he was almost too productive in the process, getting his single by getting tagged out at second trying to stretch it to a double. But as Chico Harlan pointed out in his gamer, by the time Guzman hit his triple, the game had become more about a spectacular finish than winning.

As impressive as Guzman’s performance was, the real reason for hope was Elijah Dukes. We didn’t see a career night last night from him, but rather, we saw a glimpse of the incredible power he brings to the plate. Don Sutton pointed out after Dukes’ first home run that it wasn’t a home run swing… but that he has so much strength that often times, making contact is enough. His second home run was, well, a moon shot. Add to that his speed and defense, and the fact that he seems to have (at least for now) rehabilitated his character… I think a lot of Nats fans are glad that he’ll be around for a while.

What is significant about both Guzman and Dukes is that both are slated to be part of the foundation upon which the Nationals dynasty is to be built. Of course, they’re not the only pieces – a certain third baseman, and a catcher, and a number of pitchers (three starters got wins against Los Angeles) all come to mind… Building the Nats is not a click-and-deliver proposition. It takes time, and sometimes it is hard to see the progress… and sometimes the webcam is off, or obscured by snow and rain, and it seems that things are regressing rather than progressing. Sometimes, like last night, the view is spectacular.

This is a big-picture endeavor.

It seems the Nats are losing a lot lately (though as I write this, they’re three of their last five, and leading the Dodgers in the sixth). And I am depressed.

But not so much about the team. Yeah, I had higher hopes – really high hopes. I was the one that stole the term, “Irrational Exuberance” from Alan Greenspan. Greenspan was right, and apparently I was also right (in my wrongness). But as frustrating as it is to watch the Nats sometimes, it is nothing compared to reading the fan commentary in the blogs. As irrationally exuberant as I was in March (and especially after the Nats starting the year 3-0), the most boisterous of the blogosphere are irrationally vitriolic. Pick a target – Felipe Lopez, Paul LoDuca, Jim Bowden, The Lerners, Stan Kasten, Austin Kearns, Luis Ayala… even Ryan Zimmerman and Manny Acta – All of them have had critics crying for their firing, trade, release or public flogging.

All because the Nats are a last-place team.

Is this an unexpected result?

Lots of people hoped that the Nats would have been a lot more fun to watch. Whether that means flirting with a pennant race, or just being a .500 team, or even just a chance to see the Nats win every time you come to the ballpark – Most of us hoped for something more than we’re getting. As it turned out, what we’ve gotten is something we hadn’t considered – the historically-bad team we were promised last year – or at least, something close to it.

Back in June I wrote this, because it was clear back then that the Nats weren’t going anywhere, and the important things to watch and look for this season had little to do with the specific outcomes of games. I still believe what I wrote, especially the last line – “The medicine tastes awful, doesn’t it?” The problem is, the medicine was unnecessarily bitter.

If you’ve waded around this blog, or know me personally, you know that my academic and professional background is in organizational communication. One of the most important tenets of getting the most from your organization is to have a clear, organization-wide philosophy – and this is exactly where the Nats got themselves in trouble with their fans this year.

Once the Nationals organization realized that this year was about preparing the organization for growth and success in 2009, 2010 and beyond, each game became a marketing exercise to impress visiting scouts. We saw Paul Lo Duca play all over the field. We saw Felipe Lopez sleepwalk through a summer. Neither deserved to play, with healthier and better-performing alternatives available. But the Nats were not about putting the best team on the field every night, but rather, about getting the most from their personnel investments. When doing your best (by playing your best players) isn’t your organization’s primary goal, then your employees (and players) rarely do your best.

Fans may not have thought about this explicitly, but most knew that they weren’t seeing the best team on the field every night… and even when the best team was on the field, you always got the sense that the outcome of the game was secondary to making sure the scouts in attendance saw all of the goods that were available for trade.

The catharsis we all felt when the Nats released LoDuca and Lopez, and the hot streak that the team set out on immediately afterward, shows how quickly the change in philosophy can work. A lot of people thought it was about the addition of new, young players, but more likely, it was addition by subtraction.

I don’t blame fans for being frustrated, disgusted or even angry about this season. The Nats front office has created a lot of their own problems and left it to the fans to endure a 90 percent product. But regardless, the Nats foibles are short-term ones, that come the end of September, will be meaningless. The Nats will have made important progress towards building a perennial winner, and really, that is all we could reasonably expect from the 2008 season.

Which brings me back to the depressing, vitriolic blogosphere. Be angry. Be upset. Be frustrated. But the incessant, shrill whining about how cheap the Lerners are, or whether Bowden is a competent general manager, or even if Lenny Harris should be fired – is tiresome. I might be inclined to listen if the blogosphere were populated by billionaires, Major League GMs and hitting coaches. But mostly, the blogosphere is made up of men and women just like me – passionate about the Nationals, but for the most part, no more knowledgeable or competent at any of those positions than that guy sitting on the Metro reading the newspaper. Repeating your truth over and over doesn’t make it a universal truth.

But apparently, it makes an already bitter medicine even more bitter.