Loading ...Rob Neyer says that Jim Bowden is probably going to be fired soon as the Washington National’s General Manager. This is very surprising news. Also surprising is the fact that the sun rose in the east this morning.
Keep up with all the developments at the Fire Jim Bowden blog.
I’ve never met the guy, but Bowden always struck me as a sneaky litte …t. He appears to be the type of guy that after you shake hands with him, you’d better count your fingers.
…and now Odalis Perez no-shows spring training. Drama galore.
Well if you read some of the comments on this blog, there’s a lot of Bowden love around here. I don’t understand it, and I don’t see it from the mods, but I was really surprised earlier this week when the Bowden man love showed up. Just wow.
for all i know, the bowden love is either because
1) he’s a good guy (have heard lots to contradict that, but whatever)
or
2) it is true that the last time this team made the playoffs or even had a winning record, he was the gm.
as far as i’m concerned, give him the chair.
If leatherpants gets fired then will all the Reds former players go to play?
The charade is up. I mean, we’ve all worked with guys who feign competance and skirt by year after year. He’s the Michael Scott (the Office) of baseball.
I always thought him to be pretty shakey. #1 for any good management person is to glorify your personnel more than yourself. When he started making commercials after the Griffey Trade I knew who he was. So he failed #1.
I was always disappointed that Rijo and Larkin went to work for him. We see what has happened to Rijo. I wonder if there will be any spillover to Larkin. I hope not.
I’d have to go back and look at the comments, but I wouldn’t call it Bowden love. I think that some people feel past ownership is as much, or more, to blame for the Reds’ past decade of losing. The Reds recent situation was not the result of one individual’s failings.
Back in 1994-1995, the Reds were in the top 10 of MLB teams in total payroll. (USA Today payroll archive). They had the 7th highest payroll in 1994 ($40M) and the 6th highest in 1995 ($37M). The Yankees at the same time were $44M and $46M respectively.
What would today’s Reds team look like if the Reds payroll continued to be 80-90% of the Yankees payroll?
By many accounts, the Reds were spending almost all their player personnel money on the MLB payroll, paying little for scouting and minor league development. Teams like the Twins or the A’s had a major league payroll half of what the Reds were spending in the mid-90’s but were also spending a good chunk of resources on scouting and development.
By 1999, the Reds payroll was $43M, only 20th highest in baseball and about half of what the Yankees were spending. In 2000, Griffey’s first year, the payroll leaped to $44M, dropping to the 22nd highest in baseball.
This was a crossroads for the Reds. Unable to compete with the big-spending teams, the minor league system was completely unprepared to produce the quantity of quality major leaguers that the organization needed to continue to succeed. To add insult to injury, the cornerstone star player the Reds did have began the first of 4 consecutive seasons with substantial time on the disabled list.
By 2004, the Reds MLB payroll was still only $46M, 24th in the majors and only 25% of the league leading Yankees $184M.
Now, I don’t think that Jim Bowden is a good GM, and there are too many stories (Brantley trade, Majewski trade) of unethical behavior on his part. But I think you’d be hard pressed to find any GM who could have been successful in that environment for the Reds.
There appears to be an eventual happy ending to this story. The farm system started to be rehabilitated in 2004. ML payroll spending shot up starting in 2005 (though most of that initial boost was an ill-advised $12M invested in Milton and Ortiz in 2005 with Milton on the hook for 2 more years.)
We are just now starting to see the positive impact of these attempts to reverse more than 10 years ill-advised planning.
“I was always disappointed that Rijo and Larkin went to work for him.”
Ditto.
Is this surprising? Bye,bye to the former Red mafia in D.C. also.
He’s the Michael Scott (the Office) of baseball.
Love that analogy.