Kasten’s Plan, for What Exactly?

Stan Kasten is a gentleman and an Ivy-league scholar.  When the Lerner family outbid their competitors for the rights to the relocated Montreal Expos, MLB, Inc. insisted the Lerners take on Kasten as a partner.  Fans were delighted to see someone affiliated with the Braves dynasty coming aboard.  But Kasten’s endless insistence that the laughing stock of baseball is heading in the right direction has begun to sound more than just flat.  It begs the question whether Kasten has been little more than a trojan horse thrust into Washington baseball by the Commissioner’s Office?

In the first two years after the purchase of the team, the Lerners became quickly perceived as “cheap.”  They refused to pay the rent on the stadium, yet priced stadium accountrements at the high end.  That concept was exploded when Ted Lerner outbid everyone else for Mark Teixeira.  Suddenly they were the ownership group that scared Bud Selig when they bid on the Nationals in the first place.  They had a net wealth at the time that far exceeded most other owners.

The Washington Nationals 2009 season ends as one of the worst in baseball history.  It is safe to pronounce the original vision that Stan Kasten articulated for the Nationals a failure.  According to Kasten, the team was to be competitive by 2010.  Few teams have gone from being the worst in baseball two years running to competing the next year. So it is fair to say that Kasten’s claims were at best good intentions gone awry.

Stan Kasten has been the voice of the franchise since the middle of the 2006 season when MLB, Inc. reluctantly finalized the sale of the team and made Washington’s claim on the franchise secure.  Kasten grants frequent interviews, never says anything of substance, and always asserts a rosy future. 

When the Expos were relocated to Washington in 2005, Jim Bowden and Frank Robinson were the crew.  But the wiley old engineer at the head of the train was Bud Selig.   Selig had the final say over who bought the team and when the Lerner’s bid outstripped all others, Stan Kasten was made part of Selig’s deal.   

Was he there to help the novice owners with his vast experience of the league, or to provide drag on any impulse the Lerners might have to throw their money around?

Kasten and Bowden launched a public relations campaign at the end of 2006 in which they asserted Washington would field a competitive team by 2010.  It was all about the young talent, all about growing the team from the “bottom up.”  It sounded good and made sense.  Fans, however, began to question why a team valued at the high end–$450 million, and one capable of drawing nearly 3 million fans to RFK Stadium, had one of the lowest payrolls in the game.

The highlights of the Kasten-Bowden era have been two significant failures.  One was the signing of Dominican Smiley Gonzalez by Bowden–uncovered as a fraud that led to Bowden’s departure.  Then there was the 2008 draft in which top pick Aaron Crow failed to sign.  The Nationals let Crow walk over the difference of a few hundred thousand dollars. 

Kasten put Bowden in charge of the negotiations and no one could understand the inability to bridge such a small gap.  Pundits hinted that the pugnacious approach Bowden took in attempting to drive down the price offended Crow, his agents, and most importantly, the young man’s parents.  Kasten manned up the morning after and told the press the final decision had been his.

No one in the aftermath talked much about about the slotting system and Kasten and Bowden’s strong ties to the Commissioner’s office.  But it is certainly within the realm of reason to argue that the hard line taken by Bowden was an effort to drive Crow’s price down to something more in line with “slot.”  So the issue came down to whether Bowden and Kasten’s first loyalty was to the Commissioner’s Office or the Nationals.  The outcome lends credence to the latter.

Ardent fans wondered how letting a first round draft choice get away squared with Kasten’s “plan” to build a competitive organization with young talent.  It makes more sense if Kasten’s motivation is not to build a team but to hold firm on Selig’s slotting system. 

Kasten’s conflict arises not just from a desire to please Commissioner Bud Selig, but one day to step into his shoes, to succeed him as CEO of MLB, Inc.  Knowledgeable sources early in 2007 put Kasten’s name at the top of the list to replace Selig when he retires.  Kasten would be a good fit for Bud Selig’s job.  He is smart and has long tenure in the game and sources put him in the mix when Selig finally steps down in 2012.  Can someone win the votes of the other MLB owners while aggressively trying to build a winner in Washington?  Probably not.

The Crow negotiations are the most obvious display of Kasten’s loyalties to the Commissioner’s Office trumping his efforts to build a competitive organization.  But Kasten’s strategy for “building from the bottom up,” one that eschews expensive free agents and emphasizes young and less expensive talent works well for Kasten–perhaps better than it does for the Nationals.

There is no knowing just the cicumstantial evidence.  The Nationals have the worst record in baseball for the second season in a row, a minor league organization full of holes and a team President who keeps saying everything is going according to “plan.”  One can only judge Kasten by the performance of the organization and even there it is difficult to determine his exact role.  The stance of the team in the upcoming off-season will provide important clues. 

Those few Washington fans still paying attention are wondering how aggressive the Nationals will be in the upcoming free agent market.  The kind of team that Washington puts on the field in 2010–the year Kasten originally promised a competitor–will depend on key decisions made between now and January.

The first issue will be a new manager and the second will be to fill glaring weaknesses in the team.  The Lerners have two ways to go.  They can continue to bottom feed, picking up only the cheapest free agents and emphasizeing an always distant future.  That path can be named Kasten Avenue. 

If taken, this road will see another new and inexperienced manager brought in to help with a “young” team.  The holes in the pitching staff will be filled with cheap talent like Livan Hernandez–a favorite, but no longer a top of the rotation option.  Toolsy young players like Elijah Dukes and Justin Maxwell who have played enough to demonstrate their status as role players and backups, will continue to be trotted out as the future, when really there isn’t one.

The second option will be to listen to newly appointed GM Mike Rizzo.  That road leads to a more aggressive pursuit of the talent it will take to transform the old Expos into something similar to the Diamonbacks–Rizzo’s former team that went from expansion franchise to World Series Champions in four years. 

Such a change will require a front-line starter and none of those will come to DC without a premium for taking such a long-shot bet.  It will require a first-tier closer to bridge to Drew Storen who may yet qualify for the job, but who will benefit from an under-study role.  It will require expensive additions to the infield and outfield where only Ryan Zimmerman and Nyjer Morgan can field their position consistently.

But if the Lerners aggressively pursue free agents for 2010, they will be driving prices up in a tough market–exactly what Kasten is in Washington to diminish.  Stan Kasten is a nice man, but his counsel has left the Nationals a laughing stock. 

They are such an embarrassment that the new President refused to attend a single game or throw out the first pitch–a long standing tradition that George Bush was willing to re-instate.  It is hard to fault President Obama for failing to pay attention for a single minute to the travesty on South Capitol, but it would be nice if there was change we could belive in at Nationals Park. 

Will the 2009 off-season see the link between Kasten and the Lerners fray further?  Aggressive pursuit of top tier pitching talent will mean that Rizzo is seriously in charge of the team.  Bargain shopping will mean that Kasten has talked his way back in and that Washington baseball is in serious jeopardy.  The only question is whether that has been the “plan” all along.