Bowden's Brashness

Jim Bowden has long been a general manager who has drawn the scorn of the sabermetric community for his inability to grasp the fundamental tenets of statistical baseball truth. His list of laughable signings and trades could fill up more than one blog post, and he's been a favorite whipping boy of Baseball Prospectus in years past. Lately, however, you have to admire what Bowden is doing to reconstruct baseball in D.C.

The Nationals farm system is so thin on talent, having been strip-mined in its last days in Montreal as a property of Major League Baseball, that the proper strategy to pursue in talent acquisition for the club is an aggressive pursuit of high-upside risks. This fits in well to the tendencies of Bowden, who absolutely loves trading for toolsy outfielders. He's gotten three in the last four months, but unlike past players Bowden has fawned over, all three can actually play.

The Nationals got 25-year-old monster Wily Mo Pena from the Red Sox for minor leaguer Chris Carter on August 17. Bowden was able to pry Pena away after his value had dropped precipitously, the result of being the odd man out in Boston's outfield rotation, after which he was left on the bench to rot. Pena is a three true outcomes machine, with strikeouts, walks, and homers galore. Pena has a long swing, leading to tons of strikeouts and tremendous power. That power played well when he moved into a starting role for Washington over the final month, as he mashed eight homers and put up a line of .293/.352/.504 in 133 at bats.

The Lastings Milledge trade was discussed in the post below, but the short summary is that Bowden managed to transform an aging, offensively inept catcher and a journeyman outfielder into a dynamic young talent. Bowden got another one when he traded with the Rays for Elijah Dukes this week. Dukes is an enormous--6'2, 225 lbs.--young outfielder, with a profile similar to that of Milledge. In fact, the seventh-best comparable for Milledge, according to his PECOTA profile, is Dukes. Milledge and Dukes are similar in more than just on-field profile, as both have had attitude issues. Dukes's problems have been far more serious than those of Milledge, including a domestic abuse incident that directly led to the Rays cutting ties and trading him for a minor leaguer. One can only hope that Dukes is able to put those problems behind him in moving to a new locale.

One other similarity between Dukes and Milledge is that both are black. As Christina Kahrl mentioned at Baseball Prospectus, this is notable because D.C. is a predominantly black city. The Nationals are moving into their new park next year on the banks of the Anacostia River. With two young, talented black athletes ready to roam the outfield in the new park, the Nationals have put themselves in a position to tap into a new attendance base--that of urban D.C. This must have at least played a part in Bowden's decision making in acquiring Milledge and Dukes, and it is an interesting and worthy experiment in the attempt to build a following for the new Nationals.