It’s Sunday, Nov. 7, the first official day of baseball’s free agency.
Will the Washington Nationals bring their gold card to the free agency store, and ring up some hefty charges?
Or will the Lerners bring their typical coupon inserts to the market, hoping to come away with the illusion of major league talent but with the reality of minor league prices?
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the Washington Nationals would be better off leaving their money at home. There’s no real value, cheap or expensive, to be had for one of baseball’s door mats.
There are reports that the Nationals will aggressively pursue the No. 1 pitcher on the free agency market, postseason super hurler Cliff Lee.
This is a quaint notion of sorts — Lee was a prospect in the Nationals system when they were in Montreal, until he was traded in the 2002 mid-season deal, along with Grady Sizemore and Brandon Phillips, that wrecked the future of the franchise. So I guess it would be a homecoming of sorts for Lee.
Hey, why not go for former Expo Vladimir Guerrero, who the Rangers just said goodbye to, declining their option on the physically limited slugger?
Let’s get the band back together.
Lee isn’t coming to the Nationals any more than Mark Teixeira was coming to the team two years ago. Teixeira signed with the New York Yankees, and you can expect Lee to either go back to his Rangers team or, like Teixeira, sign with the Yankees as well.
Remember the induction ceremonies for The George Washington University School of Business Sports Executives Hall of Fame in January 2007, when honoree and Yankee president Randy Levine declared about his team, “We’re about winning every year. If we didn’t win the World Series, it wasn’t a good year.”
Nationals owner Ted Lerner, also being honored, answered, “I might add we’re not really concerned with the World Series this year.”
It was a joke, but the joke has been the Nationals ever since the Lerners took over the franchise in the middle of the 2006 season.
It might have been a good idea for the Lerners to be concerned about the World Series, because at least that would have required some level of awareness, in a town that had not had baseball for 33 years and one year away from opening a new ballpark, that trying to compete was of paramount importance. They didn’t have the luxury of slow and steady.
Now they have decided to get aggressive? Too late, the damage has been done.
They could overpay, and overpay big, for, let’s say for argument’s sake, Lee. But the worst free-agent investment a team can make is a long-term, big-money deal with a pitcher, particularly one coming from another team. See Barry Zito, $126 million, left off the San Francisco Giants playoff roster.
No, the Nationals are like the bikers in the film, “A Bronx Tale,” who are locked in the bar by Sonny, the gangster who first asked them to leave, and then told them after they refused, “Now you can’t leave.”
The Nationals had their chance to compete and refused. Now they are locked into slow and steady — and out of sight.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN 980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
