There probably isn't enough attention paid to the quality of an ownership group and its effect on a franchise. As we consider the quality of the Lerner group, we were struck yesterday by a public spat that hinted at what a disaster we would have if the ownership hunt had gone bad.

For reasons we don't understand, Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and Donald Trump, owner of some of the cheesiest casinos in Atlantic City, a business built almost solely on his celebrity, and a nasty haircut, hate each other. What we do understand, is that they are in a very public fight. Yesterday on Stephen A. Smith's radio show on ESPN 1050 in New York, Trump went after Cuban in very personal terms and said the Mavericks would never win a championship so long as Cuban owned the team. You can listen to the interview here.

Why Trump thinks he's qualified to criticize another business owner is beyond us, but that's how one becomes a celebrity these days, I guess. Anyway, Trump apparently thinks he's qualified to offer detailed criticism of a basketball team's on-court decisions, and listening to him explain his basketball strategy is hilarious. Unfortunately, too many owners insinuate themselves too closely in the on-the-field or on-the-court decisions of their teams.

Thinking of any one in particular?

That's right, the Danny. He's the one who refuses to install a GM at the Redskins, preferring instead to make the football decisions himself. That's gone really well for the Skins, wouldn't you say?




Which brings us to the Lerners. There has been a lot of critical press recently about the billionaire Lerners and the Nationals' management. Ken Rosenthal wrote a four-part series laying out all of criticism that's been circling within baseball about the Lerners' management of the team so far. While the Post today writes a generally favorable article, it too recounts some of this criticism.

There is a lot to criticize, I guess, but most of the criticism seems to us to relate to new management cleaning house and establishing itself and its new rules over an unruly organization. It's not surprising that people who are being moved out or told to do things differently are disgruntled. We have a lot of confidence in Stan Kasten and his ability to transform a franchise, so we're willing to give management the benefit of the doubt on most of these issues.

Save one.

Jim Bowden. God only knows why Kasten decided to keep Jimbo. As Ken Rosenthal says, rumor has it that "Kasten might have little choice in the matter: Bowden, according to major-league sources, endeared himself to principal owner Mark Lerner, son of managing principal owner Ted Lerner, before Kasten entered the equation." We hope that's not true, because Kasten has to be making the GM decision in this organization if it is to thrive. It would be a real shame if Mark Lerner became the team's Donald Trump or Dan Snyder and took on an operational role in the team's baseball decisions.

Kasten needs his own man in the position, and we're convinced that Bowden isn't that guy. If you doubt us, this story certainly suggests that Bowden is at least partially responsible for a lot of the instability within the organization. But our criticism of Bowden is more fundamantel than that: he just isn't the guy to take a team through the turn-around situation in which the Nationals find themselves. Is there anything in Bowden's history that suggests he can do it? If there is, we don't know about it.

Turning this franchise around is going to be very hard, it's going to take a very long time, and it's going to be one of baseball's biggest challenges. The Nationals are going to have to invest their money wisely because they have so many needs. We assume the team will have at least $30 million to begin spending this offseason, but they can't spend that on a few players--they need A LOT of players. This isn't a situation in whichthe Nats can sign A-Rod to a big contract and be assured of success. They need players at catcher, maybe first, second, and an entire outfield. They need pitchers in the first three rotation spots, at least, and almost an entire bullpen. Meanwhile, they have to rebuild the farm system.

Can you get all of that for $30 million? Not if you want good players. So the Nats will have to be patient and try to identify good value opportunities and nurture those players over a period of years.

Do you think the guy who signed Cristian Guzman and traded for Preston Wilson is the guy to do that job?



By the way, just so you know, we cringe every time we have to mention Guzman's and Wilson's name on this blog. We were contemplating using a Harry Potter phrase like, "They who may not be named," but we're afraid that the number of names in that category will grow too large for it to have any meaning.

Pretty bad.

We've talked a lot about how this season has produced a few pleasant surprises on the Nationals' pitching staff. We haven't talked much about any pleasant surprises among Nationals hitters. There is a good reason for that--there aren't any.

Think about it this way: only four Nationals hitters with more than 50 plate appearances have a VORP (value over replacement player) higher than Shawn Hill. That's Shawn Hill the hitter, not the pitcher. HIll's VORP as a hitter is 1.1; only Ryan Church (10.5), Austin Kearns (5.7), Dimitri Young (1.7), and Brian Schneider (1.3) have higher VORP scores than Hill.

You think that's bad? It gets worse. Only two Nationals hitters have positive PMLV scores. PMLV stands for Positional Marginal Lineup Value; it measures the runs a hitter contributes beyond what an average player at the same position would produce in a team of otherwise league-average hitters. In other words, it measures whether a positional player is adding anything offensively beyond what you could get at the same position off the proverbial baseball street. PMLV is more useful than VORP because there are some positions--first base, for example--from which we expect significant offensive production. It doesn't do much good to have a hitter playing first base who produces only a marginally positive VORP when good first basemen are producing VORP scores well over zero. As we'll soon see, this is a particular problem for the Nationals at first base.

Only two Nationals hitters with more than 50 plate appearances have positive PMLV scores--Ryan Church (5.4) and Austin Kearns (2.0). The rest have scores that are abysmal:
PlayerPMLV
Brian Schneider-1.1
Dimitri Young-2.6
Ronnie Belliard-3.3
Ryan Zimmerman-5.3
Felipe Lopez-6.6
Although Brian Schneider and Dimitri Young have positive VORP scores, their offensive production is materially worse than an average player at their positions.

These statistics are truly depressing. The Nationals are fielding positive offensive contributors at only two positions--center and right field--and even there the positive contributions aren't great. At every other position the team is fielding a player whose production is worse than what the team could get from just an average player. It doesn't take a baseball genius to realize that you aren't going to win many games with that kind of paltry production.

We said before that there haven't been any pleasant surprises among Nationals hitters. That was a bit of an exaggeration; sometimes as we try to write with a flourish our words get out in front of our meaning. Anyway, watch Jesus Flores. He's had only 33 plate appearances, but his VORP is 3.0, and we think he could be a material upgrade from Brian Schneider. If the Nationals were smart, they would find a way to trade Schneider for a minor leaguer and give Flores a chance to prove himself.

It's possible to argue that Ryan Church has been a pleasant surprise, but what we've seen in the past is pretty much what we're going to get from him. We don't mean to suggest that Church isn't a useful player. He is, but he's probably more of a fourth outfielder than a starter on a contending team.

And, please, spare us any talk of Cristian Guzman's performance this far. Yes, his PMLV score is 1.1, but he's had only 37 plate appearances, and we're confident that his production by the end of the season will be solidly negative.