$4 million, do you want to sign or not? The Nats chose “not.”

Sometimes you have to just remove all the talk about who was the nastier and most abusive and just stick to the facts. Should you take the deal or not? I just think of it as a business strategy that failed for the agent.

As a fan, I say spend the money–but that’s only because i want to see a winner in this town, and have seen short-sighted owners here in the past, going all the way back to Clark and Calvin Griffith.

Of course, a lot of other fans say: “Protect the wealth of the owners as the top priority.” I also can see the point of rooting for the balance sheet, which has a lot of charm and excitement too! Just depends where your priorities are.

The fact is that Crow could have been signed for $4 million and the Nats passed. We won’t know if this was a good move or not for at least a couple years. You could be right that the Nats should have passed, and many others could be right that the Nats should have stepped up and signed Crow at the last minute.

A lot of it depends on how much confidence you have in the Nats’ organization and their willingness to spend the money to bring DC a winner. I sure have my doubts about this.

Also, I hope JimBow enjoys the 3rd light-hitting middle infielder he traded for (Alberto Gonzalez)… he gave up Jhonny Nunez, who has been lights-out as a reliever with Trenton, just like he was as soon as he went to the bullpen in the Nats’ system. Not sure how Nunez will be as a big-leaguer, but I really didn’t see the point of trading for THREE middle INF when we had just re-signed Cristian Guzman.

They asked for $9M to start, a patently ridiculous number for the #9 overall pick, they refused to visit DC or take phone calls from the team, demanded a MLB deal, continued to demand more money than players taken before him. But according to Crow himself, it was obvious he didn’t want to play for our team from the onset and that’s the real reason they made negotiations so ridiculous.

Crow and his advisors are absolute idiots for this; he loses a year of development, won’t get drafted as high next year so will get offered even less money, won’t get a MLB deal as a result, and has no leverage against the drafting team to go back to finish his senior year since he stupidly signed a deal w/ the independent league.

Proper Name: Jordan M. Zimmermann

Born: May 23, 1986 in Auburndale, Wis. High School: College: Wisconsin-Stevens Point Ht.: 6-2 Wt.: 200 Bats: R Throws: R 2008 Pitching Statistics Club (League) Class W L ERA G GS CG SV IP H R ER HR BB SO WP BB/9 SO/9 AVG WHIP Potomac (CAR) HiA 3 1 1.65 5 4 0 1 27.1 15 6 5 1 8 31 0 2.63 10.21 .167 0.84 Harrisburg (EL) AA 7 2 3.21 20 20 0 0 106.2 89 42 38 9 39 103 2 3.29 8.69 .226 1.20 Minor League Totals 10 3 2.89 25 24 0 1 134.0 104 48 43 10 47 134 2 3.16 9.00 .215 1.13

However, I disagree that it was that big a loss to miss out on a college pitcher. Again, since the nuance was lost on you, I’ll restate: I’m not against drafting college pitchers, but it’s extremely risky because they are very likely to get hurt. Why? Because they are often overused (read: they throw a lot of pitches in a short period of time), especially in the higher-echelon..er, big-time programs.

You mention the O’s. I keep thinking how they spent $6 million the draft before on a catcher, while the Nats passed on their first rounder this year for $2 million less.

If you assume the kids are not very good or durable, then why bother with the draft? I’ll be glad to get over it, when the Lerners reassure the fans that their Plan is alive and well, and that they were just kidding this year with their little budgets for signing draftees.

You say no team signs all their picks. The Nats actually chose LAST this year of all the MLB teams, if you throw away the first rounder (which they did). The Yankees did not sign their first rounder either, but they had a sandwich round pick, so even they chose higher than the Nats. That’s no way to dig out of a big hole in the farm system!

The P-Nats were draftees at one point, or most of them were, I guess. Good thing!

::ponders $ that could be made by selling championship t-shirts::

We didn’t get Aaron Crow. Get over it. No team signs all its draft picks.

Need I also remind folks, that it ain’t just about spending money? Ask any O’s fan and they’ll tell you.