Kasten on the Changes in the DR
February 26th, 2009
I will just point you to Chico Harlan who has some great stuff from Stan Kasten on the status of their moves in the DR today.
A couple of things that stand out to me:
- “They have released 14 players” … I’ll see what I can find out about who the fourteen are. Teams typically don’t release that information about the players in the DR. I still think they can afford to jettison a few more if they are down to one DSL team
- “They will relocate to a complex in Boca Chica” … As ESPN mentioned in last night’s article, “Most team academies are located in the Boca Chica region.” So I hope the plans are to create an academy from the ground up with the assistance of Fernando Ravelo
- “They have replaced virtually all of the office staff and coaches” …More of the page turning. Hopefully this helps start afresh in the DR
- “Kasten is doubtful that the operation in the DR will be operating at full-throttle this year; his plan is to be up to speed by 2010.” … Disappointing, but not surprising. The Nats will likely fall another year behind in the DR which does not help but given the late date of this move, it is complete expected.
And finally, this exchange
Q: You said as far as you’re concerned this closes the book on the team’s side. Does that mean you do not anticipate any more firings or removals of team employees?
Kasten: Well, related to the Dominican, I think it closes the book on Jose and the Jose Rijo complex and all of that. And that’s all I want to talk about today. As I said to you the other day, I am supporting and continue to support everyone who works for the Nationals, and that’s not lip service. I sincerely mean that. Having said that, there are many things going on behind the scenes that you all aren’t privy to yet. When I’m able to talk to you about things I will, but I’m not going to discuss anything but the Dominican today, because I do not want to open any doors or lead you astray in any way, and believe me, I have seen stuff in the last couple days that are real head-scratchers. You know, things get out there and what passes for journalism, it just blows me away. But I’m just not going to be a party to any discussions about anything other than this for right now.
The door is closed on Jose Rijo and his complex. But it stops short of excusing or exonerating anyone else. Kasten touches a bit on what I called the echo chamber. The Nats have down a solid job of controlling the story as much as they can, but until the investigation reaches the conclusion they are waiting for, stuff is unfortunately going to continue to linger.
The waiting continues.
Categories: Dominican Summer League, International
all the steps are good,but how about the scouting part,they may have some new scouts in dominican,but no presence in venezuela,panama,colombia,in baseall america top 100 there were more venezuelan players than dominican,no international scouting,international its no dominican only
Head-scratchers like when he said that Jose Rijo was on leave for his sick mom and that he asked for the leave and that turned out to be a total lie? I wonder why people are unwilling to take what he says at face value.
The first thing I thought when I read Chico’s opening sentence:
“Team President Stan Kasten just finished addressing the media about today’s Normandy-like operation in the Dominican.”
is that he missed a golden opportunity for a “Saving Private Smiley” headline. WaPo’s probably too strait-laced to go for that though.
While it is disappointing that we’ll fall another year back in the DR. I loved this quote from Kasten:
“I think ’09, there’s no question and no secret that we’re placing a lot of attention on our draft, our major league draft, so I don’t expect to be caught up down there by ’09, but I’m looking forward by ’10 to catching back up; that’s my plan, and now I think we have a staff in place, a facility in place to do exactly that.”
Sounds like they’re putting a lot of resources into this draft so maybe signability won’t be a concern at 10.
Only 1 DSL team …. Time to update the NFA Big Board :) Seriously though if one team won the DSL last year while we had 2 teams, shouldn’t a combined one team be a shoe-in to win it? I started cheering for the Tigres de Licey 2 years ago, when Belliard and a few others played for them, so it will be a pretty easy transition.
I believe the new complex belongs to Junior Noboa, it’s a nice place but it’s also home to the Reds, DBacks, and White Sox.
I am mistaken. It is not Noboa’s. The national team has used his complex (one of the nicest) but it’s not the one the Times was referring to.
Rafael is 100% correct, this gives us an opportunity to balance and broaden our interests and create a permanent presence in Venezuela to take advantage of Latin America and Colombia, Neth. Antilles, and VZ. Under the decrepit MLB management, we had a DSL team and shared a VSL team withe da stinkin’ Fish. We need to go back to that, at least.
Going from 2 DSL teams to 1 is no shoe-in to win, since we won by using players too old to rated a prospect in order to win.
We “should” jettison all players too old to be a prospect. Since the DSL is a feeder system to the GCL, and the Nats place their High School draftees in the GCL, we’re talking no-one over 20. You do that and you get rid of our DSL Championship entire starting rotation.
Plus, we need to promote the GOOD youngsters to GCL – we have at least 5. Punting the old chaff, promoting the promising youngsters – we’re going to be hurting with even just 1 team. To top it off, we’ve signed squat this year.
Big night for Strasburg, though he did give up 2 runs.
6.2IP 5H 2ER 1BB 16k 1.46ERA
16 strikeouts out of 20 outs. Dang, I’m salivating!!
I’m all for the Nats staking a claim to the Netherlands Antilles. I want the Nats to get Jurickison Profar! IIRC, he will turn 16 next year.
Looking at some of the players listed on the DSL rosters from last year (12/24/08), if you cut everybody with a posted birthdate prior to 1/1/87, you can cover 13 names. Just a shot in the dark.