I miss the Expos.

The Expos were stuck in a city that didn't support the team, and would never be competitive. It's totally different in Washington. Totally.

Tom Boswell complains in this column that the Nationals didn't sign Andruw Jones. He had a chat last week where he predicted that the Nats wouldn't be able to sign someone named "Starburg" and then commented on the team's failure to sign their #1 pick Jason Crow.

Boz hasn't watched a baseball game in a decade or so. Touring the stadium doesn't count.

I used to live in Chicago in the 80s and 90s watching the painful post-stroke Harry Caray. Boz has become the baseball columnist version of that. He was once a great baseball writer (I'm told) but today he's an embarrassment and needs to be put out to pasture.

If you happen to believe that the solution to all the Nationals' problems is to go hog wild on multi-year FAs (I don't, but I can see where people are coming from), Boz is about the worst champion for your cause that you'd want.

Tom Boswell complains in this column that the Nationals didn't sign Andruw Jones.

Well . . . not really. What Boswell wrote is that some in the organization started a "groundswell" to beat the Dodgers in the Jones bidding. Boz wrote that for the purpose of pondering whether Uncle Teddy would be willing to open his checkbook generally, not as a lamentation that the Nats failed to waste their money on teh 'Druw.

He had a chat last week where he predicted that the Nats wouldn't be able to sign someone named "Starburg" and then commented on the team's failure to sign their #1 pick Jason Crow.

"Starburg" is like eleventy billionth on the list of top Boz Chat Typos. The typical Friday afternoon sentence construction is something like "I +_h$iNK teh Naats _AShouLfd_ $_igN a FrEe A_ghent."

And, at the risk of nitpicking your nitpickings of Boz, when he referred to "J.C." in the chat, I assumed he was talking about Jason Casto, taken one pick behind Mr. Crow.

He was once a great baseball writer (I'm told)

Check out his old stuff from the library or something. You won't regret it.

* * * *

On the topic of this Boz column, I'm glad someone in the Nats organization isn't merely willing to plan on everything serendipitously coming together in one magical season. Years ago, Sean Forman made a similar comment on this site about a different team, and I wish I could find it in the archives. It was so simple yet made so much sense. Anyway, I see nothing wrong with adding an expensive piece for next season, even if you think you'll be bad next season, provided you believe that guy can still help you when you do reasonably expect to be good.

The most telling thing from the article, I think, are the quotes from Zimmerman and the anonymous player. Both seem to have their doubts about ownership's willingness to spend. When that's bubbling up from the players, it's... interesting!

I suppose Starburg could have been a typo, and yeah I guess some people find the spontaneous "leaving in the typos" schtick charming, but personally I really don't think Boz knows the kid's name. I was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt until he called Aaron Crow "Jason."

And yeah, I also considered the possibility that he meant jason castro, but if you look at the context, he's clearly talking about Crow.

On Andruw Jones, the nuance you're drawing is kinda lost on me. I guess the point you're saying he's making is that because the Lerners wouldn't waste money on the worst starting CF in baseball that they'll probably never spend on anyone ever? It's just a bizarre leap of logic. Naw, seems way more likely that Boz just isn't aware that Jones is no longer an MVP candidate. Why else would you bring up exhibit A against signing big time FAs in a column making the case for signing big time FAs?

I also don't see anything wrong with spending on the right guy who actually fits in our long term plan. I'd like to see them spend on an SP. Not Sheets becuase the guy's made of glass and not CC because I don't think it makes sense to commit to an SP for 7-8 years as will be required unless you're ready to make a run, but one of the next group down for 2-3 years would be great.

But Boz's favorite, Tex, makes no sense because the only real blue-chipper we have in the system is a 1B. So why marry Tex for the next decade? The worst thing about Boz's column is that for us Nats fans who would like to see the team spend more smart money he basically makes it easy for Kasten to just say, "see, these people are all idiots. they wanted us to sign Andruw Jones and block Chris Marrero."

Again though, I don't think Boz has even heard of Chris Marrero. He's just throwing #### out there because Mark Teixeira's the one guy he's heard of.

If I had my way the team would re-sign Zimmerman for 6 years and $55-60m if that's what it takes. I would be very surprised if Zimmerman wouldn't take that, and if we don't re-sign him now, we never will. Every day he's closer to FA he becomes more expensive.

And then we would have ponied up the extra $900k that we fell on our swords over for Crow. That's just idiocy, but that's Bowden, not Lerner. No one's said that the ownership capped the bonus at 3.5m. Bowden just played chicken and lost.

Do those 2 things and sign Derek Lowe or Jon Garland. They'd fit nicely with our emphasis on infield defense and suck up a bunch of innings to take pressure off the young arms as they come up but wouldn't require such a huge long-term commitment like a Soriano or Sabathia that you're locking yourself into an albatross on the back-end.

On Andruw Jones, the nuance you're drawing is kinda lost on me. I guess the point you're saying he's making is that because the Lerners wouldn't waste money on the worst starting CF in baseball that they'll probably never spend on anyone ever? It's just a bizarre leap of logic. Naw, seems way more likely that Boz just isn't aware that Jones is no longer an MVP candidate. Why else would you bring up exhibit A against signing big time FAs in a column making the case for signing big time FAs?

Come now. I think you're viewing this in the light least favorable to Boz. Which is fine -- this is teh internets and all -- but there's really not much nuance here.

Here's the passage:

According to sources, the Nats are already willing to make trades of the kind that add perhaps $6 million to $8 million a year to payroll. But some potentially bigger signings, like a groundswell to beat the Dodgers in the bidding for Andruw Jones last winter, have met resistance at the top.

Boz makes no comment on the wisdom -- or lack thereof, especially in retrospect -- of attempting to outbid the Dodgers for Jones. To "complain" that the Nats didn't sign Jones would have been ridiculous, and your expectation that he did is probably an indication that you need to recalibrate your Boz Fisker or at least set it on stun rather than blast.

The passage, as best I can tell, was Boz relating a movement by some in the front office during the last offseason, before Jones really tanked it. (He had a poor, poor year last year, but it could have been reasonably argued that much of that poor play was attributable to injury. Whether that was a valid perspective at the time, I can't say, but the key is the phrase "at the time.") Recall that the Nats intended to acquire an everyday CF last offseason, and Jones was by surveyed St. Barry of Svrluga and other reporters as a potential target -- if the Nats went in the FA direction.

It seems like that "groundswell" didn't swell for very long, because the Milledge deal occurred on the November 30, the Dukes deal shortly thereafter, and Andruw signed with the Dodgers on December 5. Obviously, it's a good that things played out the way they did, as the Nats got two talented young OFs rather than one old, indifferent (albeit short-term) albatross.

But Boz is not commenting specifically on the Jones thing. Rather, within the context of the entire column, he's using it to ask a broader question: whether, when the time is right to make a splash for the right player, whether Uncle Teddy will agree to pay.

That's fair. I fully acknowledge that I'm giving Boz zero benefit of the doubt here. I'm less damning in my blog on this, but just chatting I just think Boz has lost it totally.

And all that said, if I hired a lobbyist to make an argument to Ted Lerner for more spending, I would hope that he would never, ever, ever say the words Andruw Jones ever. It's just a stupid name to bring up unless you're making an argument that of course you never would have wanted to sign that loser.

Boswell's baseball stuff just isn't the same since Ripken retired. It isn't the sex he misses so much as the cuddling afterwards.