Last summer Nats’ GM Jim Bowden, the omnipresent egomaniac, decided to give Dmitri “Hot Plate” Young a $10 million contract. Young was in the middle of earning the NL’s Comeback Player Of the Year, that much is true, but why give a huge contract to someone who could have been signed for less at the end of the season. It is not like anyone would pay much for a player with limited skills who has had problems dealing with success in the past. The team if they really wanted him could have bid for his services as a free agent.
The Young contract I suspect was Bowden’s way of giving himself a slap on the back for giving Dmitri a chance when MLB was turning their back on the underachieving, overeating trouble maker.
D-Young pays them back by sitting on his fat ass all winter and not picking up a bat or doing a single sit up.
Now Nick Johnson is back and Young is testing the dughouse infrastructure in the Nats’ new house.
Just as no one could have predicted a year ago that Young would resurrect his career with the Nationals and become a valued clubhouse leader, it would have been hard to predict his status with the franchise right now: a highly paid backup to Nick Johnson who isn’t even available to play at the moment.
2 comments Last one added 4 months ago — Leave a Comment
Bruce Taylor 4 months ago
Did the Tigers ever fully explain why Dimitri was released in the middle of the pennant race in '06. Do be in the 3 hole to start the game to being released in the 8th inning makes no sense. Somebody had it out for him.
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Landis Marks 4 months ago
No. The most plausible explanation was that it had more to do with clubhouse problems than with the fact that he was struggling performance wise.
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