Some Teams Don't Know What They're Doing

Not only did the Washington Nationals trade off 24 year old Lastings Milledge for Nyjer Morgan, who turns 29 tomorrow, but the Nats have now sent Elijah Dukes down to AAA Syracuse to make room for Morgan on their roster.  Wow!

The Nats have taken their top two young outfielders from 2008 and turned them into Nyjer Morgan.  Dukes was only hitting .244, but his .723 OPS is 16 points better than Morgan’s, and Dukes is four years younger.

It might not hurt Dukes to play every day in AAA to get his stroke back.  However, the odds are just as good that he will be alienated by the decision to send him down in the same way Lastings Milledge was, thus forcing the Nats to trade him for less than his full value.

Nyjer Morgan is under control for probably four more years after this one, but so what?  He’s done nothing in his major or minor league career to suggest that he’s got the kind of upside Milledge or Dukes has.

Even if the Nats successfully sign Stephen Strasburg, and he lives up to the hype, and Jordan Zimmerman continues to develop (Zimmerman BTW really is good: although his ERA is currently 4.65, with 69 K’s and only 20 BB’s in 69.2 IP as a 23 year old rookie, he’s obviously extremely talented), the Nats aren’t going to be able to build a pennant-contending team if they aren’t willing to develop young players at the positions, aside from Ryan Zimmerman.

Teams simply don’t get enough high first round draft picks to build an entire team around.