Aaron Crow Speaks!

If you want to hear Mr. Crow give the reasons why he turned down $3.3M- $3.5M and is willing to risk his career to pitch in an independant league until next year's draft, you can listen in tomorrow at noon to Baseball Digest Daily Live (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/baseballdigestdaily).

Eric SanInocencio, Ass't SID for the Gulf South League is the host, and he e-mailed me today and asked if I would help spread the word. Here's his e-mail:

For this week's show, we've booked former National top draft pick Aaron Crow. Aaron will be joining us in our second segment, and chat about everything that took place before the deadline that didn't allow him to get a contract completed with Washington.

The show as I mentioned starts at Noon ET, and Crow will join us right at 12:30. Our first half will feature Lars Anderson, one of the top prospects in the Boston Red Sox organization.

I'll post the link to the show below, and on that page you can archive any other show I've done.

I've had some great guests (Dayton Moore, Chad Durbin, Matt LaPorta, etc.) so feel free to check any of those out as well.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/baseballdigestdaily

Eric SanInocencio
Assistant Sports Information Director
Gulf South Conference

I have an engagement tomorrow during the day, but you can be sure I will listen to the chat once it's in the archive. It should be a very interesting listen.

More Crow Post-Mortem

GM Jim Bowden's pathetic attempt at spin today is a shoddy attempt at damage control. The crocodile tears he shed for the Post's Chico Harlan may sway the casual fan, but the sheer hubris and fortitude it took for him to detail the negotiations in the press like this, regardless if you believe him or not (I do not), is incredible. It is unprofessional and immature to the extreme. It's no wonder many of his peers don't return his phone calls. They know anything they say can and will be held against them in the court of public opinion. Bowden's "interview" with the Post today was a disgusting attempt to shift blame to the player and his agent, and the disrespect he shows Crow and his father (Bowden repeatedly refers to him as "the father", not by name) is shameful and embarrassing.

But we now know the score, and here's the first independent analysis of yesterday's debacle, and it ain't pretty.

Keith Law, of Scouts, Inc. and ESPN.com, a former member of the Toronto Blue Jays front office and former writer for Baseball Prospectus knows the draft. It's what he does. And his independent opinion: Bowden blew it. Not just with Crow, but the whole draft. Here's the sad indictment from his most recent column.

"The Nationals' failure to sign Aaron Crow is yet another strike against the regime of embattled general manager Jim Bowden, whose name has popped up in the investigation into embezzlement of signing bonuses in Latin America.

In full-on spin mode, Bowden now is claiming that Crow and his advisors didn't give the Nationals any indication before the draft what it might take for Crow to sign (even though this information was common knowledge in the industry) and didn't provide a dollar figure until Aug. 12. If the Nationals genuinely didn't know what Crow wanted, it was either willful ignorance or the worst case of a signability analysis I've ever seen. And if they weren't willing to go much over slot, they could have just taken Arizona State's Brett Wallace (taken by the Cardinals at No. 13) or Long Beach (Calif.) high school hitter Aaron Hicks (taken by the Twins at No. 14), signed either for slot at No. 9 and made the plausible argument that they took the best player available.

The Nationals didn't do anything later in their draft to salvage this misstep. They gave back-of-the-first-round money to outfielder J.P. Ramirez (selected in the 15th round, 451st overall), who didn't make my top 75 prospects for the draft and ranked No. 155 on Baseball America's list (roughly a fourth/fifth rounder). They signed just two prospects off my top 75, none higher than catcher Adrian Nieto at No. 40, and nobody in Baseball America's top 50.

It's not a Houston 2007 disaster -- where the Astros didn't have picks in the first and second rounds, then failed to sign their third- and fourth-rounders -- but it's a significant problem for a team whose farm system was gutted under years of MLB-state ownership. The Nationals now will have two picks in the top 10 next year, an extremely expensive proposition, and in a draft class that is no stronger than this one. (In fact, a rough cut at the top 10 prospects for next year's draft would include at least five that I expect will be advised by Scott Boras: Stephen Strasburg, Grant Green, Dustin Ackley, Andy Oliver and Donovan Tate.)

It's a bad outcome for a franchise that needed another good draft to continue the farm system's comeback, which has already had unforeseen setbacks this year with the struggles of their top two picks from 2007, Ross Detwiler and Josh Smoker. "

Wow. This isn't one of us saying it. Although each of us that have a blog the last 24 hours have said all of this ourselves--except probably detailing just how much was too much money spent on Ramirez and Jones. So not only did the Nats not sign their first round pick, but they gave first round money to a 15th round pick that isn't in anyone's top 75 and projects as a fifth outfielder.

"Worst case of a signability analysis I've [Keith Law] ever seen."

Fire Jim Bowden.

Nats Select Crow With First Round Pick

Washington, DC--With the ninth overall pick in the 2008 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, the Washington Nationals selected right-handed pitcher Aaron Crow from the University of Missouri. Nationals Senior Vice President and General Manager Jim Bowden, Vice President of Baseball Operations and Assistant General Manager Mike Rizzo, and Director of Scouting Dana Brown made the announcement at Nationals Park.

“Aaron Crow is a potential top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher, who has three solid pitches — including a mid-90s fastball, a quality slider and a changeup — and has exceptional command,” Bowden said. “I give credit to Mike Rizzo, Dana Brown, Bob Boone and our entire scouting staff for once again securing such a remarkable talent with the ninth overall pick in the Draft.” Over his three seasons at Missouri, Crow compiled a 23-8 record with a 3.27 ERA in 52 games -- 46 starts.

Crow has an unusual "hitch" in his motion, but Bowden believes it's something he can succeed with. "We got a lot of different opinions in our organization, and certainly at the end of the day, all of our people were satisfied. No one was red-flagged. At all." Rizzo added, "With stop-action pictures, frame-by-frame, we saw that the arm gets to the power position perfectly on time even with the little 'wrap' that he's got."

"We continue to try to stockpile as many potential number one and number two starters as we can to build this organization into a championship club," Bowden said. "[We] were all in unanimous feeling when it was our turn to select who we should take."

Assistant Manager Mike Rizzo said, "We believe he's an impact pitcher, top of the rotation type, that could be the type of pitcher that would lead us to world series championships down the road."

Crow, 21, was rated the No. 2 pitching prospect (No. 5 overall) and was recognized as the college prospect with the “Best Fastball” in this year’s Draft by Baseball America. He went 13-0 with a 2.35 ERA in fifteen starts this season en route to being named a Golden Spikes Award finalist, the Big 12 Pitcher of the Year and a Louisville Slugger First-Team All-American. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound junior tossed four shutouts and struck out 127 batters with just 38 bases on balls in 107.1 innings. His school-record thirteen wins led all NCAA pitchers, and his 127 strikeouts were sixth-most in the nation. Crow was a semi-finalist for the Dick Howser Trophy and the Roger Clemens Award this season, and at one point worked 43.0 consecutive scoreless innings, the fourth-longest such streak in NCAA history.

"We think that this is a pitcher, if he signs fast, can get to the big leagues fairly quickly," Bowden said. "The last game we saw him pitch, he would have pitched in the big leagues that night."

Tim Beckham, an 18-year old shortstop from Georgia, was the number one selection by the Tampa Bay Rays.