Let Me Reiterate: Jim Bowden Is An Idiot

I've had some time to settle down from my Jim Bowden-induced rage and, lo and behold, the non-deal for Alfonso Soriano still stinks. In an attempt to work myself back up into frothy indignation, here are some more thoughts about the dumbest move in recent sports history.
Alfonso Soriano wants a no-trade clause in his next contract. Nationals president Stan Kasten has never given a player a no-trade clause in his two decades as a sports executive. Ergo, the Washington Nationals will not be re-signing Alfonso Soriano in the offseason.
This has a three-pronged effect. First, the Nats will get two first-round picks in the 2007 draft as compensation for Soriano's free-agent departure. With those picks, Jim Bowden will likely select two unproven high school players. In effect, Soriano will have been "traded" for those two young, unproven players. Today, Bowden could have had at least two proven minor leaguers and possibly one major league arm. He wouldn't have gotten what he expected in the Soriano trade, but at least he would have had something. Now, Bowden has nothing except for the possibility of having a major league player in 2011, long after his tenure as Nationals GM is over. (But even that's a remote possibility because young baseball are notoriously unpredictable. In the 1996 draft only seven of the 30 players taken in the first round are what you would call "solid" Major Leaguers and that's being nice to Travis Lee.)
So, in essence, in 2007 the Washington Nationals will have absolutely nothing to show for the Alfonso Soriano trade. As a result, the team will be even worse than this season (they currently sport the sixth-worst record in the bigs) and attendance will far even further in their final (?) year at RFK.
I can't say this enough: Alfonso Soriano still being a National is mind-boggling. As I wrote earlier today, Bowden's ego got in the way of the team. He has to be fired at the end of the year and Stan Kasten needs to hire a general manager with the sense to build a team the right way; with young players. It won't put butts in the seat next year but grass doesn't grow right away either. It's a process. The only process Jim Bowden believes in is his own ability to turn water into wine.
This line from Barry Svrluga's Washington Post article about the non-trade cracks me up:

Bowden was working under the guidelines set by new Nationals owner Theodore N. Lerner and Kasten to build a strong foundation of young players that can be the heart of a team for years to come.

I guess those are pretty liberal guidelines. Between getting rid of Gary Majewski and Bill Bray and not dealing Soriano, Bowden seems like a crotchety old man who's always yelling at kids on his lawn.
Alright, I've succeeded in riling myself up. Dammit. I'm going to get a beer.