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Game Thread: Colorado Rockies at Washington Nationals - 2008 Game 125 of 162. "The Washington Nationals Try To Avoid Dropping Six-Straight At Home...Ten Overall."
Federal Baseball — ... ...and now tonight, in Chico Harlan's Nationals Journal post entitled, "More than 3,700 words from Jim Bowden on Aaron Crow", Mr. Harlan begins by asking the DC GM: ...

The Week In Quotes: August 11-17 by Alex Carnevale
Baseball Prospectus — ... it did get them upset—but we wanted to make sure that when we did get the $9 million offer, one of our scouts did contact the dad just to let him know, you're really at $9 million here with a day to go." —Bowden "We just want to get the best players. When it was our turn to pick, it was clear that Aaron Crow was the player we wanted to take. We have no regrets over taking him. We only regret that we weren't able to sign him. We just wanted to sign him." —Bowden (Chico Harlan, Washington Post ) DRAFT DEADLINE SHENANIGANS "We greatly appreciate the faith Pedro and his family ...

Draft Reactions: Nationals
MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com — ... considers the Crow situation a major blunder for the organization.  The Washington Post learned the details via a lengthy Q&A with GM Jim Bowden.  Here are some highlights: ...

Great Moments in Negotiations
ShysterBall — Jim Bowden expounds at length on the negotiations that led to the Nationals not signing Aaron Crow, their first round pick. I realize negotiations are complicated pursuits in which people say and do all manner of silly, inconsistent things, but this made me chuckle: ...

WaPo: More than 3,700 words from Jim Bowden on Aaron Crow (RR)
BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog — WaPo: More than 3,700 words from Jim Bowden on Aaron Crow (RR) If you can stand it… Q: So you kept e-mailing and asking where they got their $9 million from? (They) would not engage. Would not do it through e-mail. Would not do it verbally. Then it went from $9 million to $4.4 million. That’s where it was. At the last minute, he went to $4 million. And we went to $3.5 million. Q: Between August 12 and last night, what was the dialogue? He wouldn’t return our phone calls. We talked a couple times. We kept calling. Mike [Rizzo] had a couple calls with Alan [Hendricks]. It ...

Jim Bowden Is Like a Used Car Salesman
Mr. Irrelevant — The Nats selected Aaron Crow with the ninth pick in June’s draft. He has a 98 mile-per-hour fastball and could be in the rotation next year, except they failed to sign him before the Friday night deadline. Read the 3,700-word interview with Jim Bowden on the subject, because nuggets like this are strewn throughout: “We gave them a final offer at 10:30 p.m. last night, we said here’s a final take-it-or-leave-it offer of $3 million, which we later moved to $3.3 million. And then verbally at the last minute, we went to $3.5 ...

Draft Reactions: Pirates Sign Pedro Alvarez
MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com — ... Nationals GM Jim Bowden wouldn't go past $3.5MM for top pick Aaron Crow, but called Alvarez a "really good signing." ...

Matsui tomorrow?
Pinstripe Alley — ... If you're interested in the negotiating process, you'll love this interview with Nationals' GM Jim Bowden. He talks at length about the draft and the difficulties in (not) signing ninth overall pick Aaron Crow. ...

Nationals Play Chicken with Delusional Agent, Lose
The Big Lead — ... Major League Baseball’s post-draft signing period ended on August 15th, and as is customary with negotiations between amateur players and team front offices, many players did not sign. The most interesting case of the latter situation might be that of former Missouri right hander Aaron Crow, who after a stellar season (127K’s, 105 IP, 2.35 ERA), was selected by the Washington Nationals in the 1st round (9th overall) of this year’s draft. In a fascinating post by Washington Post blogger Chico Harlan, Nationals GM Jim Bowden gives a dramatic first-person account of ...

Alvarez and Crow Articles
The College Baseball Blog — ... . The Washington Post has a great article written by Chico Harlan with Jim Bowden about the contract negotiations between the Washington Nationals and Aaron Crow. Both parties were not able to come to an agreement thus making Crow go to Independent Baseball for the next season until the 2009 MLB Draft. The full article is available here . Tags: ...

Will The Washington Nationals Be Able To Sign A #1 Pick?
Federal Baseball — ... ...The deal Price received from Tampa Bay...$8.5 M guaranteed, $5.6 M signing bonus and inclusion on the 40-man roster...is essentially the same kind of deal that the Washington Nationals' '08 1st Round Draft Pick Aaron Crow, (selected 9th overall), and his reps were originally seeking from DC, according to DC GM Jim Bowden's retelling of the negotiations in Washington Post writer Chico Harlan's "Nationals Journal" entry entitled, "More than 3,700 words from Jim Bowden on Aaron Crow", where Mr. Bowden ...

Catching Up With Aaron Crow...The Washington Nationals' #1 Pick That Wasn't...
Federal Baseball — ... Mr. Reiter starts by quickly recounting the Crow/DC Draft drama, adding only a new name to the story, that of Crow's agent, J.D. Smart, who is with the Hendricks Sports Management team, led by brothers Randal A. and Alan B. Hendricks, whose names are the only ones that had previously been mentioned in print discussions of the Nationals' negotiations with Crow and his representatives. The problem, according to Crow's side, is that the Nationals weren't willing to deal solely with Crow's team, instead insisting upon contacting ...

And Then There Were Three...The Washington Nationals Stay In The Race For Mark Teixeira...(It's Alright To Admit You Want To Be A National, Tex!!!)
Federal Baseball — ... What I'm really worried about is the negative press that could pour down upon the Nationals should they come up short in their efforts to acquire Teixeira, or if they should, say...come within $700,000 to $1 million dollars in their final offer and then balk...(ed. note - "That's an Aaron Crow reference, for any non-Nationals' fans who might be following along.")...or even worse, if Washington should not only fail to ink Tex, but also neglect to make any other real improvements on a roster that lost 102 games last ...

A Federal Baseball.com Special Comment: The Washington Nationals, Jim Bowden and Stephen Strasburg.
Federal Baseball — ... a deal wouldn't be reached and that he'd be better off reentering the '09 Draft, or the fact that Crow told Mr. SanInoncencio, and I quote, "I just think any of the other 29 teams would have handled it (the negotiations) a lot better." Mr Bowden says that Crow didn't sign, "...because we weren't given the dollars to finish that." And forget for a moment, the fact that Jim Bowden managed to get through an entire interview last summer with Washington Post writer Chico Harlan entitled, "More ...

Is signability a concern?
Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? — ... Now, let's assume that with the fourth pick, the Pirates take Aaron Crow, who refused to sign with the Nats last year for slot money for the ninth pick ($2.15 million) and supposedly turned down an offer from the Nationals for $3.5 million, supposedly about ...

Will The Washington Nationals Be Able To Sign A #1 Pick?
Federal Baseball — ... ...The deal Price received from Tampa Bay...$8.5 M guaranteed, $5.6 M signing bonus and inclusion on the 40-man roster...is essentially the same kind of deal that the Washington Nationals' '08 1st Round Draft Pick Aaron Crow, (selected 9th overall), and his reps were originally seeking from DC, according to DC GM Jim Bowden's retelling of the negotiations in Washington Post writer Chico Harlan's "Nationals Journal" entry entitled, "More than 3,700 words from Jim Bowden on Aaron Crow", where Mr. Bowden ...

Recur
Empyreal Environs — ... Provided they sign the talent they draft. The Nationals failed to sign their first pick of the 2008 draft, Aaron Crow. That was under Jim Bowden’s regime, however, so perhaps negotiations to secure ...

Six Things I Wish the Nationals Would Do
Mr. Irrelevant — With no end in sight for a hometown nine hurtling toward a second straight 100-loss season, here’s a short-term six-step plan to make it feel at least a little better. 1. Sign Strasburg. The deadline is midnight Monday, negotiations will go down to the wire and, especially after failing to sign Aaron Crow last year, they have to get it done. That is all. 2. Trade Dunn, Willingham and/or Guzman. All three vets are having career (or near-career) years, and their value will never be as high as it is right now. If you can ...

What Ryan Zimmerman And Drew Storen Have To Teach Stephen Strasburg And Aaron Crow.
Federal Baseball — ... ' unsigned '08 1st Round pick Aaron Crow with the 12th pick of the '09 Draft), have placed a $3.0M dollar offer on the table for the 22-year-old right-hander, formerly of the University of Missouri and the independent Ft. Worth Cats. Former DC GM Jim Bowden told the Washington Post's Chico Harlan, in a Nationals Journal post from August 16th '08 entitled, "More than 3700 words from Jim Bowden on Aaron Crow", that Crow's camp wanted $9 million dollars from the Nationals, and dropped the number to $4.4 million a little more than 15 minutes ...