Yes, heads should roll

http://dcprosportsreport.com/2009/02/yes-heads-should-roll.html

Post columnist Tom Boswell is on the warpath this morning, demanding scalps for the latest Nats fiasco -- giving a $1.4 million signing bonus to a Dominican Republic baseball player who lied about his age. The questions surrounding Esmailyn Gonzalez [a.ka. Smiley -- or Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo, his real name] and who was in on the scam should have profound repercussions for the Nats. 
Let me confess my bias up front. I'm a former Cincinnati Reds fan. I loved Jose Rijo, a great Reds pitcher who was MVP of the 1990 World Series team. And I've admired GM Jim Bowden, who I thought did a great job with limited resources in Cincinnati. I've consistently defended Bowden from his many critics. I've pointed out that he inherited  a bare cupboard from the Expos and that Major League Baseball and then the Lerner family have been cheap, focused mostly on saving money. Many of the problems with the team are not, I've argued, the fault of Jim Bowden. I still believe that. 
But this is different. Clearly, Jose Rijo, a Dominican who is in charge of the Nats operations in the baseball-crazy Caribbean country, is either corrupt or far too gullible to draw a paycheck from a MLB team. The case for firing Rijo is airtight. If Rijo wasn't in on the scam, he should have known that a scam existed. His time with the club should end and I don't see how any other MLB team would hire him after this.
But what about Bowden. Boswell as some thoughts:

Watch the standings. The case for canning Bowden is now sufficient, but not conclusive. But wins may yet save him. As long as Bowden comes out of the Smiley case looking like a sucker, but not a flimflam man, then promising young players with his stamp on them -- like Lastings Milledge, Jesús Flores, John Lannan and Elijah Dukes -- may yet vindicate him.

"I'm extremely angry, just as mad as everybody else," Bowden said yesterday. "None of us knew. We were all fooled, including MLB [which vets date of birth and identities in the Dominican]. And our team was defrauded."

Others were fooled. But it was Bowden's job to sign off on whether Smiley was worth $1.4 million. No matter who fooled whom, when you double the next highest bid, you look like the pigeon in the poker game.

I think that's right. Bowden and Rijo go back many years and it is certainly possible that Bowden felt perfectly safe trusting Rijo to be honest and/or diligent. If that's the case, it's a grievous, but not unforgivable error. But an error he won't overcome unless the team, specifically Bowden's more high-profile acquisitions, show improvement this season. 

Stan Kasten and the Lerners would be perfectly within their rights and the bounds of reason to fire Bowden now. A case can also be made for retaining Bowden and seeing how his other moves pan out this year. I lean [though not much] towards the latter, but this is it for Bowden. 

Few Nats fans have had more patience with Bowden than myself. Even I'm tapped out.