Not fun from any perspective

Being a Washington Nationals fan these days requires a healthy dose of perspective.

Perspective, though, is no fun. In fact, it stinks.

If you waited 33 years for baseball to return to Washington, you probably figure you have all the perspective you need. But now the Nationals say you have to wait a little longer to see good baseball (for which, actually, you’ve waited a lot longer than 33 years).

Whether you agree or disagree with the Plan — the blueprint being followed by the Lerner family and Stan Kasten — it is what it is, as they like to say in the business. Which means more pain and less fun before there is more fun and less pain.

To second-guess the blueprint, you have to go back to the first offseason of the Lerners and Kasten two years ago. At that point, they had the chance to rebuild a depleted farm system and at the same time plug enough holes on the major league roster with short-term free agents to make the product entertaining. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Granted, the Lerners put millions into upgrading the new ballpark, and that was money well spent. And they have spent money upgrading the farm system, hiring more scouts and signing their draft choices, including a creative deal to pay more for pitcher Jack McGeary in last year’s draft.

But the Lerners bought a major league team two years ago in a town that put up more than $600 million for a ballpark, and the decision not to spend more money on the major league payroll was a mistake in judgment. They underestimated the unique situation here in the District, where a damaged fan base had to root for another city’s team for more than three decades, which is kind of like sitting at the kids’ table every year for Thanksgiving.

To ask that fan base to wait even a little longer showed a lack of understanding of the state of baseball in the D.C. area.

If the Lerners didn’t want to spend the money right from the start to field a major league team, maybe they should have bid for the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, the new Atlantic League team in Waldorf.

This is not a criticism of the Plan. The jump from 30th to ninth in Baseball America’s farm system ratings indicates the Nationals are headed in the right direction in developing young talent. It’s just that the franchise could have used a little insurance.

No team seemed better at player development than the Atlanta Braves when Kasten was their president, winning 12 division titles, five National League pennants and one World Series.

In Kasten’s first three years in Atlanta, those teams had records of 54-106, 63-97 and 65-97 before turning it around in 1991, winning the pennant and never looking back.

The Nationals went 73-89 in Kasten’s first full season here last year, and they likely are looking at another losing season. Perhaps a third next year, followed by a meteoric rise?

“Comparisons like that are by definition imperfect because there are never situations that are the same,” Kasten said. “Having said that, I think they were a little farther advanced in Atlanta in their minor leagues. Players like Tom Glavine, David Justice and Jeff Blauser were there. …

“But the similarities are there in an organization that had to change its philosophy and start building from the bottom up,” Kasten said.

Nobody knows more about the construction of the Braves than the man who was in the front office as general manager from 1985 to 1990 and has been in the dugout since — future Hall of Famer Bobby Cox.

He believes the right path is through player development. And he never said anything about perspective when the Braves were in town recently.

“The key word is patience,” Cox said. “We had a great farm director in Paul Snyder. … It’s hard for the house to stand up without a good foundation. You have to build it pretty strong if you can. If you are patient and make the right decisions, it can pay off for quite a while.

“There is some luck involved. Nothing is for sure. Look how long Tampa Bay has been at it. They had all the No. 1 picks. And they are just now for the first time starting to win.”

Wow. No one wants to consider that perspective — that the decisions being made won’t pay off. If that happens, there might not be much of a fan base left.