**I’ve added a link to a column by Boz in tomorrow’s WaPo about the resignation below**

After a relatively quiet few days without a whole lot going on in Nationals camp save for some encouraging signs from the rotation on the field, Frowny-gate raised its head once again. After what, two weeks of speculating and reading about the whole mess down in the Dominican Republic and its implications for an ongoing FBI investigation, the hammer finally came down. Jim Bowden resigned this morning (Sunday), citing a desire not to be a distraction to the Nationals while maintaining his innocence. Not successor has been named, but I would imagine Assistant GM Mike Rizzo will at the very least be named interim GM until the FO decides where they go from here.

I titled this post The Acceleration Effect because that’s precisely the phenomenon that has typified Frowny-gate. From the moment it was discovered that Frowny was in fact not who he said he was, the wheels starting turning all around baseball and the media putting pieces together. Irregardless of whether one thinks that’s right or wrong, it is the process whereby embarrassments evolve into scandals and career-ending discoveries with increasing momentum until they can no longer be contained or satisfactorily denied. To date, nothing concrete has been shown linking Bowden with the illegal kickbacks that are at the heart of the FBI’s investigation. However, Bowden has too many links to other, dirty baseball executives for them all to be coincidence. Besides, coincidences are merely the mind’s way of trying to explain connections that appear random, but are in fact linked quite solidly.

So, in just a few weeks we’ve gone from the embarrassment of the Nationals’ system in the D.R. and the general anger felt in the FO for spending twice as much as necessary to sign a prospect that was not who he said he was, to the GM resigning amid rumors that he was involved in illegal kickbacks to Dominican recruits and their street bosses, allegations which are being investigated by the FBI. That’s a huge leap in severity, but the two are of course probably linked (the executives were either too incompetent or too crooked to find out Frowny’s real identity, which lead to a huge signing and probably a nice kickback for Frowny’s street boss manager.)

At any rate, we’ll see whether Bowden is truly linked in the federal investigation, and saying that the ownership pushed him out or that Stan pushed him out is just speculation. However, my gut feeling, based on nothing concrete, is that Stand and the Lerners are already thinking three or four moves ahead and see the writing on the wall. Even if Bowden was cleared of any wrongdoing tomorrow by the feds, his credibility as a responsible GM has been undermined too much now. Whether they can trust him or not, is impossible to tell from the outside. But certainly, they sat down with him yesterday and went through the scenarios, including the ones that ended in his firing and his resignation.

My hope now is that the Nats can move forward, whether with Mike Rizzo or somebody else, and keep making progress towards building a playoff-caliber team in seasons to come. My gut also tells me that this process would have taken longer with Bowden as GM, but again, that’s just my opinion.

Click here to read Thomas Boswell’s Reaction to Bowden’s Resignation

Click here to read the WaPo’s story of Bowden’s resignation.

Click here to read SI.com’s article on the resignation.

Click to read Bowden’s statement

Click here to read Stan Kasten’s statement.