I'm looking at the pre-season depth charts and projected starters for all 30 teams, and I keep coming back to the same thought: the Washington Nationals are going to be God-awful.This team finished 71-92 last season, dead last in the NL East, 7 games worse than the 4th place Marlins, 26 games back of the 1st place Mets. And that was with Alfonso Soriano. The Nats lost him along with Jose Vidro, Jose Guillen, Ramon Ortiz, and Marlon Byrd. And the man with four body-part names, Tony Armas, remains a free-agent.
In '07 the Mets are back and just as good as last year. The Phillies added pitching and didn't lose any offense. The Braves are about the same, and the Marlins are a year older and wiser. Then there's poor, poor Washington. At least when they were the Expos, they had marquee players. Nobody came to their games, but they had players other teams wanted.
If I had to set the Nats' opening day lineup (and I'm glad I don't), it would look something like this...
SS Felipe Lopez - 44 steals in '06, but 126 K's
3b Ryan Zimmerman - stud, but struck out 120 times last year
1b Nick Johnson - has never appeared in 150 games in a season
RF Austin Kearns - good numbers last year in first, full, healthy year
C Brian Schneider - average season: .255, 9 HR, 48 RBI
LF Ryan Church - never had 275 AB's in season, 28 years old
CF Alex Escobar - 0 AB's in '05, career high 152 in '04
2b Bernie Castro - 190 career AB's, turns 28 this season
And then there's their starting rotation...
John Patterson - bad forearm limited him to 40 IP last year, 185K in '05
Mike O'Connor - sent up and down in '06, finished with 1.3K:BB ratio
Billy Traber - 10-12 career record with 5.57 ERA in 48 games (26 starts)
Shawn Hill - 45 career IP, 1-3 w/4.66 ERA in '06
Jason Bergmann - 84 career IP, 37 relief appearances, 7 career starts
New skipper Manny Acta recently said they're going to take it slow with O'Connor, who's still recovering from elbow surgery, and likely won't be ready for the start of the season. He also said he's looking at about 10 different guys to fill out the 2 through 5 slots in the rotation, behind Patterson, who's said to be fully recovered. If there are 10 possible guys to fill out those 4 spots, it really means there are no sure fire guys after Patterson.It would be one thing if this team was filled with youthful inexperience like the Marlins. But this team isn't particularly young. It's filled with a lot of mid-to-late-20-somethings who have yet to accomplish much of anything at the big league level.
That, combined with their tough division, is the recipe for a long, long season in our nation's capital. And that is something Democrats and Republicans can agree on.
3 comments:
They are going to lose all fan interest before they even get into the new stadium, but then I guess the new ownership is waiting til then to make a fresh start.
the new ownership, unfortunately, may have to start from scratch because if their depth chart going into '07 is any indicator, they don't have many "on the cusp" guys waiting in the minors right now either.
it may be a few years before this team is even moderately competitive again.
I predict a wild, Oriole like spending spree on a lot of mediocre but somewhat big named players before the new stadium opens in '08. Its not like theyre in a small market, and they have to at least pretend like they want to put a good product in the new stadium that the majority of people in DC seem to hate.
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