Let's Look Ahead to the Off-Season

It remains an open question as to whether the Lerners will open their pocketbooks this off-season and acquire any free agent talent.

Mlbtraderumors.com has a list of the upcoming free agent class available here. So who do you think the Nats will go after, or may go after?

The Inexpensive and Likely Route
Despite the fact that the Nats will be paying more than $10 million next year for two first basemen, it's obvious that the biggest need will still be first base. My guess is the Nats go after someone like Richie Sexson. An inexpensive, low-risk option that could pay dividends. That's usually the route they're most comfortable taking.

I'd also look for them to re-sign Odalis to a 2-year deal, so that he can revert back to being terrible next season. And then go after another 'project' like Kip Wells, signing him to an incentive-laden deal.

The expensive and kinda scary route
Okay, let's be honest. If the Lerners do decide to spend some money this off-season, they're not going to break open the piggy bank and spend every dime. Teixeira is not coming to Washington. Boras will make sure the Yankees have the honor of overpaying for him.

If they do decide to pursue some more expensive options, I'm guessing the number one target will be Adam Dunn. Dunn will probably command close to $15 million a year, but he's a former Red. And we all know Bowden loves his former Reds. The upside to Dunn is that the Nats would finally have a legitimate clean-up hitter, which they've lacked since... well, ever. The downside is that Dunn strikes out a lot. I mean it. Like an awful lot.

If the Nats decide to go after a legit #1 starter, which I don't think they'll do, I'm guessing we'd wind up with Ben Sheets -- the Nick Johnson of pitchers. He's unquestionably talented, and unquestionably gets hurt a lot. Pencil him in for 15-20 starts per year. We'd have to overpay for him. And then we'd have ownership hold it over our heads for the next 3 years. "What do you want us to do? We signed Ben Sheets. Who could've foreseen that he'd be injured so much?"

That's Ralph's take on the off-season. What's yours?

And apologies that the blog has been silent for so long now. If anyone sees Willie the Groundskeeper or Mad Dog Flanders, please alert the proper authorities.

Dmitri cleared to play baseball again...

Updating yesterday's story, Jim Bowden said that Dmitri had been cleared to play ball and will be heading to Florida today.

While CNN and Fox were staking out Joe Biden's house, HalfStreetBlues was over at the Young compound and got this EXCLUSIVE PHOTO of Dmitri heading to Florida...

Don't worry guys, someone is taking care of your bats...

During the Nationals homestand, (during which they were 0-6 and outscored 17-49) there was this interesting picture on the cover of the free Nationals Inside Pitch.

You'll notice that the picture includes the bats of Nick Johnson and Dmitri Young. I guess since they aren't using them, the photographer thought he could.

The $10 million tandum is off for the rest of the year.

According to CBS Sportsline, Nick Johnson had season-ending surgery on his wrist on June 24. For now, he's just chillaxin' in California with the fam... Apparently, some folks believe that he will be ready to play by spring training...That's a bet I'm willing to take.

(As an aside, at the end of the year, Johnson will have missed 332 games in four years with the Nationals.)

And, Dmitri Young has been out since July 19. Originally, the intent was that he would get his diabeties (read: fatness) under control then go to Florida for rehab and eventually join the team. That's not going to happen. According to Acta, he's still in DC, because, according to Dmitri's agent, he's still too sick (read: fat) to travel.

This begs the question: What's the award you get when you're back to sucking the season after you win Comeback Player of the Year?

Nats Backing Away From "The Plan"

Nationals Farm Authority has an excellent analysis of this year's Nationals draft. It's a must read for any Nats fan. What NFA confirms is the worst fear of every Nats fan. Namely, that after two years of being told to buy into "The Plan", it is now clear that the organizaiton itself has no intention of following it.

According to NFA's analysis, the Nats spent about $5 million on this year's draft class, or roughly $3 million less than they did on last year's. And this is while letting our #1 pick go over a $700k difference in asking price. Furthermore, while the Nats cut their budget for draft picks, bottom-dwelling teams like the Kansas City Royals spent $10 million on their draft class. For you math majors at home, that means the Royals spent DOUBLE on their draft class than we did.

So the implication is clear. The Nats aren't going to spend money on their major league roster, AND they're not going to spend money on their minor league roster. Great news for all of us.

What Willie Doesn't Want You to Know

On behalf of Halfstreetblues.com, I'd like to apologize to our readers. You visit this site expecting to hear the truth about the Washington Nationals, and instead, you are getting spin. Since the early days of this blog, our own Willie the Groundskeeper has kept a list of the "3 Worst Nationals" -- and since the early days of this blog, he has refused to acknowledge the obvious and continues to leave Austin Kearns off the list.

Like Kearns apologists everywhere, Willie wants to overlook the poor state of things in right field at Nationals Park. And like Kearns' fans everywhere, I'm sure he weeped in his Cheerios this morning when he read that Austin has finally been dropped to 7th in the batting order. According to the Washington Post, Acta said that Kearns is "in a little bit of a funk right now." Really???? I never would have noticed.

For the year, our former 'clean-up' hitter is batting .218 with 6 home runs in nearly 300 at-bats. He's also struck-out 61 times, to go with his meager 32 walks. Are we being unfair to Austin for pointing this out? After all, reporters and team officials are quick to point out that he's a "gamer" who is always "working hard."

Of course, he's also batting .159 against lefthanders (and he's not a platoon player). He's batting .204 with runners on base, and .200 with runners in scoring position. Yessiree, that's good production from a #4 or #5 hitter.

Let's all look back to that cold February day last year, when our esteemed General Manager Jim Bowden announced the 3-year, $18 million deal to keep Austin in Washington. Here's what Jim said:

"He's only 26 years old. His best years are ahead of him. This is a player that is very strong, he has an ability to drive in runs, move the runners over, hit the ball out of the ballpark, and like I said, his best years are ahead of him."

Well said, Jim. Well said...

Disturbing...

This is the most disturbing piece of news I've seen in a while...

And what's more troubling, last night Jim Bowden dispatched front-office assistant José Rijo to Puerto Rico to see if they could sign him (and then get some money on the back end).

CC Getting a work out in Milwaukee...

Our friends at Wrigleyville23 got some love from the big boys on their analysis of the Brewers working Sabathia to the bone. He's thrown north of 1,000 pitches in his 9 starts, some of which have been blowouts.

McCain to announce VP on August 29.

According to The Politico, Senator McCain will announce his choice for VP on Friday, August 29.

The timing makes sense because it is the day after Sen. Obama will give his speech accepting his party's nomination.

Half Street Blues likes this guy:

Aaron Doesn't Give a Crow...

Crow and his agent think a good college baseball player deserves $4 million.

Too bad nobody else does

I'm with the Nationals on this one. (Assuming Bowden is telling the truth.)

The WashPo was told of the end of the negotiations at around 1:00 am. Here's what they say:

Randy Hendricks (Crow's agent) said in an e-mail early this morning that the Nationals offered $3.3 million, nothing higher. "We said no,"Hendricks wrote. "We would have signed for $4.0 million, and made them that offer. They said no."

Bowden provided a different account: Just 20 minutes before the deadline, Crow dropped his demands to $4.4 million, more than the $3.2 million bonus Baltimore gave to the fourth pick, Brian Matusz, the first pitcher taken.

"At the end of the day," Bowden said, "we stepped up and went to $3.5 million in an attempt to sign him, and unfortunately we couldn't get it done."

The team also included a major league contract as part of its final offer.

According to the Post, Aaron will be pitching for the Fort Worth Cats.

UPDATE: You Dead Dog blog writes an open letter to Jim Bowden and Aaron Crow. Apparently he hates both of them - Aaron only slightly less.

What the hell?

Watching Olympic baseball (USA v. Cuba). They are going in to the 11th inning tied 3-3.

And in accordance with Olympic rules, beginning in the 11th, the batting team STARTS THE INNING with runners on first and second, no outs, and they can start with any batter in the line-up irrespective of who made the last out.

This has now become SillyBall.

Belliard to join Manny in Hollywood?

That's the rumor.

They say there is a trade being worked out.

I say, "deal".

So much for respect...

It was just a week ago - just 7 days - the amount of time it took for the good Lord to create the Heavens and the Earth (and rest for a day) for the Nationals to go from threatening to be respectable to sucking again.

You'll remember that when we last talked about respectability, we learned your grandmother is not respectable:

But I thought that the Nationals, then-winners of 6 games that week, were into something good.

Boy was I wrong...

The Nationals of late have been worse than before. The past two games they looked(to paraphase Former NASCAR Chief Fred Thompson) "like a monkey f-ing a football."

The pitching has been awful, the infield has booted balls (or let them go through their legs), and everyone has just been throwing the ball around like a bunch of little leaguers.

Oh...and they still can't hit a curve ball.

Since the post on respectability - where we learned that your uncle also isn't respectable...

The Nationals are 0-7, have been outscored 49-11, and have been shut out 3 times. They are back on pace for 104 losses, and must win 19 of their remaining 40 games (READ: Not going to happen) to stay out of the 100-loss club.

As reference here are the final records for the past four seasons:

Nationals '07: 73-89
Nationals '06: 71-91
Nationals 05': 81-80
Expos '04: 66-94

Nothing to Highlight from Last Night

One of the more absurd things the Nats do before home games is show "highlights" from the previous night's game. Yes, this is an old tradition, but the Nats take it to a new level by showing them from games in which they LOST! They have the opportunity tonight to kill this practice because no self respecting franchise would show clips from last night's game.

Sadly, I realize that Lastings Milledge continuing his hit streak with a solid single up the middle will give them something to air. I also think Ryan Zimmerman made a nice back handed snag in warmups and Austin Kearns hit a ball just short of the warning track in BP so maybe there is more to show than I thought.

But seriously, think about it, when they show those clips, if someone didn't see the game the inevitable question they ask is, "So what was the score, did they win?" And it's embarrassing to have to relay, that no, in fact, they did not win.

So Mr. Video Guy, take the day off, because after a game in which the team gets blown out 12-0, one in which the pitcher was walked with the bases loaded, I don't think the fans would mind having that one minute to themselves. In that time they can dream about the free agents we could sign this winter, enjoy being in a Michael Phelps-free zone for a brief time, or wonder why that big red tent is blocking the view of the Capitol.

$50 million squandered...(and I'm not just talking about the Nationals)

Nationals owner Stan Kasten and DC Mayor Adrian Fenty at Opening Day bet

who can blow through $50 million faster. Surprisingly, Fenty won.

(Notice that the Mayor did not wear a baseball hat for the occassion.)

Mayor Fenty is admitting that his jobs program for DC kids is a disaster and cost the city taxpayers $50,000,000 over the past three months.

Holy Crapola.

According to the DC Examiner, the program paid youths to work, including many who never did and others who didn't work much.

Compare this to the Nationals payroll. Not too dissimilar. The Nationals most expensive player didn't work at all this year, and three of the next four spent (or are spending) considerable time not working.

So while I'm expecting that my Nationals tickets will go up next year to pay for Bowden's blunder, I can probably assume that my parking tickets will continue to rise to pay for Fenty's fiasco.

Bowden begs for his job...

The Nationals Enquirer has a post of Jim Bowden begging to keep his job.

Don't forget to vote in our poll. Flanders thinks Lenny Harris has to go.

And here is a pretty well written and intelligent piece on the Adam Crow goings-on...a little MLB Econ 101.