Washington Nationals March to .500: 2008 Edition

Ah, I love this yearly thread.

I don't see Schneider as a big loss -- he was a competent guy behind the plate, but was a black hole in the lineup, and was making wayyyyyy too much money.

That being said, I'd much rather have him than the player formerly known as Paul LoDuca.

In my time in DC I became a bit of a Nats fan. Perhaps it was because tickets were so cheap and readily available or maybe it's because they didn't ever show the games on TV due to disagreements between Comcast and MASN. The best part is that now that I've moved, I can be their only fan in Wisconsin. I'll be the one at the Brewers game yelling insulting things at Chad Cordero when he starts blowing the game (the sign of a true Nats fan).

Man, baseball can't start soon enough.

How about Brian Schneider and Ryan Church straight up for Lastings Milledge? Deal?

I'm terrified to see what kind of trouble Milledge and Elijah Dukes are going to get into together this year. I'm just glad my seats are in the upper deck: that way, I'll be safe when the inevitable melee breaks out.

Elijah Dukes is THE reason I intend on going to plenty of Nats games this year. You're guaranteed a baseball game, but you stand to get a ticket to an out-of-control brawl every night.

Oh come on now, Lastings Milledge never did a damn thing in NY. The worst thing he has ever been accused of was having consensual sex at 17 with a 15 year old girl. That, and producing Rap CDs.

Elijah Dukes on the other hand...

When the team acquired Dukes a couple months ago, one of the local writers did a scathing piece on him. My favorite nugget was that, not only does Dukes have 5 kids by 4 women, he had two sons born last summer within days of one another! That's just classic.

Anyway, the writer suggested that, every time Dukes hits a homer, the team should make a contribution to Planned Parenthood.

lolz Joe.

Bret Boone? For the life of me, I can't understand what Jim Bowden is doing with this team. He's a nightmare.

On a positive note, though, the opening day pre-sale begins tomorrow. Woohoo!

Definitely true, but it seems like the Nats have so many guys like that coming into camp this year. I'd like to see them doing a better job of developing young players, rather than trying to squeeze the last little bit of life out of guys like Christian Guzman and the Boone brothers.

Johnson apparently has been looking very good, and he's clearly the better player if healthy. But that's a pretty big if. Problem is, both guys are going to be relatively tough to trade. Johnson's got 2 years and over $10m left on his contract, and DaMeatHook has 3 years and over $15m (although I believe the third year is an option year based on PAs). That's a lot of money to pay either a really injury-prone guy who hasn't played in a year and a half or an aging guy with a sketchy past. But you're right -- there's not really room on the team for both of them.

Yeah, I think he'd only had one season of 400+ ABs before 2006 and that calamitous leg break. Ironically, he'd played that whole season without any problems, and was actually having a very good year. I was thinking that maybe his injury issues were behind him, and felt really bad for him. The "Nick Johnson facial hair watch" was always one of my favorite things about Nats games!

I guess I didn't mean to imply that the Nats don't have some good prospects. But spring training is the time where you get those guys an extended look, and I don't know how they're going to do that with all these non-roster invitees. I read yesterday that they have over 30 NRIs. Add that to their 40 man roster, and that's 70+ players trying to get playing time. With only 9 (maybe 18, on split-squad days) innings a day, I just don't see how anyone can get a real shot to show what they can do. (By comparison, my team, the Braves, has around 10 NRIs, I believe).

I guess my point is that every inning a washed up NRI like Odalis Perez throws is one less that one of the young hotshots can throw. And I'd rather see the kids getting those innings. (Of course, watch Odalis reinvent himself and make the team, thus making me look like a fool! I stand by my point, though).

Just ordered my opening night tickets. As luck would have it, the Braves are in town! Should be a great night!!

All my tickets are in hand! The season tickets came in a really nice little spiral-bound packet this year. Guess they're making sure everything's classed-up for the new park! Man....can't wait for the season to start...

Opening Night was really great. I was rooting for the Braves, obviously, but seeing the Nats win it on Zimmerman's walk-off was an incredibly cool moment! So, in the end, I couldn't complain -- it's something I'll never forget. It was also great to see Nick Johnson back in action. He's always been my favorite Nat, and I'm glad to see him healthy again, at last.

I have to admit to being a little underwhelmed by the new park. It's not bad, just not quite what I was expecting. But I didn't have much of a chance to look around (security was tight because of W, and it took forever to get in), and it was also not an ideal baseball night (damn cold). And it was PACKED. So I'm looking forward to checking it out more in-depth under more normal circumstances. It's certainly got all of the bells and whistles you want in a ballpark (particularly the jumbotron, which is incredible), and is a million miles better than RFK. I'm looking forward to spending many a summer evening there!

Also, credit where credit is due: Metro did a phenomenal job. I was back home in Alexandria by 11:30pm that night. Let's hope that continues.

Bad news: by coming into proximity of an object touched by Elijah Dukes, your wife is now pregnant.

I once one my 7 man fantasy league by not choosing anyone in the draft and not ever making any roster changes. It was awesome.

Bowie does have a great stadium. Does it still have that Chick-fil-A out in the parking lot?

As for the Nats...I've been to I think 4 or 5 games so far this year, and they're just not a very good team. The starting pitching has actually been pretty good, which is a big surprise, but the pen has been shaky, and the offense is absolutely atrocious. I had to know just how bad, so I looked up the stats: As a team, the Nats are hitting .229 with a .310 OBP and, most embarrassing of all, a .334 slugging percentage. Yikes.

If the Nats could play the Braves 75 out of 162 games, Washington would have an excellent chance at putting together a decent record.

I don't know why, but DC has kicked our ass around for the past few years.

4 of their 26 wins this year came against Atlanta. Plus beating the Yankees and Blue Jays 2/3 each.

How do you Nats fans cope with this team? When the Bears were bad it was only 16 games. You have to go through 10 times that.

Well, when I want to feel good about an area pro baseball team, I usually watch the Orioles. As a Nats 'fan,' I haven't been expecting them to be good for a while, being a young team and all, and they seem to have been improving a little bit as time marches forward, but not nearly enough. They're asymptotically approaching mediocre.

And to be honest, going to the games is a lot of fun even if they do lose a lot. Also, it's hard to get too broken up about anything around here that isn't the Skins or Caps. Those are our 'real' teams.