"The team that might have been"

[houston-nat]

Maybe you guys have seen this before, since it's from April, but this is UmpBump.com's 2008 Washington Nationals roster "if the Expos/Nationals had had a real owner instead of being owned by the other 29 teams from 2002-2006 [and] if MLB had hired a competent general manager rather than Omar Minaya." The roster is entirely players who have been solidly under team control since 2002.

Starting Lineup

CF Grady Sizemore
SS Orlando Cabrera
RF Vladimir Guerrero
LF Jason Bay
2B Brandon Phillips
3B Ryan Zimmerman
1B Brad Wilkerson
C Gregg Zaun

Starting Rotation

SP Javier Vazquez
SP Chris Young
SP Jake Westbrook
SP Cliff Lee
SP Ted Lilly

Bench

OF Lastings Milledge
IF Maicer Izturiz
OF/IF Marlon Anderson
C Jesus Flores
OF Endy Chavez

Bullpen

CL John Rauch
RP Chad Cordero
RP Luis Ayala
RP Jesus Colome
RP Saul Rivera
RP Ray King
RP Chris Schroeder

With the obvious exception of the bullpen, that's one hell of a team. In fact, UmpBump says:

As you can see, this team would easily be the best team in the National League....In my view it would be a team that could easily reach and win the World Series.

Wow. He has a point.

[mikehughes]

Many of that would never of happened, for one Zimmerman most likely never would of been ours because that looks like a team that would never have that high of a draft pick
Milledge would be possible since Schneider and Chruch were Expos, Flores most likely would of been around to. Cordero may not of been here, I think he was a early first round pick to.

[cmdterps44]

Yea its fun thinking about the what ifs

[ronnynat]

Well, two guys we definitely wouldn't have are Zimmerman and Milledge.

[ronnynat]

We also drafted Russell Martin back in 2000, but he never signed.

[Air Zimmerman]

We also drafted Russell Martin back in 2000, but he never signed.

Flores > Martin.

p.s., this thread is kicking a dead horse.

[2k6nats]

Flores > Martin.

p.s., this thread is kicking a dead horse.

It beats a "DUKES IS A FREAK!" thread anyday.

[Nat of the Living Dead]

That line-up is sort of depressing, but at the same time, if they did have that line-up, they probably wouldn't have left Montreal.

[MrMadison]

Flores > Martin.

p.s., this thread is kicking a dead horse.

no less of a dead horse than anything you say about Kearns.

[UMDNats]

no less of a dead horse than anything you say about Kearns.

or dukes or milledge or belliard or randy moss or michael vick

[Coladar]

Two problems: You can't keep all said players and then include players that came from trades after they left, etc. Like another poster said, Zimmerman would have never been drafted by the club. This is *not* the team that we'd have had if not for MLB and the GM. This is a "what if we could have the best players from the past six years" team. Any other ball club could do the same thing this fellow did and they would have equally impressive rosters.

Second, what on earth is the payroll for this team? Great, we "could" have had said team. Good luck finding a club to have all those players on the payroll at the same time...