Close enough to head down for a game? We have a few WV posters here - Berkelynat for one.
I spend the occasional recreational weekend in Morgan County.
I need to start posting more again. I don't get mentioned as a WVer who posts here. But _sturt_ welcome to the site. This is the best forum community I have ever been a part of and despite the fact that I am less active than I used to be (working 48 hours a week and having a rather extravagant social life don't leave me much time to post) I can assure you that there is a plethora of good baseball minds out of the people here.
As for the franchise, I think all you need to know is that you are picking a really good time to sign on with this team. You, of course, already know about Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, and Ryan Zimmerman but this team is loaded with young talent in the minor league system. The Nats have been able to make up for the fact that a lot of free agents really didn't fit our needs over the last couple of years by drafting very well. This last draft gave us Anthony Rendon, who many considered the best prospect in the draft and a guy with the potential to be a five tool player and he currently projects to be our second baseman of the future. At that point we expect our current 2B Danny Espinosa (6th in ROY voting in 2011 with a real knack for clutch hitting) to slide over to his natural position of shortstop where Ian Desmond currently isn't cutting it. As of now many believe this team is a leadoff hitter and a starting pitcher or two away from being a real force in the NL East. The middle of the lineup is likely to be manned by Ryan Zimmerman, Michael Morse, Bryce Harper, and Jayson Werth in the near future and if we can find the guys to get on base ahead of them this team has some great offensive potential. As for pitching, Stephen Strasburg is obviously the staff ace but Jordan Zimmermann is a close second. He really came into his own last year as a pitcher and Roy Halladay described him as the pitcher with the most upside in all of baseball!!! John Lannan is probably our #3 and despite the fact that he can be hard to watch at times his career stats show that he is a very solid pitcher. If we sign another pitcher he will be right where he belongs as a VERY solid #4. Provided that happens, Chien-Ming Wang, Ross Detwiler, Tom Milone, and Brad Peacock will all battle for the 5th spot in the rotation with Tom Gorzelanny having an outside (though frankly pretty awful) chance at taking it down as well. All of those guys save Gorzelanny have major upside and Brad Peacock has top of the rotation upside. That's a really brief rundown and I recommend you read up a lot more on this team. That said, here is what many of us expect will be the future of this team (to some extent).
Batting Order
1. CF leadoff (not on the team yet, possibly B.J. Upton or Denard Span if either can be had in a trade)
2. SS Danny Espinosa
3. 3B Ryan Zimmerman
4. LF Bryce Harper
5. 1B Michael Morse
6. RF Jayson Werth
7. 2B Anthony Rendon
8. C Wilson Ramos/Derek Norris (but probably Ramos)
9. Pitcher
Rotation
1. Stephen Strasburg
2. Jordan Zimmermann
3. Brad Peacock
4. Matt Purke
5. John Lannan/Alex Meyer
