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Balester: "How do you think he fits?"Guy to his right: "I'm not sure, it's already pretty tight in here."It's gonna be a great season.
Balester: "How do you think he fits?"Guy to his right:"I'm not sure, it's already pretty tight in here."It's gonna be a great season.
He's trying to find a number that won't get snagged the next time there's a conflict.
finally, our asian scouting effort pays off
Then why not pick 64 or something?
Reserved for offensive guards.
Designated LHP Doug Slaten for assignment. [2/14]Signed CF-R Willy Taveras to a minor-league contract. [2/15]Signed LHP Ron Villone to a minor-league contract. [2/17]Outrighted LHP Doug Slaten to Syracuse (Triple-A). [2/18]Signed RHP Chien-Ming Wang to a one-year, $2-million base contract; placed RHP Jordan Zimmermann on the 60-day DL. [2/19]Wang won't be able to pitch in the majors until May, but sort of like the decision to sign Jason Marquis, it's an interesting tweak to the rotation picture for a team that might, as a result, achieve at least a better brand of baseball than last season's disasterpiece. Say Wang comes back and is semi-effective; that's a rotation with Marquis, John Lannan, and Wang up front, which at least doesn't sound like a joke. We'll see what happens with Stephen Strasburg, whether he's ready around the same time as Wang, or sooner. Scott Olsen seems likely to be in another one of the slots, assuming he proves he's healthy. That's probably your eventual quintet, but in the meantime there could be cut-down to two initial rotation-bid winners to none, selected from among the field of J.D. Martin, Craig Stammen, Matt Chico, Garrett Mock, Collin Balester, and Shairon Martis.The question is really whether or not Wang's finesse act will play if he's less than 100 percent recovered from last year's shoulder surgery. Even with a move to the easier league, he'll be joining a team with a less than scintillating defensive reputation beyond individual assets like center fielder Nyjer Morgan and third baseman Ryan Zimmerman. That said, there isn't a ton of cash in play, especially relative to the potential payoffs that might come in terms of the value the Nats can recoup in two ways beyond Wang's on-field achievements. First, if he shows some measure of health and effectiveness, they should be able to convert their ability to take this risk now into somebody else's prospect later. Second, perhaps more significantly, is the potential value Wang adds to the Nats' brand—a rotation that can keep them in games might at least earn some measure of faith from an understandably skeptical fan base. If there are fewer entertainment dollars to go around in today's day and age, something that helps the Nationals present a more competitive product in-game can't hurt when folks might decide to go to the shore or the Shenandoah than watch another 5-12 loss.As for signing Taveras, I guess I'm not too worked up one way or another. As a matter of former propinquity and lasting pity, I may care for the Nats more than any other NL ballclub (we all have to pick one, right?), I already had to live with the specter of Taveras playing for the A's. Taveras' career might seem to be well into Alex Sanchez/Miguel Dilone-level ignominy, but there are things he does reliably well (field, throw, run, bunt), and those are things that have value on a bench. As a result, Taveras might make the team without it really being all that noxious. The danger is that he might graduate to regular playing time, because this is a club depending on Nyjer Morgan's repeating last season's remarkable performance and on Elijah Dukes to graduate from his Mini-Milton Bradley career of season-abbreviating distractions and mishaps. However, they're taking similar NRI spins with Chris Duncan and Kevin Mench, neither of whom should be cause for any real enthusiasm, but who could surprise you just the same, while you can expect Willie Harris will be ahead of any of them on the depth chart. In the past, Jim Riggleman's favored an actively-used bench with good-hitting reserves; if he retains Taveras, it'll be with a few explicit uses in mind, with only the most disastrous contingencies involving a whole lot of at-bats.
