Washington Nationals:
Will the new look Nats make the power switch in their new park?
The Nationals enter this season with a team that, once again, has no standout hitter or pitcher. While the team is mediocre at best, there is a descent amount of young talent with the potential to have breakout years. Another thing to look forward to, as far as offense is considered, will be a new park that isn’t RFK Memorial Stadium. Since the Expos became the Nationals and moved to RFK three years ago, only San Francisco’s AT&T Park has yielded fewer homers than RFK - which averaged just 1.63 per game. This year the Nats move to the friendlier confines of brand new Nationals Park. Along with a new stadium comes two new players, via division mates, the New York Mets. I don’t care what anyone says; Washington totally stole Lastings Milledge. The guy has been one of the most talked about prospects in the past few years and will now finally get a chance to start at centerfield, something the Nationals and their fans are eagerly anticipating I'm sure. The other Met, catcher Paul LaDuca, might have something to prove to his former club, who acquired the guy he’s now replacing in Brian Schneider. Adding to the Mets angle, the Nat’s played spoiler last year beating New York in five of their last six games vs. each other, which contributed mightily to the Mets epic collapse. All of this should add some fuel to the Mets-Nats rivalry. Will all this new excitement translate into a successful season? Well…
Bats: On the rise. Regardless of how the Nats performed last season, it’s safe to say that everyone should see a little power boost now that they are playing in a smaller park. I mean, RFK was just big, old and disheveled; it could have easily been called Ted Kennedy Stadium. I believe that the team’s best hitters will benefit most from their new digs. 3B Ryan Zimmerman is the team’s brightest and youngest star. Over his first two full seasons he’s averaged over 20 homers, 100 RBI, while batting around .275. He’s been a doubles machine over the past two years, hitting over 40 in both, and in a smaller park a few of those doubles should clear the fence, giving Zimmerman 30 homer potential. The team has a big position battle at first, now having Nick Johnson back at full strength. It appears that Dmitri Young will get to start the season, due to his solid performance last year and new contract. The rest of the infield is pretty sub-par, yet versatile. As for the outfield, Austin Kearns is slightly above average at best. Willy Mo Pena exploded for the Nats towards the end of last year with 8 homers and 22 RBI in 37 games. If he could keep that up, he’ll be a solid bat at LF. A lot of focus will be centered on Milledge’s potential breakout. The chance of him becoming an automatic five-tool player is very slim, but at least now he’ll be given the chance to show what he’s capable of on a day-to-day basis. I see him finishing off the year with a 25, 80, .280 campaign.
Rotation: Ace-less. The Nat’s have a great anchor in Chad Cordero, but as far as their starters go, well, um…not so great. They have nothing close to an ace, in my opinion, and aren’t very solid thereafter. Shawn Hill, projected to start opening day, heads a very young and inexperienced rotation that does not yield one single season 10 game winner. Hill, a righty who just came off surgery on his non throwing shoulder, is a ground ball pitcher who sported a respectable 3.42 ERA during his brief stint last year, something the Nats would love to see him duplicate. John Patterson, the most experienced of the bunch, had one good year in 05 when he had 185 Ks and posted an impressive 3.13 ERA, but injuries have hampered his performance since. It looks like Jason Bergmann, John Lannan, and Matt Chico will round out the bottom. All are young and seem to have some potential, but it's too early too gage anything at this point.
Fantasy Favorite: Ryan Zimmerman. A resurgence at 3B in recent years, i.e. A-Rod, Wright, Cabrera, Ramirez and Braun, has caused the position to become a hot commodity in early draft rounds. Zimmerman shouldn’t go as early as these guys, but shouldn’t go too much later considering the huge drop off at the position after him. As I mentioned earlier, he’s bound to improve his already impressive numbers playing in a hitters park. He doesn’t have much speed – 11 bags in 06 dropped to 4 in 07 – he does however get on base and score runs, one shy of 100 last season. He is still very young, and while many will argue that he already has, everything is in place for Zim to really breakout this season.
Outlook: Not this year. The team definitely got better, at least as far as hitting is concerned. Unfortunately for the Nats, they play in the most competitive division in the NL. With the Mets and Phillies going at each others throats for a division crown, the Braves still hanging around and being competitive, and the Marlins due for their third World Series any day now – it’s going to be impossible for such a young, inexperienced team to compete, at least this year.
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