he may be an upgrade but only ever so slightly

under the pitcher that doubles as a team bus.

Then we’d have a place for Dunn.

Our starting OF will, absent any trades, remain Dukes/Milledge/Kearns with Harris as the 4th OF (even though Harris ought to be the starting LF…he held the job down fabulously last season when injuries set in). Johnson and/or Willingham are gone for sure. I have no idea how the calculations are being made in the Nats FO, but I would think that Johnson’s on the block first, with Willingham as the backup/sub/bench bat.

In a perfect world, the Nats would trade Kearns and Johnson for a couple of young mid-level prospects, and run an outfield of Harris/Milledge/Dukes with Dunn at 1B and a healthy Johnson as the bench bat/sub along with Belliard. You would actually have two genuinely threatening power hitters in Dukes and Dunn plus a guy who can take at walk or dink a hit pretty much at will in Johnson…when he’s not slicing open his wrist sheath whilst taking practice swings, that is.

As dumb as it sounds, a Washburn trade with the Mariners is suddenly sounding…plausible.

He had played nearly the entire 2006 season without injury, and had put up a GREAT line (.290/.428/.520 in 500 AB, good for an OBP heavy OPS+ of 148). Then, in mid-September, he was backpedaling out into the RF foul line area to chase a pop-up when he crashed into Austin Kearns, who was simultaneously charging in to get the same ball.

It’s the most sickening collision I have EVER seen on a baseball field. Seriously, it’s right up there with the Joe Theismann/LT football tackle, or the Beltran/Cameron head-impact. You could actually SEE Nick’s leg being snapped in half, and he was on the field for 15 minutes, pretty much bawling like a child like anyone would.

And there you had it: it was clear that God just hated this extremely nice, extremely talented man. Finally, it looked like NJ was going to get in a full season without freak injuries, and prove what a great non-trad 1B he was: no overwhelming HR numbers, but solid SLG, excellent defense, and ridiculously great on-base skills. And finally he proved he could be healthy! And then he SNAPS HIS LEG LIKE A FUCKING MATCHSTICK. He missed all of 2007 recovering from it. Played fine for the first part of 2008, but then he tore a tendon sheath in his wrist swinging a bat (!) and was gone again. I repeat: God has for whatever reason decided to personally pwn this poor man.

He’s the best player on the team.