Happy Birthday to Us!

Turns out we're not dead, just extremely lethargic. Plus, a competently run winning organization just doesn't pique our morbid fascination the way the old Trader Jim/Sideshow Stan carnival used to do. Still, never let it be said that we won't bestir ourselves for a little self-congratulatory back-patting.

Nats Triple Play premiered this very day in 2005, and honestly it sorta marked the tail-end of that inaugural team's magical run. So... yeah... let's not talk about that. Here's to hoping this year's second half is considerably less anti-climactic. No promises that we're going to be particularly more active, but be assured that we are watching, and waiting with bated breath to see who gets to be the 2012 version of Preston Wilson and Junior Spivey. (My money was on Marlon Byrd and Orlando Hudson, so I'm out of the betting pool.)

So, once again, happy birthday to us, and happy all star break to the NL East-leading Washington Nationals.

Nate's Nats Notes - 11/2/11

If you're reading this (which I suppose you pretty obviously are) you may have noticed that Nats Triple Play went through some fairly significant content generation droughts in 2011. Some of that is the inevitable impact of running out of new things to say about this team after 6+ years, but more often it went something like:

1. Read/hear/see something interesting about the Nationals.
2. Think of an interesting (to me anyway) angle, start drafting a blog post.
3. Life Happens.
4. Issue is no longer relevant/I'm no longer interested/someone else has covered it better.

That happens a lot, and by and large I'm ok with it. There are a lot of great people (amateur and professional) out there writing about the Nationals and that's a good thing for the team, for fans and for baseball coverage in DC. Still, there are times like now when there are a lot of little Nats-related stories going around that don't merit a full-blown post, but I do want to get out of my head and in to a computer.

That's where Nate's Nats Notes comes in. Hopefully these will be catch-all/dumping grounds for smaller or tangentially-related Nationals news. And they won't always be from me, they could just as easily be Dave or Watson's Nats Notes, but that's less alliterative. So without further ado:


Rob Dibble Has Suffered For His Art - I don't like Rob Dibble. Didn't like the hiring, didn't care for his color work, am glad he's no longer associated with the team in any official capacity. For all those reasons, I hesitate to highlight his latest blowhard rantings, but there's just so much classically idiotic Dibble in there.  As for the assertion that his time as the MASN Nationals color guy was "the worst two years of my life", I can only say, "Right back at ya, asshat."

Players Love D.J. - I'm glad that Ryan Zimmerman and Drew Storen are glad that the Nationals are bringing back Davey Johnson to manage in 2012. It would certainly be bigger news if they weren't happy, and it would be a thumping great read if they publicly said they weren't happy, but I'm happy they're happy. Does this happiness mean the RZA is more likely to sign an extension this offseason? There's your story.


Bryce Harper is Going All Bryce Harper on the AFL - After a shaky intro to AA, a late season hamstring injury and a slow start in the Arizona Fall League, there was a teeny tiny bit of walking back the timeline on all-everything OF prospect Bryce Harper. Predictably he's now punishing pitchers in MLB's finishing school to the tune of .290/.357./.613 and once again generating talk about the date of his 2012 MLB debut. Whether he makes the team out of Spring Training or not, Harper's progress will impact the Nationals' search for a center fielder this offseason.

Turning Taiwanese, I Really Think So - And finally, a Michael Morse double is a no-doubter in any time zone. Ah, baseball.

The Time Has Come

I'm a fairly lazy custodian of our "Nat(m)osphere" sidebar. I tend to stick with what I know and what I like. Hey, it's our sidebar. And, as previously noted, I'm a lousy housekeeper. What that means in practice is that I'm slow to update when new bloggers join the party and even slower to delete those who may have signed off or gone off the rails.

Every so often though, something gets my attention and reminds me to clean house. In this instance, it was this piece of whiny, self-important BS from Nats320. SBF's place on our blogroll is a function of longevity, not quality. As of now, that's no longer good enough. The team is in a downward spiral, our best pitcher is laid up for the next year, our best slugger is about to take his show on the road, and Jeff is incensed by the inequitable distribution of swag?

To make matters worse, this is the stuff that gets picked up and rebroadcast to the wider web. DC baseball fans have a fairweather, frontrunning image problem that Nats320 is feeding directly into. The Nationals Enquirer has nailed the only possible response to the substance of the post, but I'm using it as an opportunity to tidy up the ol' blogroll. I'm confident that SBF neither wants nor needs my link; I doubt there's much overlap in our audiences.

In place of Nats320 I'll be adding long overdue links to Nationals Fangirls and Nats Inquisition, and removing a few of the older, comatose if not dead links. The link to Nationals Farm Authority will stay until I've completed all five stages of the grieving process. I'm still bargaining. If I'm still missing anybody, feel free to leave your info in the comments, though it may be another 6 months until I get around to doing this again.

And finally, in case you were wondering, Ryan Zimmerman can't hear you.

Return of the Stras

Per Nats' Director of Baseball Media Relations Mike Gazda:

[T]here are plenty of good seats available for Stephen Strasburg's start tomorrow vs. FLA... [T]here are a lot of fans who have been shutout from seeing Strasburg pitch (because of sellouts), but they have a chance to get tix tomorrow since he is coming off the DL and word has been slow to spread.

If they're pushing this hard, they're probably 99.44% sure that Stephen won't be scratched in warm-ups in favor of Miguel Batista this time. Mister Irrelevant, who's also hawking tickets to the game, notes that Strasmas ticket prices are slowly returning to normal. So this would be a good time to see the phenom in action. Consider the word spread.

In other news...

These Things Have a Way of Working Themselves Out: Detwiler to the DL, Stammen to the 'pen, and all of a sudden the Nats' glut of starting pitching has thinned considerably. Note that thinned is not a synonym for improved.

Five Fighting For Future: The Zucker Man has his list of 5 Nats to watch in the season's waning months. For my money, the only truly interesting name of the list is Michael Morse, who has about 8 weeks to play himself out of a career as a platoon outfielder/bench bat. I'm working on a little piece for later this week about the great Morse/Bernadina/Maxwell cage match shaping up in August and September.

The Spirit is Willing, But the Ham is Weak: Speaking of the outfield, Josh Willingham's 2nd half slump (and it's potential impact on the lineup) has become a topic of muted concern. In truth though, the Hammer's "slump" from his hot start dates to the beginning of June, and shows no sign of letting up. If Adam Dunn is playing himself into a multi-year contract, Josh could be playing himself out of one, and putting LF back in play for the Nats in 2011 and beyond. Hmmm... do we know any free agent left fielders?

Dear National Media, Please Go Away: There was a time when I would have welcomed any mention made of the Nats from beyond the boundaries of the DMV. But we have Strasburg now, so I'm over the desperate need for attention phase. Now I'm firmly with Harper in the "stop plugging my team into your generic story generator" camp. Mike Rizzo turns Matt Capps into Wilson Ramos and change and unloads the Guz, but "loses" the trade deadline because he didn't jettison Adam Dunn for Daniel Hudson and a handful of magic beans? Spare me. Exactly who are all these people that have it on good authority that the Nats won't offer Dunn arbitration and "risk" paying him $15-16M next season? Go bother some other mid-market team. Isn't there a Prince Fielder to the Red Sox non-rumor you people should be busy inflating?

Matt & Nate: Coming Out of the Booth

That's right, we're sellouts. The Nats reeled us in with a "Blogger Day" and cushy seats in the mile-high press box. Also, Q&As with Drew Storen, Josh Willingham, Jim Riggleman and Stan Kasten. We'll chime in if anything interesting happens here, otherwise expect a write-up of thoughts later tonight.

8:20 pm: Mike Leake is clearly a better pitcher than Stephen Strasburg.

8:30: I feel that Luis Atilano learned the wrong lesson re: pitch counts from Livan's start last night. 80 pitches through 5 innings is not a goal.

8:45: Clippard, Storen and Capps pitched last night. Slaten, Walker, Burnett tonight? Do not want.

8:50: I'm sure it would be tremendously difficult, but can someone please teach Adam Dunn to push a bunt down the 3rd base line?

8:55: Joey Votto needs more stick'um.

9:05: Apparently the goal for the evening was to get Atilano's ERA under 4.25. Mission accomplished.

9:10: What is it about Willie Harris's slash line that makes him the automatic first pinch hitter off the bench?

9:20: If you're not part of the solution, you're Tyler Walker.

9:24: It's the Joe West show, folks.

9:28: Cheer up, Wil. Some days you're the pigeon, some years you're the statue.

9:34: Why Miguel Batista? Why not?

9:45: Zimmerman walking - Good. Dunn hitting w/ men on base? Bad. (See above re: bunting down the 3rd base line.)

9:54: No warning to Batista? Joe West is a jackass.

10:02: I have absolute confidence in the Nats' ability to come back from this. ::weeps::

Send a Blogger to Camp

I've been remiss in failing to note the arrival of a distinguished new member of the Natmosphere. Mark Zuckerman is a familiar name to long-suffering Nats fans, as he's been covering the team for that other Washington daily paper for nigh unto five seasons. Of course, that other paper has decided to reinvent itself as a conservative Politico (redundant?) so Mark finds himself adrift among the basement dwellers.

In other words, Mark Z's got a brand new bag. A link to his NATS INSIDER blog (ohh... original) is off to the right. Of course, as a newly-minted freelancer Mark's got to pay his own freight, which is where we come in. In the interest of having someone other than Phil Wood, Rocket Bill Ladson and the Post's newest intern/mailroom clerk/Nats beat scribe reporting from Viera, Zuckerman is soliciting contributions to fund his vaca... coverage of Spring Training. This is what Bob Levey should have been doing all these years.

There's no question that this is a worthy cause. Not Haiti-worthy, certainly, but for a fan of the Nationals and intelligent baseball coverage, important. So give a few bucks in order that somebody with a BBWAA card can ask Riggleman why in God's name he wants to use Ian Desmond as a utility infielder. Click here to contribute.

Now, an editorial aside. Sending Mark Zuckerman to Viera is all fine and good. FJB can tell you why in breath-taking detail. Access is good. But even better is a willingness to ask the questions fans actually want answered without fear of losing that access. Maybe Mark the blogger will find himself more free to do that than Mark the Times reporter. I don't know. What I do know is that given the choice I'd rather raise money to send Chris Needham, Steven Biel and Brian Oliver to Space Coast Stadium. Stupid, pesky real jobs get in the way of all my best ideas.

A Slow Sports News Day in DC?

New Redskins head something or other?

Wizards star point guard indefinitely something something?

Oh yeah, Nats officially introduce Matt Capps... remember him?

Timing may not be everything, but jeez... the team couldn't wait for Alex Ovechkin, Art Monk and John Thompson, Jr. to get in a 3-car pileup before scheduling this press conference? Capps is a signing Mike Rizzo can actually be proud of; if they wanted to smuggle someone in under cover of darkness they could have pushed back the Pudge Rodriguez presser.

That said, kudos to Nats media relations guru Mike Gazda for setting up a conference call between Capps and pasty, basement-dwelling internet scribes. Though NTP was not directly represented (the terms of our collective work release limit our access to unmonitored phone calls) the event is well-documented here, here, here and elsewhere across the Natmosphere.

Good on the team for allowing this kind of access to the unwashed masses, and good on Matt for enduring being the third (or fourth) biggest DC sports story of the day with evident good humor.

Dealing at Gunpoint

If the Nats don't deal Nick Johnson and Josh Willingham by 4 pm today they'll never be good in our lifetimes.

That my be the dumbest thing I've written in 4 years of blogging the Nats (feel free to slog through the archives to confirm) but it's also the prevailing sentiment across the Natmosphere. If that feels familiar, it's because that's been the prevailing sentiment every July 31st since Bowden didn't move Alfonso Soriano to Minnesota for P Kevin Slowey and OF/DH Jason Kubel. (I assume FJB would have approved that deal because it obviated the need for the Olsen/Willingham trade two years later.) Nats fans have gotten pretty good at seeing doom in the failure to move every marginally tradeable player.

Now, because other teams have gotten good hauls for Cliff Lee, Matt Holliday, Freddy Sanchez and George Sherrill, it stands to reason that the Nats are once again suckers for "sitting out" the trading action. Nevermind that the Nats don't have a Lee, Holliday, Sanchez or Sherrill (or for that matter an Adam LaRoche, Ryan Garko, Jack Wilson or Tony Pena.) The Nats should be out there giving away players for something, anything, because gosh darnit they're just terrible and the only way to get better is the Twins/Marlins/A's approach of churning veterans for prospects.

I've been accused of making excuses for the front office because I honestly believe that the trade deadline, for all the rumors, innuendo and supposition, is a black box and you can only evaluate the deals that were made, not the deals that never came together. That's not to say that GMs can't screw up. Dmitri Young should have been traded at the deadline in '07. If Mike Rizzo is running around telling people that Josh Willingham is untouchable, that's just, to quote our President "stupid." If, on the other hand, Rizzo is asking for a "Matt Holliday-lite" package and just not getting it, that's just good GMing. Players are happy to take advantage of career years, GMs should too.

Nick Johnson is an entirely different case. A potential free agent with a medical history longer than his stat sheet, Nick has seen both his power and his defense decline this summer. Yes he still gets on base and hits for average, but he's looking more and more like Sean Casey every day. Nats fans like to remember Nick as he was in 2005/06, but opposing GMs are looking at a two-month rental of OBP and a left-handed bench bat. Still, there comes a point when the best offer out there simply ain't good enough. Ryan Tucker? Aaron Thompson? They may have nice pedigrees, but the numbers are less than impressive. With no heir apparent at 1B (Adam Dunn is not an option on a serious team) I'd rather give Nick the two year deal he wants and hope that one of the kids comes through in time for 2011.

Deal Joe Beimel and Willie Harris. This team has a solid history of turning relievers (Stanton, Rauch, Ayala) and bench bats (Daryle Ward, Marlon Anderson) into interesting, marginally useful prospects. But spare me the hysterics if Johnson, Willingham and Dunn are all still here tomorrow morning.

Object Lesson for the Day

When you do something just for the sake of doing something, you end up with Jeff Francoeur or Yuniesky Betancourt. Change does not equal Progress.

(For an example that hits a little closer to home for Nats fans, see Preston Wilson.)

Nats at Random

A sequence of disjointed bits for your off day evening:

Dan Steinberg finally gets Manny Acta. Good News Week is off to a roaring start on the DC Sports Bog. Read the whole post and then tell me that firing Manny would be anything other than management CYA and scapegoating by the Lerners, Kasten and Rizzo. When the ship is sinking you don't can the guy calmly organizing the bucket brigade.

Speaking of getting the axe, remember Luis Ayala? The erstwhile Nats set-up man, late of that proto-Washington franchise, the Minnesota Twins, is getting DFA'd. Is it time to think about putting the band back together? Ayala would be a cheap pickup, Jon Rauch is on the outs in Arizona, Gary Majewski is in AAA and Chad Cordero has yet to make so much as a rehab appearance for the Mariners. You could probably grab the whole lot of them for next to nothing. If you're going to have a bad bullpen, may as well have a bad bullpen with nostalgia value, right?

If we're going to reacquire Cordero, it would probably help to have something the Mariners want. Something like, say, Ryan Langerhans? Dave and Derek at U.S.S. Mariner do some of the most interesting baseball writing going, and it would be easier on the eyes if they didn't treat the Nats like their own personal dollar store. Some of us are quite fond of Ryan. Note to Mike Rizzo: If there is a fair deal to be made for Langerhans, make sure The Chief is a throw-in.

D-[Insert Picket Fence Prop Here]

Today Mark Zuckerman encapsulated everything I've been trying to say about the fan-driven furor for Manny Acta's head. Demonstrating once again why there's still a line between sports bloggers, however knowledgeable and informed, and working journalists who cover the team every day, Zuckerman details the Nats' daily defensive drills. For every blogger, commentor or casual fan who traces the Nats ineptitude to a lack of fundamentals, it's a must read.

To sum up, the Nats can "Drill, Baby, Drill" from now 'til Labor Day, and they'll probably still be a lousy defensive squad. No centerfielder, two largely immobile leftfielders (one playing quite a bit of right) a declining shortstop and a second baseman prone to brain freezes equal errors no matter how many fungoes they field. Now, if you want to be contrarian, I suppose you could say that the lack of improvement reflects as badly on the coaches as the players. It's a fair point, but I'm not aware of a revolutionary new method for teaching outfielders to track the ball off the bat, or reminding Anderson Hernandez when to cover first.

If "Fire Manny!" makes you feel better about watching this undeniably crapbag team, then by all means carry on. Far be it from me to deny any Nats fan whatever small measure of solace they need to stomach donning the Curly W in public. Just don't expect improvement, ok? Firing Acta would be a pure public relations move. And given how bad this franchise is at PR, they'd find a way to screw that up too.

I'm no fan of activity masquerading as progress. In my experience, "change for change's sake" means somebody above you is covering their @##. If Manny, or Randy St. Claire, or any of the coaches, has demonstrated deficiencies that are impairing the ballclub, make the case. Show me somebody else out there who can manage this team better. But no black boxes, please. There are too many moving parts on a 25-man ball club to just point to the end result and say, "They're terrible. Anyone could do better!" That's a cop out.

Prediction Challenge

So Chico @ WaPost put up a Prediction Challenge. I'm not on the ball enough to ask the other NTPers to do it with me, so here are mine... Happy Opening Day.

1. 2009 win total - 65

2. Attendance at Nationals Park (81 dates; last year's was 2.32 million) - 2.30 million. Half will be Red Sox fans.

3. All-star representative(s) - Adam Dunn

4. Adam Dunn's home run total - 32

5. Date of Stephen Strasburg's major league debut - 8/15/09

6. Nick Johnson's total games played - 100

7. Wins for John Lannan - 7

8. Percentage of season Dmitri Young spends in big leagues, not on DL - 25%

9. Josh Willingham's total at bats - 300

10. Innings pitched for Daniel Cabrera - 80

11. Team ERA leader - Lannan

12. Team batting average leader - Guzman, for Nate

13. Biggest surprise - That Jim Bowden was that much of a bad influence.

14. Biggest disappointment - I only get one?

15. Current minor leaguer (not counting Zimmermann) who will make an impact - A collection of people who will rotate through, and you wont learn their neames.

Bonus: Predict the Nats' rotation entering the last week of the season:
Impossible. Space and time do not allow for vision like this.

Talk amongst yourselves.

You Be The Mannyger

Calling all Nats fans, or at least the 3 of you who still read us. Tom Tango Wants You... to forecast the team's playing time for next season. Click here to play Mannyger for a day.

Want to see Zimmerman play all 162 plus two exhibition games and the ASG? (Answer: No, No, Yes.) Think 2B will end up being a nightmarish Bellzaldez triumverate? (Yup.) Is Tyler Clippard an overlooked contender for that 5th rotation spot? (Ummm, No.) Will Guzman's Achilles Toe be the only think preventing an MVP campaign? (Just you watch.)

MASN Suicide

Take Capitol Punishment. Add in a dash of NationalsFanboyLooser. That about sums up my take on the following:

MASN Names Rob Dibble As New Color Announcer for Nationals Baseball

Rob Dibble makes Joe Morgan look the enlightened offspring of Vin Scully and Jack Buck. The Nationals could not have chosen a worse replacement for Don Sutton (leaving for "personal reasons", no doubt including a desire not to work for the Nationals any more) if they had set out to search for the worst announcer in baseball. The Carpenter-Dibble combo gives Charlie Slowes and Dave Jaegler instant job security.

Even though Dibble is an ex-Red, I'm pretty sure we can't blame Bowden for this one. So for this move, following so closely on the heels of the now famous "Fans don't care about payroll!" soliloquy, let me be the first to say:

"FIRE KASTEN!"

And for 2009... we're choosing to be homeless.

As Nate alluded to in a previous post, the NTP crew has made our season ticket decision for 2009.

Like a great many other folks, we will not be renewing our ticket package.

I in particular have taken a lot of grief over the years for my pro-season ticket holder stance. (See "The Business of Baseball" and "Value of Investing in the Team") So this represents a major change in our thinking as fans and “investors”, if you will, in the team. An explanation is in order.

First and foremost, there’s just no added value in owning season tickets to the Washington Nationals. We aren’t in line for preferred seating at the new ballpark. Frankly, hanging onto our tickets from RFK didn’t get us where we wanted to go anyway, and at this point, we’re not looking to increase our investment to snag “better” seats than Section 223. At best, we’d be looking to continue our current spending, but there are better uses for our hard-earned money. The economy IS down, and justifying a big expenditure on tickets is much harder now than it was several years ago, particularly when there are other ways to get the same or better seats with less outlay.

The final straw was my experience with the Padres/Nats game on Saturday. Watson had the tickets, and was taking his family. Ticket price was $25 per ticket, and we sit in Section 223, Row L, seats 8 to 11. My wife and I decided we wanted to go, as well. So off to Stubhub I went, looking for seats. What did I find? Section 223, Row C, Seats 9 and 10... For $12 each. LESS THAN HALF what we pay for our seats farther back, and I didn’t have to reserve anything. Not a thing! Yes, it’s the Padres. But what this showed me was that I could see plenty of baseball, move around the stadium AND get better seats, for significantly less! How about buying a game in Section 104? Then one in 123? Then one up in 402? Then back to 223? Odds are we can practically pick the seats and still spend less than we’re committed to now, at least for 2009.

Now, let’s be honest. The Nats 2009 aren’t going to the playoffs. They just aren’t. The team has gotten worse — much worse — in the short we’ve been watching. I’m looking for a better season next year, but in the words of the immortal Jim Mora, “Playoffs? PLAYOFFS!?!”. So any though of purchasing tickets in hope of having first pick for the post season is folly. We’ll all be happy to be a 81-81 team again, and that ain’t getting you to the playoffs.

What’s more, apologies to Boz, but the Lerners aren’t spending any money. They aren’t paying rent! Say what you will about the stadium not being “substantially complete” , Mr. Lerner, but the city delivered a habitable, useable major league stadium, on-time and on budget. We know because we were there. You look petty — AND CHEAP — with this rent withholding nonsense. It’s bad PR, and when I’m sitting here deciding on my renewal, it doesn’t inspire me with confidence in your commitment to improving the team. Stan the Man may have the Plan, but I don’t see anything turning around fast enough to make 2009 much better than 2008. Certainly not playoff worthy, which is the prime incentive to secure a whole season’s worth of tickets to this mess.

Is the schedule worth it? Securing good seats for premium games? Next year, Opening Day and the last game of the season are both on the road. No special games there. Memorial Day — road. July 4 — home. Labor Day — no game. A 3 game home series with Boston might be a draw, but the annoying Bahstan fans factor is pretty damn high. Looking at the 2009 schedule, there isn’t much worth “securing”. No big first game in the new park. No Opening Day. No Closing Day. Can’t really say there’s anything here that I need to have.

And even if there was, the Nats aren’t even close to selling out the stadium. You can walk up and buy a seat anytime you want, and even with no planning, you can probably get better seats than you’ll get in a reasonably priced season package. If the ownership chooses to push the fans away by not even trying, well, I’m finally done rewarding them. I have every confidence that in a year or two I can line back up for season tickets and get as good or better than what I have now. With season ticket purchases dropping each and every year, the trend suggests that taking a year off won’t cost me any ground.

You need me more than I need you, Mr. Lerner. I can buy what I want anytime I want. You need me to commit to a season ticket purchase to help prop up your revenue base. Your corporate sponsorships haven’t appeared, the demand for tickets isn’t there, and you can’t sell those $400 seats. And now the economy is in the tank to boot. You may not have needed me in 2006, but you will in 2009. You’re in it for the cash too, Mr. Lerner, and I’m looking to get value. And what am I getting for my season ticket commitment? From where I sit, not much.

Thus, we’re not renewing. We’ll be at the stadium in 2009. I’m sure of that. But we’ll be there on our terms.

PS – Who am I kidding? They’ll make their money back from us on half smokes, Miller Lights and helmet sundaes. It’s not for nothing that MLB is a six and a half billion dollar business.

GUZMANIA! Re-Cycled

Nationals.com

The Washington Post - does the punctuation of your last name change after you hit for the cycle?

Nationals Journal

The Nationals Enquirer

Oleanders and Morning Glories - managed to get away with precisely one word about the blessed event.

We've Got Heart

Giving Voice to the Fans

It seems like there has been a lot more "Nats fans, let your voices be heard!" instigation this year compared to seasons past. Some of that is the sign of a maturing fan base, some of it is spontaneous disgust with The Washington Nationals v. 2008. In any case, there is a significant hue and cry for the average fan in the stands to make his or her opinion known, be it via pointless internet petition, misdirected media-fueled hatred, or hey, self-indulgent blogging!

But there is one way the average fan really can contribute to improving baseball, not just in DC, but everywhere, for all time. GO HERE. FILL OUT THE SURVEY. Vent your spleen at Milledge's circular routes to routine fly balls, or Dmitri's impersonation of a fat Venus de Milo at first base. The more people participate, the better the results will be. Wisdom of crowds and all that. Be sure to read the instructions, and make only those evaluations you feel comfortable with.

And remember, this is for science, so no hopscotching over to the Philadelphia page to tank Pat Burrell's ratings. He's doing just fine on his own.

Olympic Daze

I've come out of my Olympic Daze.

It was fantastic. It's fun to watch a team win, and team USA did that for us in spades. Swimming, gymnastics, track and field, beach volleyball, and water polo all are sports I don't give a damn about normally, and I became obsessed. Hell, I'm thinking about buying tickets to go to London in 4 years. There won't be baseball in the Olympics, but who cares!

And I resurface, and besides figuring out what Nate and Watson are doing, I decide to check on the Nats. I had some vague concept of them doing badly, as it seemed like I got a lot of text messages from the team that they lost. I don't remember many wins in there, but I wasn't really looking.

I totalled it up.

The team went 2-14 during the Olympics.

2 wins. 14 losses.

Holy crap.

What the hell happened? I mean, we're bad, I know that, but 2 wins? 14 losses? One game we lost zero to 12!!

Are we even trying?

I'm understanding of the Plan, but does the plan mean we don't field a team? We're not looking to win the World Series, but hell, can we play the game? What if we call up all triple-A guys? Or is that what we've done?

I'm going to the game on Thursday. Somebody brief me.

This seems kinda epic. Just not in the same way the Olympics were.

MASN Takes On The Natosphere

Meant to mention this earlier, but lord it's a chore writing anything about this team right now. Apparently MASN, no longer content with providing thoroughly mediocre quasi-HD baseball coverage that consistently shorts its DC-based junior partner (and slipping us a few bucks in a plain white envelope every month) has branched out onto teh interweb in a big way.

The new venture is MASNFantasyCamp.com, an online community for fans of the Nats, Orioles and Ravens. Shamelessly cribbing from the press release:

At MASN Fantasy Camp, fans are encouraged to build a personal profile page to connect with other fans, post videos and photos, write their own blogs and organize fan events in their area.

Fans will be able to upload and organize photo albums and video clips, contribute their thoughts on the community message boards, and have their opinions heard through their very own MASN blog. Select member contributions will also be featured on MASN's official website at MASNsports.com.

Now if Facebook and Barack Obama have taught me anything, it's that online communities are the wave of the future, if you expand "the future" to include 6-18 months into the past. Nevertheless, more online watering holes are never a bad thing, particularly as BallparkGuys.com teeters on the edge of insolvency and Yuda's Gameday Chats seem to be in their own twilight hours. I must say though, MASNFantasyCamp.com's business model seems based on some questionable assumptions:

1. Ravens fans know how to use the internet correctly. The results of this ESPN Sports Nation poll suggest otherwise. (H/T to NTP's favorite futbawl blog.)

2. The general antipathy that Nationals fans feel toward their crapbag, skinflint, Keystone Kops franchise hasn't metastasized into a loathing of other Nats fans, who must be farking idiots for continuing to watch this unmitigated natural disaster masquerading as a baseball team.

3. Every sentient human on Earth who wants a blog doesn't already have one.

Still, I have no doubt that MASN Fantasy Camp will meet, nay exceed, the standards set by MASN's broadcasting and journalism divisions. Which means there's no truth to the rumors that the host servers are parked in a basement in Gori.

Ask an Idiot Blogger

From Marc Fisher's WaPo blog post about the Nationals' abyssmal TV ratings, comes the following claim:

"[A]fter 33 years without baseball, the sport is a mystery or meaningless to a huge number of people in this region."

Seeing as how a huge number of people in this region are originally from other regions, including many from regions that have long and robust baseball traditions, I have a hard time believing that it was just the long absence of a major league team from DC that rendered the local populace so ill-informed. Nevertheless, NTP is willing to step up and fill your knowledge hole, with a new occasional feature we're calling "Ask an Idiot Blogger".

As our tagline declares, there are three of us, we're idiots, and we're prepared, when necessary, to share our opinions on baseball and life in Washington, DC. Whether it's basic baseball, like "Why can't that nice man take his stick with him when he runs around touching the white squares?" or something more Nats-centric, as in "Under what system for assessing intrinsic value is Paul LoDuca worth $5 bucks, let alone $5 million?" you ask, we'll answer.

But NTP has always prided itself on being more (or less) than just a baseball blog, so feel free to broaden your sphere of inquiry. Dave is a gadgeteer and business traveller extraordinaire, so he can field all your travel, leisure and technology questions. Watson is the resident media guru and gourmand, so he's got that covered. I'm more of a big picture guy, so if you've ever really wanted an honest answer to the eternal question "Why does God hate me?" hit me up.

Contact info is available under Nate's profile off to the right, and your question will be routed to the appropriate NTPer for research and a public response whenever we get around to it. At a bare minimum, we promise to be more informative than Bill Ladson's latest mailbag. To get the ball rolling:

Q: "Why can't that nice man take his stick with him when he runs around touching the white squares?"

A: "He has been informed by his PO that it would be considered a violation of the terms of his parole."

See how easy that is?