Just A Bit Outside

It's hard to imagine why the Washington Nationals deliberated over whether to keep interim general manager Mike Rizzo or hire a new GM before last week. While Rizzo hasn't magically turned the Nationals into a winner in the few months in which he's cleaned up for Jim Bowden's messes, he's begun to do a few things right that could help the Nats win some games down the road. And hey, at this point, losing might be okay for the Nationals — at least for the rest of the year.

If Washington finishes the 2009 season with baseball's worst record — and barring a massive losing streak by, say, the Royals, they will — the Nats will get the first overall pick in 2010 draft. What does that mean? That they'll be able to draft Bryce Harper, who's being hyped as one of the best high school prospects to come along in, well, a long time.

So if that works out, the Nationals will have drafted Harper and the best college prospect in a long time (that guy named Stephen Strasburg) in the span of about a year. While Harper isn't the kind of MLB-ready talent that Strasburg is, there's a good chance he could have an impact quicker than most players drafted right out of high school.

And, who knows? Maybe by the time Harper makes his debut (with the Nationals, assuming they don't move out of MLB's basement this year), the Nats will have a respectable team ready to contend.

They already have a decent core to start with. Don't believe me? According to FanGraphs' Wins Above Replacement stat, the Nationals have two of the top 10 most valuable players in baseball on their team in Ryan Zimmerman (6th with a 5.8 WAR) and Nyjer Morgan (10th with a 4.9 WAR). Throw in Josh Willingham's 3.0 WAR and you have a pretty formidable trio of players who could anchor the Nats' lineup through at least 2012 (when Willingham is due to hit free agency).

For the record, the Morgan-for-Lastings Milledge swap was an absolute steal. Milledge has been worth a combined -0.4 wins between the Nationals and Pirates, meaning he's actually cost his teams about half a win with his play. That's not good. That's really not good.

While Morgan will be 30 next year, he's flourished in a starting role this year, displaying a knack for getting on base with excellent defense. This is just an amateur opinion, but I've seen him play in person and was blown away with his play on both offense and defense. He's everything any team could want in a centerfielder — he gets on base, he's fast and he's a heck of a defender. That's why I'm calling the Milledge-for-Morgan trade the fleecing of the 2009 trade season.

Pitching-wise, Washington does have some good, young arms not named Stephen Strasburg. While 23-year-olds Jordan Zimmermann and Ross Detwiler have taken their lumps this year, both rate nicely with FIP (long story short: a stat that measures how good a pitcher is regardless of the fielding behind him) which is reason to hope that they can improve in their second or third full seasons of major league ball.

Conversely, John Lannan isn't rated highly by FIP, but despite that, he's had success in his first two years in the majors. Some pitchers find ways to have success despite a somewhat high FIP (see: Buehrle, Mark), and given that Lannan has kept the ball on the ground at a 52.8 percent clip in his career, it's not out of the question for him to continue his success down the road.

And then, of course, you have Strasburg. If he makes a major impact in, say, 2011, the Nationals could find themselves with a very competitive starting rotation.

Once thing is for sure: the Nationals are no longer a dead-in-the-water franchise. They may play like it this year, but three or four years from now, there's a good chance this team has a roster that's ready to compete for a NL East crown.