FanHouse StanKasten

WASHINGTON -- If you've tuned into a Blue Jays game at the Rogers Centre this year, chances are you've seen Tim Williams and Joe Farrell. If those two names aren't ringing a bell -- and there's really no reason they should -- how about a description.

Williams and Farrell, both Jays season-ticket holders, often take their seats in the first row behind home plate dressed from head to toe as umpires. Their impersonation of the men in blue doesn't end there. For the entire game, Williams and Farrell mimic the calls of the umpires, raising their arms and bellowing out strike calls, sticking up their fingers to let fans behind them know the count and brushing one hand over the other emphatically to signal foul tips.

"There are 7 billion people on the planet. Do you know how many of them travel to another city to fake umpire a game? You're looking at 'em," Williams tells FanHouse Friday night at Nationals Park.

Drafting Stephen Strasburg No. 1 overall in the MLB Draft was the easy part. Now the Nationals are staring at potentially (OK, likely) two-plus months of negotiations with his adviser, agent Scott Boras.

What are the rest of us left to do? Sit and wait. Gawk at the numbers and rhetoric likely to be thrown out from the Boras camp. Cross our fingers and hope Nationals president Stan Kasten -- one of the more hard-line pro-management executives in the game -- gets in on the fireworks.

That might be fun for a week, but two months? Nah. So the MLB FanHouse gang decided to spice things up the best way we knew how -- by gambling on it.

The rules are simple: Each member of the staff submitted a figure for the total guaranteed value, including bonus, of Strasburg's contract with the Nationals (presuming of course he signs); The Price Is Right rules are in effect. To the winner goes a heavy dose of pride and bragging rights. After the jump, you can see a visual representation of all of our guesses and can leave your own in the comments*.

---

---

WASHINGTON – It took the one player already most identified with baseball in Washington to put an exclamation point on the Nationals' efforts to change.

Ryan Zimmerman, the Nationals' first-ever draft pick and all-time leader in runs, hits, doubles, home runs, extra-base hits and RBI, signed a five-year, $45 million contract extension Monday at Nationals Park, culminating a busy month and a half for the organization.

"This is where I want to be for a long time," Zimmerman said at a press conference Monday. "It's a family atmosphere and there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

WASHINGTON -- When is it time to start worrying?

That's the question Nationals fans have to be asking themselves after watching their team fall to the world champion Phillies 9-8 in Washington's home opener. The Nats are now 0-7 and have lost 11 straight games dating back to last season, a season in which they lost more games than anybody else in the majors (102) in a brand new ballpark paid for by the taxpayers of Washington D.C.

"I think we could call the first week a down," Stan Kasten, the team's president, says coyly. "We are confident we've made great progress with the team on the field."

So much for the new era of openness and transparency in Washington.

The Nationals won't say how many season tickets they have sold, and they won't say who is throwing out the ceremonial first pitch in their season opener Monday.

Team president Stan Kasten did acknowledge though, that the opener is not sold out (of course, he wants people to know tickets are available).

What is also clear is the Nats have wasted their honeymoon in D.C. Washington had hungered for a team for years, and the franchise formerly known as the Expos had a four-year window to win over the community for good: one at RFK Stadium when the team was new, two in anticipation of a new stadium and one more in the first year at Nationals Park.

Let us never, ever forget that the players aren't the only ones cheating in baseball. Seems some of their bosses are scumbags, too. With each passing month, it becomes more laughable that this sport has been romanticized as father-and-son, apple-pie, fun-at-the-ballpark Americana.

In the Bud Selig era, please realize that baseball has been as corrupt as any business in the land, so dirty that cans of Glade deodorizer should be distributed at the gates with pocket schedules and Bobblehead dolls.

Sometimes you look at a team like the Washington Nationals and think, "Well, at least things can't get worse." They lost 102 games last year, and their minor league system isn't particularly great. They have some decent young talent, but they're still a long way away from pulling this team out of the rut they've been in since before they bolted from Montreal for Washington.

And then you read the news that one of the biggest signings made during the Jim Bowden/Stan Kasten era, that of Latin American super-prospect Esmailyn González, isn't nearly as great as it once looked because Gonzalez is actually Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo and four years older than the Nationals thought he was. Turns out the 19-year-old they believed was dominating the Gulf Coast League this summer is really 23.

Tom Glavine's rehab from a season-ending elbow injury has progressed so well this winter that the legendary left-hander is on track to be ready for Opening Day. The question now is just what uniform the future Hall of Famer will be wearing come April.

It had long been assumed that Glavine, should he be able to pitch, would return to the Braves, the team he broke into the majors with and pitched for in 2008. However, with the addition of three other pitchers (Javier Vazquez, Derek Lowe, Kenshin Kawakami) this winter, Atlanta might not have the room or financial flexibility to bring the veteran back.

That could open a window for the pitching-starved Nationals to swoop in and sign Glavine, particularly because of his pre-existing relationship with team president Stan Kasten, writes MLB.com's Bill Ladson.

The crazy word on the street (and by street, I mean MLB.com) is that the Washington Nationals, underlords of futility, are going to be a major factor in the offseason free agent market. Yeah. Sure they are. (But, no, seriously, there's talk of them going after Mark Teixeira and Orlando Hudson).

The Nationals still are players in the Mark Teixeira sweepstakes, according to a baseball source, and free-agent second baseman Orlando Hudson has interest in playing in Washington.

The Nationals are looking for a first baseman, and Teixeira is one of the players the team has targeted to replace Nick Johnson and Dmitri Young.

Of course, no one actually believes the rumors, including Nats Prez Stan Kasten, who said that, "You're way ahead of us here," when the Washington Post inquired about the possibility of trying to land Teixeira.

Hudson is an entirely different ballgame though -- he's not Scott Boras' number one super mega offseason client this year, and he's not expected to be looking for $100 million. Also, he's apparently interested in playing in D.C., at least to the extent that he said: "I have interest in any Major League team that has interest in me," before discussing the fact that the Nats have lots of young talent.

I, for one, will believe this kooky talk about the Nats being free spenders as soon as I see it -- there is, in my mind, about a one percent chance they land Tex. Hudson is certainly a more viable option (and for the money, probably smarter) because he would actually serve to shore up their defense and isn't a liability at the plate at all. But yeah, baited breath and whatnot.

The Nationals are last in the majors in runs and OPS, and only the Kansas City Royals have hit fewer home runs. Not surprisingly, adding a big bat in the middle of their lineup is a priority. And considering center is the lone unsettled position in the outfield heading into next year, it makes sense for the Nationals to attempt filling that spot with a member of this winter's class of free agents. From the Washington Times:

Andruw Jones headlines that list, and even after a subpar season by his standards, he figures to be the Nationals" top target. Torii Hunter and Aaron Rowand also are free agents, quality players each, though neither is a cleanup hitter in Jones' mold. Japan"s Kosuke Fukudome remains another option, though he"s not considered a top power hitter.

So get ready for a lot of Andruw talk over the next few months. Nationals president Stan Kasten knows him well from their days together in Atlanta; Kasten even managed to sign Jones to an extension several years ago by negotiating directly with the player and not with uber-agent Scott Boras.

Jones will not come cheap. If Alfonso Soriano was worth $17 million a year, Jones will be worth more. That"s a major investment, one the Nationals have yet to make since coming to town three seasons ago.

I agree that Jones will be Washington's top target, but I see no reason to believe that he'll command more than Soriano did. In his contract year, Soriano hit .277-.46-95 with 41 steals. Thus far this season, Jones is hitting .223-24-84 with five steals. You could mark an argument that Jones' defense at such a crucial position makes him worth a premium, though there's some debate about whether he's slipping in that regard.

Considering Jones is only 30 years old, I'm guessing he has the ability to bounce back from such a disappointing season. But are the Nationals willing to pay more than $17 million to find out? If that's the market price, probably not ... but I still think they could get it done for less money.

(via Ben Maller)