We’ll know the true fate of the franchise by August 15. If Stephen Strasburg isn’t signed by then, a whole lot of fans will be jumping ship, and rightfully so.

We have no where to go but up, I’m tired of all the downers talking about Strasburg, HE IS GOING TO BE SIGNED, we don’t need all the negativety surrounding August 15, it may not even last that long.

We have good young players and its just going to take a while, you can’t help but have a sense of excitement surrounding our future team, we have a great ballpark, a good, young, developing pitching staff, and I really think the city and region will get behind the Nats in coming years and you won’t see as many blue seats.

With that being said the FA market isnt the best this offseason and I still want to see a long term solution at 1B. But don’t worry about Strasburg, Rizzo will get the deal done. And what kind of fan jumps ship? Thats not a fan at all, I mean how many times has Dan Snyder pissed us all off but we still love the Skins.

…not to be all “wait ’til next year!” but … wait ‘til next year (and the year or two after). We fielded a fairly decent team this year, and frankly I’ve been baffled by all the errors and poor relief pitching. Back in the winter, I was predicting a 70-75 win season—that looks fairly unlikely at this point, but things might turn around in the second half. Anyhow, my take is:

Offense- Good. Zimmy, Nick, Dunn, Dukes, and Willingham (and Flores, were he not on the DL) have power and patience. Guz, for all his inability to take pitches, can rake, and even Hernandez and Gonzalez are showing us something at the plate. The team is well above average offensively. We’re going to lose some of those pieces going forward (Dunn, Nick, Guz), but I think we’ll still have at least a league-average offense in the next couple of seasons.

Pitching- Poor. The bullpen has been really bad this year, as we’ve painfully witnessed. Poor management (BOWDEN!!) led to ‘pen stocked with retreads and rookies this year, who either didn’t have the stuff to perform, or weren’t confident enough to get the job done even if they did have it (as a side note, perhaps McCatty’s focus on the ‘mental/gut’ side of pitching will pay off with guys like Hanrahan). Some of the better recent veteran acquisitions may help stabilize things (Vill0.00ne, Beimel, McDoody), and maybe the kids will get settle down with the new coach. The rotation is not great, but what can you expect with our “veteran ace” in the form of second-year starter John Lannan? It’s a bunch of kids with promising stuff who are feeling their way and probably going to make a ton of mistakes. But every time they have a good outing, we can smile and dream of them doing it for us for the next five seasons…. And if we draft and sign a healthy Strasburg, I think we’ll have a good 6-7 strong prospects out of which to put together a decent rotation in 2010.

Defense- Again, management inattention (BOWDEN!!) has lead to a team with six corner OFs and no CF, plus no great talent in the middle infield. I’m hopeful for either Gonzalez or Hernandez to work out as at least a league-average 2B/SS, but that’s not a sure thing. Overall, the team is playing well below its potential with the glove as defensive stalwarts like Nick Johnson, Austin Kearns, Hernandez, and Gonzalez make errors and have mental lapses, even as weaker defensive players like Guzman, Dunn, and Willingham frustrate us with their lack of range and inability to catch anything but routine fly balls (and sometimes not even that). I’m hoping that the good defenders find their mojo as the season moves forward, while we’ll just have to wait and see who replaces the defensive weak points in future seasons (heal faster, Bernadina! Learn how to take pitches on the outside corner the other way, J-Max!).

Overall, we shouldn’t expect to contend in the next couple of years. I think we’ll have a shot at a winning season in 2010, and certainly we can look forward to some fun, quality baseball before then (but not necessarily every night…)

Hall of fame pitchers more often than not had 2-4 seasons of experience when they finally became good to great pitchers. Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, etc all lost most of their starts their first couple of years. We have one sophmore (Lannan), and 4 rookies (Zimmermann, Detwiler, Stammen, Martis), plus a guy in AAA (Baelster) who look right now like they they have a good shot at being 15 game or better starters in 2011 or later. I’ll bet money these guys collect half a dozen Cy Youngs between them before they retire. All we have to do is develop them, put a team around them, and see the benefits in 2011 and later. (Note strassburgs name is not mentioned above and frankly we can easily win without him, but he might make it a tad easier).

What this team needs to do is draft well. We need a star middle infielder or two and a star CF who can hit and catch (Maxwell might learn to reach base enough, but not sure). We get those pieces through the draft and this team will contend for a long time in the long term.

We can get relievers through free agency. And frankly should over pay for good ones this offseason.