Washington Nationals' Closer Drew Storen On Prince Fielder Rumors On MLB Network Radio.

If Washington Nationals' closer Drew Storen is CBSSports.com's Jon Heyman's source with the Nats who said yesterday that the team was in the hunt for Prince Fielder, he played it cool and didn't give himself up when he was asked about the rumors this afternoon in an MLB Network Radio interview with Jeff Rickard and Mel Antonen.

CBSSports.com's Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) wrote on Thursday that Washington was in the mix for the 27-year-old, 275 lb slugger. Mr. Heyman reported that he, "Spoke to a Washington Nationals player today about Prince," who told the reporter, "'We're in the market. We're still shooting for him.'" In his article on the conversation entitled, "Nats player: We are 'shooting for' Prince", the CBSSports.com baseball writer acknowledged that quoting an anonymous player might draw some criticism, writing, "People can scoff at the validity of a player as a source, but this player did not hesitate and sure seemed to know what he was talking about. But who can be sure?"

D.C. GM Mike Rizzo told MLB Network Radio host Mike Ferrin earlier this week that the Nationals had, "... more or less decided that Adam [LaRoche] is going to be our first baseman, unless something extraordinary, out of the ordinary happened that's how we're going to go to Spring Training." Drew Storen, himself the subject of a lot of rumors this past July, told the MLB Network Radio hosts today he hadn't heard anything he could share. "I wish I knew anything," Storen said, "I'm just like you guys. I'm checking Twitter and anything I know is through Twitter or stuff I see on ESPN."

Asked to predict if Fielder would end up in the nation's capital, Storen said, "It's tough to say after the stuff with [Jayson] Werth. And you know, there's a lot of things that just kind of come out of nowhere, especially with the [Albert] Pujols and C.J. Wilson signings, those were kind of surprises. It's tough to say, you know. I have a lot of confidence in Adam LaRoche at first, but obviously if you have the opportunity to add a big hitter like Prince Fielder it's never going to hurt you. I look at it as a win-win situation either way. It's so tough to say, because you never know really what the media is getting."

So, I think we can cross Drew Storen off the list of players who could potentially be Mr. Heyman's source. So that's Drew Storen, Adam LaRoche...38 other players to go, assuming it's someone from the 40-Man Roster...

• Some More From Storen:

• On optimism Nats have heading into 2012:

Drew Storen: "I think last year we kind of worked it up with the steps that we took and winning about ten more games last year and just kind of the general attitude we had with the team. We knew we were going in the right direction and we've kind of moved some things around here this offseason and so we're happy with the direction we're moving and the best part of about it is we understand the process of it and we know that it's not going to happen overnight. And, like I've been saying all along, we have the right guys who know what it takes to get us where we want to be."

• On Gio Gonzalez:

Drew Storen: "You know what, I'm not really too familiar with him. Everything that I've read about him...and I've seen him here and there just kind of throwing randomly...you know obviously he has great stuff and I think he's going to be a great addition to our rotation. I'm excited to kind of see what kind of upside he has. It's going to be a lot better for him throwing in the National League."