On the whole, I’ve never put a whole lot of weight in what sports columnists have said, both good and bad, about much of anything. To me, they have a sweet job and get to write about their opinions on sports. Some columnists are better than others and actually bother to do some investigating before writing, but with the dawn of the Internet, more columnists than not just write to produce content. At best, I think sports columnists provide context and an additional opinion, but not a whole lot of actual informational value (yes, with some notable exceptions).

However, I have to take particular exception with Yahoo’s Tim Brown recent column about the Nationals entitled, “Nationals Have to Find Some Direction.” I don’t deny that the last month has not been an example of flawless preparation for ST, but I disagree with most of Brown’s column. Let me take it one at a time here.

“As the Nats took their first steps of spring, contract negotiations with Ryan Zimmerman
were settled hours before a scheduled arbitration hearing, but not
before a report of strained relations between the club and its best
player.”

Nothing new or interesting here. Nationals fans have become accustomed to the constant rumors of a deteriorating relationship between the Nats and Zim. And we’re all accustomed to denials from both camps. Great reporting here, telling us something we’ve known since 2007.

As they first made their way to those back fields, their opening day starter from last year – Odalis Perez – was threatening a holdout.

The only reason Perez was last year’s opening day starter was because the rotation was already decaying from injuries, a theme that would permeate the 2008 season. This makes it sound like Perez was the ace in the rotation and was a critical part of the rotation from the moment he was signed to a $850K  non-guaranteed minor league contract. The whole Perez fiasco is annoying, but I seriously doubt the whining of one minor league-bound pitcher is really keeping players up at night. What’s more, Brown says further down in the column that Perez’s holdout is “meaningless.” So meaningless that we need to intimate it’s actually really important and evidence that the team is in shambles. Wait…

Brown does raise the valid point that something needs to be done to address just how Frowny Gonzalez’s true identity and age were never discovered prior to the $1.4M signing bonus. Also, there’s the issue of why the Nats decided to pay 100% more than the nearest competitor was offering and why Rijo and Bowden didn’t do their homework, apparently. Rijo is on his way out, having been forced into taking an indefinite leave of absence. Bowden may not be too far behind. But again, for Nationals fans (who are presumably the main audience for this column), this is nothing new and has been better covered in the WaPo and by Nationals Journal.  Nonetheless, the more I brood over Frowny-gate, the more I think some real changes might need to occur.

Amid that paperwork, the Nats are – or shortly will resume – shopping first baseman Nick Johnson, because they added Adam Dunn
to a roster already thick with outfielders and first basemen. There is
a sense the Nationals signed Dunn to appease a fan base that had its
heart set on Mark Teixeira,
but hey, the guy will work some counts and hit some home runs. Their
money. Though by June they might have wished they’d spent it on
pitching. 

This is just writing for writing’s sake, I guess. First, the Nats are probably well aware that no team is going to look at NJ until they see he’s healthy and capable of producing like he did in 2006. So while I’m sure the Nats have talked about trading him, especially in light of getting Dunn, it’s a non-starter until ST games start and perhaps until the season really starts. I’m not sure what roster Brown is looking at, either, because “thick with first basemen” does not really describe the Nats. If you look at the 40 man roster, the only guys who could play first base with any skill would be Johnson or Dunn. Kory Casto could play 1B in a pinch, but that’s not likely to happen. So, the team has 2.5 first basemen…not exactly a glut. the outfielder abundance is probably a combination of Manny wanting more to work with rather than less, like last season. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nats use a few of those guys (Kearns, Casto, Milledge, etc) as trade fodder to beef up 2B and add some more pitching. And if someone wants to take NJ (like the A’s), the Nats will deal him for more pitching and work hard to make Dunn a serviceable 1B.

 I think the only one who senses that Dunn was signed to appease the fans is Brown, probably because he doesn’t really know the Nationals that well, much less the fan base. Dunn was signed to add protection for Ryan Zimmerman and give the lineup a power lefthanded bat it lacked last season. That appeases the fans because we want to win more than 59 games.

And it’s either selective analysis (if we drastically expand the definition of analysis to include just writing a sentence because it sounds nice) or statistical ignorance that would cause Brown to ignore Dunn’s 40 homeruns in each of the last 5 seasons, not to mention hitting 100+ RBIs in four of the past five seasons, a career .381 slugging, .518 OBP and 130 OPS+. The guy also routinely draws 100+ walks each of the last five seasons. Oh, and he took a pay cut to sign with the Nats, which is more a sign of the economic times than any burning desire to play in DC, I admit, but is probably a good value for the money spent. I  would imagine that Brown would find something else to bemoan had the Nats not signed Dunn and gotten some more pitching instead, as he prescribed. Or if they’d signed Texeira, Tim might have said that same thing…”their money.” Nice one, Tim!

But, you know, there’s still a question of whom they want to be. Is
this the club that drags along the issues of Perez, Young and Elijah Dukes? Does it need that?

Again, I agree with Brown on Perez. The Nats just need to cut him and let him act like a brat with another club. However, dragging along the issues of their players is kinda what teams have to do unless they find 40 virgin players in the middle of the jungle who love everyone and have never had a problem in their idyllic lives. I’d like to see that team, but I think every club has issues because they’re made up of human beings, and we all have issues. Especially sports writers. I agree that the Nats need to part ways with Da Meat Hook soon. Dukes, however, could be truly great, if the Nats can help him put his turbulent past behind him.

Do the Nats want to “drag” Dukes’ issues along with them? YES. Help the kid out, give him some guidance and he could turn into one of the great players of his generation. It could also not work, but nobody ever won a World Series without taking some calculated risks.

Well, management could sit around and try to figure that out. Or, it
could release Perez and tend to the pitchers in camp, the ones who
showed up on time and went to work. There’s still value in that, right?

You’re right, Tim. I’m sure nobody is doing anything with the pitchers already in camp and they’re just sitting in their hotel rooms eating room service because all the pitching coaches are on the phone with Perez trying to coax him to camp. They probably don’t even know what pitchers have shown up! Oh my God!

But you’re right. Manny and his staff probably haven’t been talking to and watching their main rotation pitchers since they arrived on Saturday…the ST rotation probably isn’t even set yet…wait a second.

Bottom line: If you’re going to write about a team, make sure you’ve actually studied the team longer than since you arrived at Spring Training over the weekend and did a Google search to “get up to speed” on what’s gone on in the offseason. Otherwise you might end up writing a woefully bad column for Yahoo Sports.