Friday, February 13, 2015

Spring Training Preview: Washington Nationals

What a wild winter it has been in baseball! The great news is, pitchers and catchers are only a few days from reporting to spring training sites in Florida and Arizona, which of course is always something to look forward to during the dark, cold days of February. And while there has been a lot of moving and shaking going on, perhaps no team more boldly announced its intentions to gun for a World Series title in 2015 than the Washington Nationals with their mid-January acquisition of Max Scherzer in free agency.* That bombshell followed a relatively quiet off-season for the team that saw them make only one potentially puzzling move, a trade of premiere setup man and great clubhouse guy Tyler Clippard to Oakland for malcontent shortstop Yunel Escobar, who will in all likelihood be the second baseman this year. Let's run down what has happened so far and what might still come before the start of the season for the presumptive National League favorites in the nation's capital city.