Better days (far) ahead

What a time to be a baseball fan in Washington! The Nationals are about to commence their third season of play in the District. The club’s ownership situation has finally been resolved, and the new owners are making strides toward turning this franchise into a big-market, championship-caliber organization. The new ballpark is well under construction and is set to open a year from now. For the first time, all the games are available on TV to all the cable customers in the area.

And the product on the field will be the best we’ve seen since the club relocated from Montreal er, or not.

OK, so you can’t have it all. At least not yet.

This just in: The Nationals aren’t going to be very good this season. This may come as a shock to anyone who’s been in a coma since September of last season and still thinks Alfonso Soriano is roaming left field, Nick Johnson is healthy and Washington has a pitching staff.

The rest of us know better. The Nationals have begun the long, slow, painful process of rebuilding, and the end result is going to be a 2007 major-league squad that has no realistic shot of winning.

But you know what? There will be plenty of time to agonize over the sorry state of this team over the next six months (especially for those of us who will be covering it every single night). For now, let’s instead rejoice over the start of a new season, the hope (ill-sighted as it may be) of a surprise pennant race and the promise of better things to come.

So buckle up for the 162-game marathon. The Thursday Morning Manager is here to answer your questions about the Nats as we prepare for Opening Day at RFK .

Q: So Alfonso Soriano still is playing left field for the Nats and is poised for another 40-40 season, right?

A: Uh, not exactly. Soriano was a free agent this winter and decided to follow his heart (read: the money) and sign with the Chicago Cubs for a cool eight years and $136 million. The Nationals never came close to matching that offer and were forced to wave bye-bye to Fonzie.

Q: So what did we get in return for him?

A: Two draft picks: the 31st overall selection and the 67th overall selection.

Q: Is that better than the best trade offer Jim Bowden got for Soriano before last July’s deadline?

A: According to Bowden, yes. He insists there was no offer from any other club that came close to besting the two draft picks. Suffice it to say, it’s going to be several years until we know whether those prospects become major leaguers and whether Bowden made the right choice.

Q: That’s OK. We didn’t really need Soriano back, not as long as the Lerner family went out and spent tens of millions of dollars on free agents this winter

A: Check again, buddy. There was no free-agent splurge by the Nationals this winter. There wasn’t even any free-agent bargain shopping. They didn’t sign a single player to a multi-year contract, and they didn’t give anyone more than $850,000 for one season.

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