position players report

Position players showed up for work today, which means a couple of things. First off, as you can see from above, the Shaggy Jayson Werth era begins, apparently involving some sort of return to slavery for our beloved Tony Plush, who spent the offseason starting malingering brawls in the Dominican Republic... or at least I would assume, except it seems iffy if he played this winter or not to try and get back on track as a solid lead-off hitter. Truthfully, this team is not going to be good, and most likely 5th in the NL East, so if he just gets in fights and does crazy stuff, he's worth my dollar.
Of course the Jayson Werth deal was ridiculous, but so is every big deal done every spring. Werth allows the Nationals to transition towards credibility, I guess, because have both Ryan Zimmerman and Jayson Werth makes it seem like you're better than say the Royals, and at least trying. I guess.
The big deal today though was the mutual appearance of both Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper in Nats uniforms, at the same time, for the first time ever. Of course neither will matter to this year's team (always next year), but just the sheer orgasmic possibilities of the two actually achieving 75% of the hype is enough to drive me to giddiness about long summer commutes up US 29 through the clusterfuck of inhumanity that is northern Virginia to go watch weekday afternoon games in the polluted sunshine of the District of Columbia. There is a giant Wegman's in Gainesville on the ride that has the most ridiculous beer selection ever that could fill up a nice cooler for sitting around the early afternoon in the back of the truck with a selected compadre, getting drunkered up nicely (because even ultra microbrews from the grocery store come out cheaper than stadium cups), and just being good ol' Americans - blowing off work, being unproductive, and dreaming about millionaires standing around not doing a whole lot in front of us. (Jesus, no wonder America is fucking dying. Oh well, when in Jim Rome...)
Strasburg is still gonna be recovering most of the year, maybe get back to the Big Leagues for some trial runs of his bionic elbow late in the summer/fall. Harper is not expected to be pushed into the majors this year at all, though he apparently is carrying himself like a superstar already. Not sure if that's good or bad. This time of year the local beat writers are always drumming the positive djembes of brightness, you can never tell if someone is a giant asshole until it's too late.
Meanwhile, yesterday's 70 degree day turned back into today's 40 degree day. It's still February. It's still miserable. But goddamnit, spring is almost here.