I'll Let Sheinin Write This One For Me

If Sheinin's given up, why should I bother? Dave Sheinin of the Post, while not as much of a blinkered fanboy as at least one of his colleagues at the paper, is still a Ron Santo Award runner-up. But even that much homerness can't blind him to the fact that the Nats are going to be really bad this year, as he spent most of his Tuesday chat informing us. Some highlights:

I'm getting the feeling the Nats, after weeks of standing by their decision to trade for Soriano, may be starting to regret it.

In my opinion, yes, the Nats dropped the ball by not discussing the position switch with Soriano's people first. In fact, on the night the trade went down, a Rangers executive told me he thought the Nats were crazy if they thought they could talk Soriano into playing the outfield. That's because the Rangers went through the same battle with Soriano the year before -- and lost.

The Nats' starting pitching? It's not good, to say the least.

The thing that struck me about the Tucker deal is that the Nats would have one heck of a bench (Tucker, Marlon Anderson, Rob Fick, Damian Jackson) if they were a playoff team. Alas, they are nowhere close.

. . . I liked those guys better than I do Ryan Drese, Brian Lawrence and Ramon Ortiz. My point is, you're a good team if those pitchers are competing for your No. 5 starting job. You're a bad team if those guys are competing for No. 3.

Yeesh. It's one thing to hear this stuff from a dude whose main hobby is complaining on the internet about how dumb the Nats are. But Sheinin's a professional journalist, and we expect a modicum of team spirit. This is going to be an ugly, ugly season, and we may all be relying on Baltimore schadenfreude to get us through it.