Target: .500
Submitted by Jeff on Tue, 10/02/2007 - 5:26am.
- The gear has hardly been put away from the final game of the 2007 season and people are looking ahead to 2008. Manny Acta expects the Nats to play at least .500 ball next season, hardly a stretch given that the team went 64-64 after a horrid start. "That should be the realistic goal here. Just looking at what has happened in baseball the last few years, if you get over .500, anything can happen."
- Improving on this season, though, means filling some holes in the lineup and rotation. Phil Wood expects GM Jim Bowden to make "significant noise" in the offseason. Some names he brings up: Adam Dunn, Jason Bay, and even former Nat Brad Wilkerson.
- One of the secrets of the Nats' success this year was—shhhh!—Manny Acta not yelling at his players. "Yelling, screaming, hitting and turning things around isn't going to help," he said. But, "if this season turned into a disaster like a lot of people thought it was going to be, [not yelling and screaming] was going to be brought up."
- MLB.com recaps the 2007 season, while the Times offers its report card on the team. (That Prof. Zuckerman is a hard grader: only Acta gets an unqualified A, with a few A- grades scattered around.)
- While the regular season is over, there's still a lot of baseball left for members of the Nationals organization. Jim Bowden is heading to Florida this week to check on the Nats' instructional league team there, while Justin Maxwell will join Kory Casto (remember him?) and several other prospects in the Arizona Fall League. One player who won't be joining them, though, is Jesus Flores, who will skip the AFL to play winter ball in Venezuela.
- Maxwell leaves the major league team having impressed Acta and others with his poise despite his lack of experience. One area Maxwell needs to work on: he's vulnerable to outside pitches, according to Acta. Maxwell will get an invitation to major league spring training next year.
- The city "lied" about parking around the new ballpark when it originally selected the site, Harry Jaffe claims in the Examiner. Only 5,000 parking spots are available there now, even after scrounging around the neighborhood; the city originally promised 9,000. As for allowing people to park at RFK and busing them to the stadium, "Being bureaucratic, the city has yet to approve the plan."
- And congratulations to former Nat Jamey Carroll, who drove in the wild card-winning run for the Rockies last night with a sac fly in the bottom of the 13th. (Unless, of course, you believe Matt Holliday didn't touch the plate.)
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