Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Does this Mean One of them Will Be on the Bench?

First, standard disclaimer that it's probably a waste of time to discuss anything based on reporting by Bill Ladson...

In his post reporting that Milton Bradley will not be spending any time on the Nationals' DL in 2009, Ladson has this:
With Bradley out of the picture, don't look for Washington to acquire Andruw Jones or Mark Kotsay. According to baseball sources, the Nationals have decided to let Elijah Dukes and Lastings Milledge compete for the center-field job.
So knowing that we have Willingham slated to play left, should we infer from this statement that Austin Kearns is ahead of Milledge and Dukes on the depth chart, leaving two of the more talented young players in the organization to fight for playing time in center? Just wondering...

PS
Damn! No Andruw Jones or Mark Kotsay.

PPS When are we going to dump Wily Mo Pena? Isn't it just a matter of time at this point?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

It was just by dumb luck that I came across this article from Nats.com on New Years Day just before I clicked over here, but it lists Dukes as the projected starter in RF and Milledge in CF. Not sure what becomes of the projection if Dukes wins the CF spot, though...I guess Millz with Thrillz moves to RF?

Anywho, here's the article: http://washington.nationals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081221&content_id=3724723&vkey=news_was&fext=.jsp&c_id=was

Feel free to snark at the title: "GM Bowden not done improving Nats." I thought to finish something, you had to at least start it.

Unknown said...

Guhhh. If they were to bench one of Milledge/Dukes for Kearns or WMP, I might lose my will to follow this team (or at least not follow the team as closely as I do now). I'm right there on the edge, and I think that might be enough to push me over it.

Steve Shoup said...

"baseball sources" is a bit of a weak source so I'm not gonna put much stock into this. Also even if this came from the Nats I wouldn't think it was any more than a smoke screen. I would think the team may want to present the fact that they are starting Kearns, so that way they don't appear desperate to move him. Now i'm not saying he has great trade value but I could see some team paying him half price and giving up some AAAA player. Anyway thats my take on all of this, but who knows maybe Ladson has some great "baseball source" who really has an in on the Nats thinking.