Youth and Athleticism? Sign Me Up! Where Can I Find Some?

Seems like Stan's adopted a new sales pitch for the 2009 season. Yeah, it's still mostly about the ballpark, but at NatsFest and again in this latest interview with Bill Ladson, Stan's peddling a story about how young and exciting the Nationals will be in 2009.

Now, we do have some young players. Elijah Dukes, Lastings Milledge, John Lannan, and Jesus Flores top the list. Ryan Zimmerman's still young enough to qualify. Collin Balester's there. But if memory serves those guys were with the team last year too.

Of the players we've added during the off-season, only Scott Olsen could possibly be described as young, and he came over in a deal that unquestionably made us older and less athletic. Josh Willingham's old, unathletic, and has back problems. Just because every article about Daniel Cabrera refers to his "potential" doesn't change the fact that he's really not young anymore.

Looking at the likely starting line-up, it's half thirty-somethings:

C: Flores (24)
1B: Nick Johnson (30)
2B: Ron Belliard (34)--spare me the comments about AHern the young and exciting...
SS: Cristian Guzman (31)
3B: Zimmerman (23)
LF: Willingham (30)
CF: Milledge (24)
RF: Dukes (25)

And the rotation isn't exactly bursting with youth either:

Odalis Perez (32)
Lannan (24)
Olsen (25)
Cabrera (28)
Shawn Hill (28)
Collin Balester (23)

And considering that Jordan Zimmermann is the only remotely Major League-ready prospect in the system... I'm just not seeing this tremendous youth and athleticism Stan's selling.