Required Reading for Nationals Fans

J.J. Cooper has a fantastic article in the latest Baseball America on the challenge of turning a good farm system into a contending Major League squad. You can check it out here--in a cool new digital magazine format that BA rolled out this month as well.

As thoughtful and well-researched as the piece is, it's also a sobering reminder for Nationals fans of how far we are from winning. The "wave," such as it is, of minor league talent coming to Washington now just isn't very impressive, when you compare it to the past teams examined in the article.

Also, the article reinforces how the window of opportunity for the Strasburg-Zimmerman-Werth group may be only one or two years at most. And the team's premature shift to Phase 2® and massive commitment to Werth could make it that much harder to develop the next core of young talent after this window closes (assuming there's ever enough talent for a window to really open).

Anyway, it's a great read. And as an added bonus there some good old Expos stuff in there. People should check it out.