Fouled-Off Bunts: Another Day, Another 800 K Edition

Marlon Byrd re-signed today on the same one-year $800K deal that Jim Bowden has seemingly given to everyone on the bench. Byrd, who was arbitration eligible, will most likely be a back-up/platoon partner next season.

Byrd, who smacked lefties around last year, would be excellent in that role. I said it a million times last year and I'll continue to say it as long as the team is living the Endy 2.0 Brandon Watson Experiment: Church/Byrd would give the Nationals excellent production out of centerfield. Add them together, and you'd have above league average production out of one of the lineup slots for just over a million bucks. But instead the team will dick around with Watson just long enough to bring back my ulcer.

Speaking of ulcers.... The wily Banks picks up on a story that the Nats are sniffing around the moldering corpse of Sammy Sosa. Sammy Sooser as he's known in certain Washingtonian quarters, is d-o-n-e, hitting a miserable .221/ .295/ .376 for the Orioles.

It's not so much that I'd mind the team bringing him to spring training and seeing how he is, but there's talk of a guaranteed (though Bowden loves the non-guaranteed) contract. Sosa has never been a team player -- which is fine if you're producing. But he's not the kind of player who would happily ride pine for a slap-hitting pixie like Brandon Watson. With the Soriano mess, and the always volatile Jose Guillen running around the outfield, it's another headache this team most definitely does not need.

Sosa would be Bowden at his worst, lusting after the big name celebrity. It's too bad that he doesn't realize that Sosa is more Norma Desmond than Katherine Zeta Jones.

Ladson reports that Tony "Dizzy" Blanco, who injured himself playing winter ball, will undergo shoulder surgery, and that he should be ready for spring. It's too bad that Blanco couldn't have scheduled the procedure for last May.

Not one, but TWO baseball sources let Ladson know that the team's close to signing Dave Jaegler, late of the Pawtucket Red Sox, to be Chuck Slowe's partner. I googled and googled and googled, but couldn't find any audio clops of the Jaegermeister, but I did find out that he's not really a handsome man.

Continuing my new All Ladson, All The Time format, he writes about the bullpen:

Cordero ran out of gas in September, though, and was shut down for the final two weeks of the season. The Nationals have him on a conditioning program to make sure his arm doesn't get tired again. The Nationals also would like see Cordero lose 10 to 15 pounds.

Was his conditioning what caused his arm problems? Isn't it possible that the bazillion innings he pitched under high stress conditions a culprit? I'm not saying that he couldn't stand to lose a few pounds, but them I'm not really one to talk.

The Federalist has a good round-up of some of these issues, including a more in-depth look at the So-So debacle. He also looks at a rotoworld report that the Nats might be interested in Jeff Weaver. Weaver's good stuff, but where's the money? Will he work for free? Answer those questions, he does.