Nepotista!

The Nats have signed free agent corner infielder Aaron Boone. No word on dough yet...

In isolation, I think it's a good move. He's not a great player, but as the utility guy coming off the bench and spotting starts, he's not bad. He's certainly better than Tony Batista -- with the glove AND bat. He's got a little bit of speed, but he's definitely not fast anymore, especially after all the knee injuries he's had.

He hit an impressive .286/ .388/ .423 as a 34-year old with the Marlins, which is probably on the verrrrry optimistic side of what we could expect. More likely, the Nats will get something in the .260/ .330/ .420 range, which is still better than half the players on this team.

I wonder, though, how this all fits into the puzzle, especially with the Nats Rule 5 selection, who's also a corner infielder. I assume the Nats might try to work something out with the Indians to send him down to the minors. Or else, they'll let the new kid be Robert Fick to Boone's Tony Batista. That's a bit puzzling, but Bowden always seems to have a bunch of irons in the fire. So no use overreacting to that now.

Boone doesn't have the legs to play middle infield anymore, but he also has a pretty sizeable reverse platoon split for his career. He's hammered (well, comparatively) righties much more than lefties. (.763 OPS v RHP, .740 OPS v. LHP)

The one thing this does do is raise the ol' red flag a bit over Zimmerman. After initially poopooing the thought of his injury affecting him, the more I've read, the more I've seen that it's an injury that often requires a bit of time to adjust to. He should be ready to go, but he might not be himself, at least. Just throwin' crap against a wall tho...

Barry Sez that it's 1-year, $1 million, an excellent value. There are $50K bumps in there for certain levels of games played, but it looks like it tops out at $1.5 million, which would still be well worth it.

Barry also reports that the Nats have agreed on a 2-year deal with Wily Mo Pena, avoiding arbitration with him. He gets $2 million this year, then has a mutual option for $5 million and a $2 million player option if that's declined.

Interesting move, I suppose in that I don't really see the need to lock him up now, especially since we don't really know what kind of player we've got, a hot month be damned. It's certainly not a BAD deal, and it has the potential to be a VERY GOOD one. Just interesting on the timing, I s'pose, especially with the comments Barry relayed from Bowden about the lack of a need to lock up Zimmerman long-term. (which also sends up some of those injury red flags)