Soriano Losers

"I want to win a World Series and get to the Hall of Fame." — second baseman Alfonso Soriano, March 1, 2004 to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Attempting to discover truth at the trade deadline is like trying to read smoke signals in a hurricane. To hear Washington Nationals general manager Jim Bowdon spin his team's complete inability to broker a trade for all-star outfielder Alfonso Soriano is at best confusing, at worst symbolic of a man who's clawing so hard to stay in a job that he's down to the bone.

"We felt the best deal we could make is no deal," Bowden said in a conference call.

Pathetic. Here is a franchise that is clearly building for the future, because the future is the building: that sterling new stadium on the Anacostia waterfront that's really the only thing keeping this vagabond team from floating on to the next baseball-friendly port.

Whatever happens for this last season-and-a-quarter in RFK Stadium or in the honeymoon 2008 season when Viagra Park at Anthony Williams Yards (or whatever) opens is immaterial — the next time the Nationals need worry about contending is in 2009, when all of the luster of this new ballpark, and its still-novel tenants, has worn off. If that season's team is 49-60 at the beginning of August, then DC baseball will completely disappear from the hearts and minds of fans when Redskins camp opens.

So the Nats need to start constructing a winner, and to do so requires players you can win with. They appear to have a core of batsmen they can build around: I love third baseman Ryan Zimmerman, catcher Brian Schneider, and first baseman Nick Johnson. At least two of them will be in their primes come 2009, and it's never too difficult to find bats to surround them if the Nats' new owners are as committed to winning as they claim to be.

Arms are a different issue. For a team that should be in a rebuilding mode, the Nationals have only seven pitchers born after 1980 on their 40-man roster. Combine that with the fact that the Nats are ranked 24th in Baseball America's minor league organizational talent rankings — after being ranked 26th in 2005 and 30th in 2004 — and the team's future is about as bleak as Mel Gibson's chances of working with Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Trading Soriano would have brought back something. Not the blue-chippers Bowden believed the trade required, but at least three or four bodies Washington doesn't have now. If one pitcher from a Soriano trade makes the Nats' starting rotation in 2009, it's a successful trade. Keep in mind that Washington traded Brad Wilkerson and Terrmel Sledge for Soriano to begin with.

Bowden's other message, however, may have revealed the true reason why Soriano wasn't dealt: the team's hope-against-hope wish that this 30-year-old superstar who publicly yearned to win a World Series two years ago will re-sign with a team several years from hitting that mark.

"He wants to stay in DC and did not want to be traded," said Bowden, cowing to Soriano in a way I never thought he would after winning that spring training battle over his move to the outfield.

This is a direct reaction to Soriano's anti-trade rant, as reported by the Baltimore Sun: "To be honest, it's tough to say I'd come back if they trade me because you know if they trade me I'm going to think that I cannot be good for this team, because they traded me, because they [do] not need me anymore."

This guy has played the good citizen, "I want to stay in DC" card all season, and to be honest, I haven't believed it once. As I reiterated at the top of the column: "I want to win a World Series and get to the Hall of Fame." The Hall of Fame business won't be hard, because the bar for enshrinement is dropping faster than Patrick Ramsey's fantasy football stock. He'll need over 300 home runs and a way to get those RBI totals up, but it's not out of the question.

But the World Series victory isn't going to happen with the Nationals until he's in his mid-30s, if at all, because this team's pitching is in such sorry shape for the future. If he does stay in DC, he wants a no-trade clause, which Nationals President Stan Kasten doesn't believe in. If Soriano really wants to win and to stay put with one team, he's not re-signing in Washington.

If the stars align, priorities change, and he does re-sign, Bowden doesn't just deserve to keep his job, but to have a bronze statue of him hanging up on general managers during the trade deadline erected near the left-field fence.

But if Soriano leaves for greener pastures — okay, the Yankees — and all the Nationals get are a couple of lousy draft picks, then Bowden lost this crap shoot, big time.

At least the Expos got some prospects back when waving goodbye to their best players.

Random Thoughts

Guilty or not guilty, Floyd Landis blew a major marketing opportunity.

How does that guy not stand up in front of the press and say: "Yeah, elevated testosterone. I don't like to brag, but THAT'S JUST HOW MUCH OF A MAN I AM, BA-BY!"

Reporter: "Uh, Mr. Landis, and those reports about finding synthetic testosterone in your system?"

Floyd: "What are you, a hater? How'd you like it if I turned my bike sideways and shoved it up yer Tour de Ass?"

Okay, it might not have helped his cause ... but it would have at least gotten him an endorsement deal with Axe Body Spray or Slim Jim...

The NBA's new playoff format is a joke, completely undermining the divisional format because Mark Cuban went crying to his blog about home-court advantage. But the real bonehead move out of the offseason rules meeting was this strange decision: "If a team has two 60-second timeouts left in the final two minutes of regulation or in overtime, one will be reduced to a 20-second timeout."

Since when did smart coaching become an affront to basketball? I'm stunned the NBA is against having two 60-second timeouts in the last two minutes of a game — I mean, that's at least three commercials, right?

Eric Lindros recently signed a free agent contract in Dallas. Makes sense — he's been seeing Stars for the last seven years...

Finally, a report out of New Jersey has the New York Jets naming Chad Pennington as the starter for the 2006 NFL season.

As a fan, I will cherish those two or three weeks of exciting football until the Porcelain Princess gets knocked back on the shelf...

Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington, DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book is "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History." His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].