A cursory guess that Philadelphia will in 2010 again field the strongest team in the National League East turns out to be a correct one, just as it turns out to be right to summarily anoint Washington the division's laggard at least at the outset.

Still, it is a useful exercise to examine precisely why matters rate to shake out as they do. One way to do so is to analyze the NL East teams at each position from catcher through bullpen and then, for each position, to rank them within the division. We'll be doing that today and periodically throughout Spring Training.

Here's how this Hutch assesses each team at catcher, in order of combined offensive and defensive effectiveness:

• Catcher is the position at which Atlanta will be strongest this coming season.  The team will be well served by frontliner Brian McCann, while backup David Ross can hold his own behind the plate even among MLB first-stringers.
• Philadelphia did a good job picking up Brian Schneider as a backup to Carlos Ruiz; the ex-Nats backstop's performance and availability should exceed what he was able to provide last season to the Mets.
• John Baker and Ronny Paulino will get the job done for Florida. While neither will excel, a team could do worse; Florida would be wise to assign each of them about half the duty behind the dish.
• The Mets should be about as effective at the position as the Fish, and can count themselves lucky that they were able to snag Rod Barajas, lest they have got stuck with Henry Blanco and God knows whom else.
• The Nats will be wishing they had Barajas (or, better yet, Schneider); instead, they'll be flogging venerable Ivan Rodriguez for all the feel-good vibes they can get and praying that Jesus Flores heals before Pudge wears out and they have to go back to Wil Nieves as an everyday option. While Washington will bring many weaknesses to the 2010 MLB season, catcher, second base and shortstop will be the positions at which the team's most glaring deficiencies will be showcased.

      

Do you know what gets me through the months when our Washington Nationals are not playing? It is going through our (Linda and mine) Washington baseball memorabilia collection. Nothing starts to get my batteries recharged more than looking at a T-206 Gabby Street or Clyde Milan baseball card from 1909.

Our collection is made up of baseball cards, autographed baseball caps (15), autographed baseballs (25), bobbleheads (24), and autographed t-shirts (4) plus other items. Here is a list of some our favorite items.

Baseball Cards

Frank Howard – 1970 Topps #550 – PSA 10

Gabby Street – 1909 T 206 – PSA 4

Clyde Milan – 1909 T 206 – PSA 4

Autographed Baseballs

Ryan Zimmerman & Brooks Robinson HOF 1983

Frank Howard 1968, 1970 AL Home Run Champ

Mickey Vernon 2x AL Batting Champ 1946 & 1953

Bobbleheads

Walter Johnson

Frank Howard

Ryan Zimmerman

Cal Ripken "set of three"

Autographed Baseball Caps

Ryan Zimmerman & Alfonso Soriano

Frank Robinson

Nook Logan – Replica, 1927 Senators cap was worn by Nook Logan during the game that was played during Walter Johnson Day on August 2, 2007.

Autographed T-Shirts

Brain Schneider, Pedro Astacio, and Jason Bergman

Randy White – Maryland and Dallas Cowboys football player.

Autographed Baseball Bats

Frank Howard

Roy Sievers

What is in your collection? What are your favorite items?

      

The Phillies today signed C Brian Schneider, formerly of the Mets, to be their backup catcher.  The longtime Expo/Nat went to the Mets with Ryan Church as part of the Lastings Milledge deal (who then brought Sean Burnett and Nyjer Morgan from Pittsburgh).

More Hot Stove as it develops.

      

The 2010 season rates to be the third in a row in which catcher will be the most difficult position for the Nationals to fill.

Much is still hoped for from 2006 Rule 5 acquisition Jesus Flores, but those hopes continue to be frustrated by Flores' ongoing health issues.  The timetable for the popular 24-year-old Venezuelan's recovery from September labrum surgery is uncertain, and Nats manager Jim Riggleman didn't hide his disappointment when discussing the matter during an internet writers' teleconference last Friday:

This is a big part of our lineup that we want to get in there, but we can't rush him back. . . . We're not anticipating, necessarily, that he's going to be ready when Spring Training starts.

(Recall that a similar shoulder ailment sent shortstop Cristian Guzman to the surgeon's table in May 2006 and cost the Nats his services for almost the entire season.  Nor should we forget that Guzman had yet another shoulder operation last month; better news this time, as Riggleman reports that the surgery was successful, the damage found was minimal, and Guzman should be "throwing fine by January or February.")

If it's reckless to assume that Flores will be available at the beginning of 2010, whom can the Nats turn to within their system?  No matter how you build your list of names, every one comes with a caution:

• Wil Nieves, Flores' backup for the last two seasons, is no terror at the bat or wizard behind the dish, but does show up every day -- or did until he was sidelined with a left hamstring injury on September 17.  Nothing indicates either that Nieves, 31, will be anything but healthy at the beginning of Spring Training or that the Nats have any intention of moving forward with him as the first-string catcher.
• Thirty-one-year-old veteran Josh Bard -- who caught all or part of 79 games for the 2009 Nats, and whose defense will never set any records except for hopefulness -- has departed to free agency.
• Derek Norris, 20, appeared at position #7 on Baseball America's Prospect Hot Sheet at the end of the 2009 minor-league season.  While Norris batted his way to an impressive .286 / .413 / .513 line at low-A Hagerstown in 2009, he also committed 18 errors and allowed 28 passed balls in 100 games behind the plate for the Suns.  It's hard to imagine that we'll see him at Nats Park before 2012 at the earliest.
• Seven-year minor-league veteran Luke Montz, 25, from whom greatness -- or at least utility -- was hoped as recently as a year ago, showed some disinclination to excel during 2009.  Montz was designated for assignment shortly after the end of the farm campaign.
• Jamie Burke, 37, acquired by the Nats from Seattle on the very night that Nieves pulled his hamstring, is neither defensively gifted nor an exceptional hitter.  He may be back with the M's in 2010.
• Thirty-year-old utilityman Pete Orr was slated to go to the Florida Instructional League after the season to acquire catching skills.  (Don't laugh:  on the night that Nieves was injured there was talk of outfielder Josh Willingham pulling backup duty behind the plate.)  There's been no word on how Orr fared in instructs.

The Nats will thus be forced to explore the trade and free-agent markets for viable candidates.  Here are a few they'll likely be looking at.

• Brian Schneider served as the Expos' / Nats' everyday catcher from 2003 through 2007, after which he was dealt to the Mets with outfielder Ryan Church for outfield prospect Lastings Milledge.  Schneider, 32, has filed for free agency and is unlikely to be back with New York in 2010.
• Colorado has declined the option of 30-year-old Yorvit Torrealba, whom Phil Wood at the Examiner sees as a possibility depending on Flores' recovery timetable.
• Atlanta's David Ross, 32, is a solid defensive backstop whose bat revived smartly in 2009.  Ross' name hasn't been mentioned in any trade rumors audible to this Hutch, but the Braves have reportedly expressed interest in Willingham.  (Presumably not as a catcher.) While Ross plus a prospect would be a welcome return if a Willingham deal were made, the Braves should be loath to part with Ross as their system has little depth at catcher beyond him and 25-year-old frontliner Brian McCann.
• Chris Coste, 36, whom the Astros picked up off waivers from the Phillies in July, is now a free agent and could be had for the cost of a minor-league contract if he's not yet ready to hang up the tools.  RZ at The Rays Party offers a list of similar possibilities.

Finally, reader, suppose the Lerners handed you the checkbook for a day... what free-agent (or trade-candidate) catchers would be on your wish list?

      

Former Washington National Brian Schneider will soon be a former New York Met, reports Adam Rubin in the New York Daily News:

"I won't be back," Schneider told the Daily News, accepting that the Mets don't plan to re-sign him. "I'm okay with that. I'll easily get a job next year. I'm not worried about it. I'll get a job and just move on. Guys do that. I'm not going to retire. No way."

Plagued throughout much of the season by pain and injury, Schneider has accrued a 2009 batting line of only .195 / .274 / .318 while seeing Omir Santos get the bulk of the Mets' starts behind the plate.  Schneider, who was Montreal's fifth-round draft selection in 1995, was the first-line catcher for the Expos / Nats from 2003 through 2007, after which he was traded to the Mets along with Ryan Church for Lastings Milledge.

MLB Trade Rumors questions whether Schneider will qualify even as a type-B free agent in the offseason.  Failure to do so would largely eliminate any incentive for the Mets to offer him salary arbitration, since they would get no draft picks in return if he declined an arbitration offer -- while if Schneider were to accept arbitration, the Mets would potentially be on the hook for a seven-figure salary to a player whose health and availability would be anything but certain.

      

The man in the news on December 14, 2007, was Paul Lo Duca.

A commission under the leadership of former U.S. senator George Mitchell had spent the past 20 months investigating the usage of illegal performance-enhancing substances within Major League Baseball.  Eighty-nine players were named in the Mitchell Report, among them then-recent Nationals signee Lo Duca who the team had felt would fill the considerable void left by the recent departure of catcher Brian Schneider in trade.

That void, of course, ended up getting filled by Jesus Flores, while Lo Duca's abbreviated tenure with the team featured, among other forgettable things, spells on the injured list, on the bench and occasionally in left field.

Wracked by injury in 2008, the Nats ended up playing a lot of guys in left field.  One of them had been signed on December 14, 2007, while Lo Duca and 88 others were busy making news.

The news archives do not record whether Willie Harris took the family out to dinner that night to celebrate his new job under the curly W.  We suspect that suits him just fine.

For the next edition of his Baseball Dictionary, we think it would be entirely appropriate for Paul Dickson to include a picture of Willie Harris next to the entry for "utility player."

Dickson defines "utility player" as "A substitute who can play any one of several positions as needed."  That's certainly what Harris has been:  over nine big-league seasons, the only positions he hasn't played are first base, pitcher, and catcher.  (For what it's worth, he has DH'd in nine games.)

One of the typical categories of utility player, according to Dickson, is "the mid-level player backing up a superstar."  Such a guy can be great to have around when you need him, but also can be relatively easy to let go of, as Atlanta did Harris after the 2007 season.  Was that a wise move by the Braves?

Looking at Harris' record, it might certainly have seemed so.  However useful Harris may have been in the field backing up Matt Diaz, that utility had not translated itself to the batter's box, where Harris had accrued a hitting line of .247 / .318 / .321 over seven major-league seasons through 2007.

Harris' attractiveness to the Nats probably stemmed in part from his logging those numbers, however unspectacular, from the left side of the plate.  The Nats' lineups had been suffering for a while from a paucity of portside batters, and they no doubt felt that a guy who could play any of several positions -- and just might not be an automatic out against right-handed pitching -- would be worth bringing on board for a trial.

The trial has worked out well, maybe even better than expected.

Willie Harris has played five different positions in his two seasons with the Nats, which has been a godsend especially in injury-riddled 2008.  (Doesn't it seem on some nights as if Harris is the only outfielder who doesn't turn a routine fly ball into an adventure?)

Perhaps even more impressively, Harris' numbers at the plate have been a cut above his historical norm:

• Over the latest two seasons to date, he's batted .243 / .343 / .408, a 111-point improvement in OPS over his previous seven seasons.
• He poled 13 homers in 2008 alone, nearly twice as many as in his entire career through 2007.
• His walk rate is up measurably: from 2001-2007 he drew bases on balls in just 9.0% of his plate appearances, but since then he's been walking 11.8% of the time, nearly a third more.

What's the secret of Willie Harris' success?

To hear him tell it last year, Willie's improvement had everything to do with -- of all people -- much-maligned (and since-departed) hitting coach Lenny Harris, whom Willie credits with putting him in "a better hitting position."

We have no problem with that characterization, especially the way the numbers back it up.

But looking at Harris, both at bat and in the field, we can't help seeing the model of a player who's always seeking an edge, always seeking to improve.  The kind of guy who takes elective courses and learns from them, even though he might have come into the room knowing more about the subject than any other student in the class.

The kind of player whom either Charlie or Dave -- we forget which -- described late one Saturday night on a Nats radio broadcast as being "self-coaching," meaning that he can tell himself the right things to do instead of having to be prompted.

For every hundred guys putting in the time in triple-A, and never quite understanding what happened to their major-league careers, there's one Willie Harris.  In a tough season, it's gratifying to know both that Harris is taking it to the next level and that the Nats were astute enough -- or lucky enough, or both -- to get him on board when they did.

      

Nationals catcher Jesus Flores should have demonstrated to the satisfaction of anyone and everyone in 2007 that he was fast becoming a respectable major-league receiver.

He wasn't perfect, but he did a pretty fair job spelling Brian Schneider. And it was nice to know Flo was staying around after Schneid and Ryan Church were dealt to the Mets.

That he would inherit the catching position full time, though, was far from certain. The idea actually was that Flores, having served his required MLB time pursuant to Rule 5, would go to the minors in 2008 to hone his craft.

So who would be the MLB catcher in the meantime? The FO was pretty clearly interested in going outside the organization, never seriously considering the other minor-league catchers for promotion -- which, with the possible exception of Devin Ivany, wasn't a bad call at the time.

Or maybe they just needed to prove that they could spend like Steinbrenner. They certainly did that, picking up veteran Paul Lo Duca late in the offseason at the price of $5 million for one year. (It's a hell of a note when a notoriously frugal management consistently pays 50% to 100% premiums for Type B free agents, although the Guzman family is probably tickled about that right now.)

Still, signing Lo Duca was not a monstrosity like the Andruw Jones deal. And there was supposed to be some instructional value to having him around, although how much instruction could take place with Lo Duca in Washington and Flores in Columbus was never made clear.

In any event, based on field performance alone, Lo Duca didn't project like a $5 million catcher. And he's spent much of his season proving it when he wasn't on the injured list. Meanwhile, Flores has demonstrated his worth beyond even the capacity of a Nats executive to refute it.

This confluence of circumstances has reduced Lo Duca to the indignity of filling in at first base. He's quick to remind us, however, that that's not where his heart is.

Though he emphasized that he doesn't mind remaining with Washington through the season, he said that ideally, he'd like to be traded this week to a contending team that needs him as a catcher. . . .

"I understand what the team needs, but I look at it like they're going with youth. I feel like I can catch, and I'm not in the works at catcher here anymore," Lo Duca said. "Manny has done a good job of trying to get [me] at-bats, but I still feel like I'm a catcher. Whether that happens, who knows. . . .

"It has to be the right situation. I want to go to a team where I'm going to be a part of that team. Not just go somewhere and suck up a ring. I want to be part of a ring if I get that chance."

Whatever he thinks he just said, I'm fairly sure I don't want or need to hear much more of it.

And perhaps I'll get my wish. Quoth Wednesday's New York Post:

The Nationals, who dealt reliever Jon Rauch to Arizona yesterday, will move former Met Paul Lo Duca and his $5 million salary.

While the NYP doesn't cite its source, that "will" doesn't leave much room for "perhaps." It only causes one to wonder how soon and where.

Best of luck, Paul.

      

The Nats' blockbuster trade of the 2007-08 offseason was the one that was supposed to get the franchise moving in a new direction. On November 30, 2007, outfielder Ryan Church was dealt to the Mets along with catcher Brian Schneider in exchange for outfield prospect Lastings Milledge.

It had been long suspected that Church was not playing up to his best in Washington. Supposedly, poor "body language" got him optioned to triple-A at the end of 2006 spring training, although he returned once manager Frank Robinson's infatuation with Brandon Watson waned about the same time as Watson's numbers reverted to the mean.

Perhaps Church's poor performance in spring 2006 was a lingering result of having hit the wall in Pittsburgh in 2005. In any case, Church turned in a .215 / .346 / .477 hitting line in the month after his return from New Orleans, with his numbers trending alarmingly downward after a hot start.

F. Robby summed up the situation in mid-May 2006:

He has to get back to doing what he's capable of doing . . . . He's a little confused right now. He's swinging at the pitcher's pitches and taking his pitch. He's not focused on what he wants to do at the plate. We want him to get back in a good groove.

And so this time Church got sent all the way down to double-A Harrisburg. Only in July was his farm exile terminated, whereupon he proceeded to accrue a 2006 batting line of .276 / .366 / .526.

Come 2007, Church's respectable .272 / .349 / .464 line earned him... a yawn, even as GM Jim Bowden snapped up Wily Mo Pena from the Red Sox to take on the left-field duties at RFK and knock the ball around some.

Now, it must be said that Pena acquitted himself reasonably in Washington last season (.293 / .352 / 504 in 37 games), although he could be counted on to go down on strikes once per game on average, an even worse rate than Church's. And, in any event, it was pretty clear that the Nats were looking for even more outfield slugging. Which left one wondering where Church fit into the plan.

Where he ended up fitting was with the New York Mets. In the season's first 30 games, Church has raked .314 / .379 / .508, and seems thoroughly to be enjoying himself.

Milledge in 2008? Umm... well, .262 / .328 / .361 might presage a big breakout coming soon, or it might just be a pointer to mediocrity, at least under the curly W.

Could we possibly be seeing evidence of an organizational problem? Whatever the qualifications of hitting coach Lenny Harris and his predecessors, could it just be that they haven't had quite what it takes to help the Nats' hitters get into a winning groove? Might it even be that Bowden isn't exactly the front-office genius he'd like us to think he is? (Hint: FO brilliance consists of more than the ability to pull off daring deals.)

More to the point, did the Nats do Church wrong? And, if so, is the organization risking doing unto Milledge (and others) as it did unto Church?

Will anyone in the front office bother to reflect on this trade, and -- even if it happens to have been right -- to consider the risks and cost of player mismanagement at the MLB level? Or will the Nats maintain an apparent policy of executive stasis, player-personnel churn, and eternal hope in the amateur draft?

Painful and expensive answers could lie ahead.