It was the last place the Nationals wanted to end up. But a three-game sweep at the hand of the Phillies over the weekend forces the organization to accept a harsh reality: No team in baseball this season was worse.
The Nats finished with a 59-102 record, sinking below the Seattle Mariners on the final day of the season. But maybe that’s for the best. With the worst record comes the top pick in next June’s Major League Baseball draft. And the early consensus from baseball officials — including Nats general manager Jim Bowden and assistant general manager Mike Rizzo — is that San Diego State right-handed pitcher Stephen Strasburg is the likely choice.
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The 6-foot-4, 220-pound Strasburg was the only college pitcher to make the roster for this summer’s United States Olympic baseball team in Beijing and has a fastball clocked routinely at 97 miles-per-hour. Bowden has compared Strasburg to Boston Red Sox star pitcher Josh Beckett.
But the ultimate question revolves around Washington’s ability to sign a No. 1 pick, given that this year’s first-round choice — right-handed pitcher Aaron Crow — failed to do so. Strasburg has said his advisor will be agent Scott Boras, notorious for making life miserable for teams with high draft picks. Rizzo, speaking at an ESPN Zone question-and-answer session for fans 10 days ago, said the Nats would not shy away from taking a Boras client.
