Season Preview Washington Nationals

So, I am returning after incorrectly predicting that the Chicago Cubs would win based on their lack of douchebags. Obviously, it does not matter if your team has a wife beater on it, you can still win the World Series.
I am from the Philadelphia area, and am an avid fan of the other 3 major sports teams in Philadelphia, but am an Oakland fan for baseball. I was in California when the Phillies won the World Series (although I was at one of the NLCS games in Philly), and I was happy to see them do well. It still has not hit me that they won, and probably won't until one of the other Philly teams wins (if ever). That being said, I consider myself a Philadelphian (Philadelphiite?) and am quite proud of the fact that our fans could do this:

So, with that out of the way, we are getting close to pitchers and catchers reporting for spring training - one of the best days of the year. In preparation for the beginning of the season, I will pick one team a day to preview - going in order of worst to best record (finish in the playoffs if the team made the playoffs). I'll probably miss a day here or there, but deal with it, I work.

First team, those amazing Washington Nationals:

This was the start of the Nationals season last year:

Ryan Zimmerman hit a walkoff HR to beat the Braves. Unfortunately, the rest of the Nationals season went like this:

So what went wrong? Well, their highest paid player was Nick Johnson, who played all of 38 games. Their idea of a replacement for him was a 300 pound diabetic who didn't seem to comprehend that he had diabetes. Their best player, Zimmerman was hurt, they traded for a guy who almost (and still might) go to jail in Elijah Dukes, and they seemed to have players with the right last names, but wrong first names:

Nick Johnson, instead of Randy (or Don)
Saul Rivera, instead of Mariano
Cristian Guzman, instead of Juan (90s reference, what)
Jorge Sosa, instead of Sammy
and of course,
Ryan Wagner, instead of Honus

To make up for such a decrepit, misnomered team, what did they do in the offseason?

Well, they lost Don Sutton back to the Braves as an announcer (bring back Ted Turner as owner and technicolor movies!!!)
They struck out on every big-name free agent ever. I have a feeling that Teixera went to the Yankees and told them that he will actually give them some of his money back just so he wouldn't have to play in DC.
Their biggest move was getting rid of Chad Cordero who is now a free agent. This makes me miss the days of the Expos with Tim Wallach, Larry Walker, Ken Hill, and Marquis Grissom. Hey, maybe they could resign Moises Alou and Pedro to try to relive the glory days!!
Of course, I think Pedro looks a bit different now

And I don't think the Nats want to deal with Alou's urinary preferences.

2009 Outlook? Terrible. They did little to improve, and have to start hoping they can draft well with their high picks. All they have to look forward to this year is:

Maybe they can sign him to play second base as well.