Luis Jimenez? This is news to me, but evidently the guy is a 6-4, lefthanded 1B, former O's and BoSox prospect now considered a bit of a minor-league journeyman, but he is only 25 (turns 26 in May), and he hit .328/.399/.591 for AA-Bowie last year. Anybody have any insight here?

Report from Ft Lauderdale - Nats lead 3-1 in the middle of the 2nd. Two nice singles for both Guzman and Frank Diaz, anchor the offense, while Mock struggled to hit spots with his fastball in the 1st.

GHF, Zimmerman's hand seems to be doing okay.

Nats lineup vs the O's:

Guzman-6
Diaz-7
Dukes-8
B Boone-DH
Langerhans-9
Whitney-3
Harris-4
Moeller-2
Orr-5

Mock pitching.

Dont know much about Jimenez-but 6'4" and left handed sound good.

Shell's line - 3IP 2H 1ER 2BB 3K

Not too bad

either swanni's sarcasm is pegging the meter or he's gone off the deep end (referring to his post in 'guess the rotation').

matt, i'm with bobL in the "signing an average starter for a reasonable price and keeping prospects in AA is a solid approach" thinking. i think the issue many of us have is with that "a lot of free-agent pitching with varying talent" analysis. i don't think the talent with most of that list varied all that much. and swapping out one 4-5 starter for another 4-5 starter just doesn't do much. at least not IMO. we have a big pile of 4-5 starters. i'd be more interested in a 2-3, who would make a difference. the kind of guy patterson or hill could be, if we could rely on them to be healthy. but i don't see the point in spending a few million to add a couple of more 4-5 guys.

Hey Trapper John, thanks for the on-site reporting!

I'll be down there later this month myself -- what's the ST training schedule like? As in, when do they start in the morning, what's the most interesting thing to watch/time to be there, when is best to chase a few of your kids favorite players for autographs, etc? Any advice would be appreciated.

can i just say that i want to see boone make this team. i hope he keeps this up.

After three, it's 4-3 Nats in Lauderdale. Dukes lost a routine fly in the sun in the bottom of the second, and in so doing prolonged the inning, allowing the O's to tie it at three. But doubles from Boone and Harris gave the Nats the lead again,and Rob Bell hurled a scoreless third to leave the Nats with a one-run lead.

Found this on Jimenez (a.k.a. "Little Papi," he weighs 275):

http://www.redsoxnation.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=22280

Also this scouting report from SonsofSamHorn:

"Big Venezuelan has very high power potential but strikes out a ton. Still manages to maintain a high OBP. Actually has decent speed for a man of his size. Has MLB potential if he can show more plate discipline. Defensively, Jimenez lacks great lateral quickness, but his glove is decent."

Has anyone heard if there will be any radio broadcasts of the Nats spring training games? Last year, there were ten and the then-WTWP schedule was published by March 1. National Journal reports are okay, but would be even better to hear at least ten games on the radio.

Bob - the beach was too nice this morning to head to the park early. Sorry. ;)

You can listen to local feed of the Astros game here:

http://www.ktrh.com/main.html

After five, it's 4-4. Bell had been moving it around pretty well till he hung one up that got crushed to straight-away center by Markakis in the bottom of the fifth. But Harris preventing the inning from deteriorating when he dove to snag a hot Luke Scott grounder and turned an amazing double play.

Three up, three down for the o's in the bottom of the sixth, as Bacsik looks good (at least by Bacsik standards).

4-4 after six in lauderdale.

Here's the ST radio info, Margaret:

http://www.3wtradio.com/?sid=1313107&nid=26

Looks like Detweiler got roughed up by the O's. 3H, 2R

CS for Milledge at 3B making him 2-3 so far in ST. 66% makes me think "green light" will be off or will it?

6-5 O's after 7.5 in Lauderdale. Detwiler did, in fact, get roughed up. No movement on his breaking stuff, and less speed than we saw last fall. Disappointing.

Thanks anyway Trapper, glad you enjoyed the beach!

Re: Milledge stealing, 75% is the cutoff, but there's no reason to shut him down after 3 attempts in ST. I think Manny will give him his head all of this month and then evaluate at that point.

I think it was 74%, whatever that means...

OK, seems the Nats will beat Houston, but what's up with the O's game?

Hey, don't jinx it. :)

Good point. At least Schroeder has one out so far.

G. Guzman has had a good day trying to stick as a Rule 5 guy. Two outs.

The seamheads say that a 75% success rate when stealing bases is the rate necessary to make attempted steals worth the risk that you're giving up an out whenever you get caught. Or something like that. In any case there is obviously no material difference between 75% and 74%.

Seems Brian Sanches didn't do much for his chances to stick as a pitcher, though. O's beating us hard, now.

The Astros broadcaster gave him two blue stars (on his scorecard, I assume) and called it the play of the game.

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G. Guzman has had a good day trying to stick as a Rule 5 guy. Two outs.

Thanks, Bob L. for the background. I'm not a stats person and 74% struck me as funny somehow.

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The seamheads say that a 75% success rate when stealing bases is the rate necessary to make attempted steals worth the risk that you're giving up an out whenever you get caught. Or something like that. In any case there is obviously no material difference between 75% and 74%.

Fun in the sun in Ft. Lauderdale...

I love the back end of split squad games, you never know what is going to happen...

Five-run top o' the ninth means 10-9 Nats lead! Thanks to a bunch of mostly anonymous batters - but Bernadina's double was the linchpin.

Ack! How did we lose?

Ah, well. Sidearmer Warden gives up a few doubles, and the one-run lead turns into a loss.

Bye-bye, Jim Ed.