Late Innings

The Nationals signed the middle of the order bat they finally needed:

The Nationals finally got their left-handed slugging first baseman, signing free agent Adam Dunn to a two-year contract Wednesday, according to a baseball source. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Dunn’s a fine addition to their lineup, and has five straight 40 home run seasons under his belt. Nationals’ hitters like Ryan Zimmerman should benefit greatly. The team still has some dead weight however, such as AK-.227 and Nick Johnson, but thankfully their contracts will be expiring soon. Terms of this two year deal aren’t known yet, but hopefully he will be receiving more than Christian Guzman, who signed a two year, 16MM deal last summer.

On the whole this is a great move by Jim Bowden, how clearly saw something he liked in Dunn back when the two were in Cincinnati. And Nationals fans (if they exist) should be glad that Bowden dropped the coin on Dunn instead of Mark Teixeira. This is a baby-step in the right direction, however the odds of the team losing 100 games in 2009 is still relatively high.