SI Puts Nats on Relegation Table

The number in parentheses is not "games back". It's ranking out of all 30 big-league teams. Sports Illustrated believes the Nationals will be the worst team in baseball. Worse than the Pirates. Worse than the Commies. Worse than Kansas City. In most of the civilized world's sports leagues, that would demote the Nationals to triple-A next year.

Instead, here in America, it will mean the number-one overall draft pick in 2008.

(Note that SI picks the Rockies to finish ahead of the Giants* in the West. We can only dream.)

Read the Nationals team preview, which implicitly raises, but delicately avoids openly naming, the 120 question. And which also proposes promoting Rauch into the rotation, which BallWonk started 2006 assuming would happen as a matter of course last year.