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| Gio's Twitter profile picture |
It’s still hard to tell if the Washington Nationals will get Prince Fielder, or if they’re even seriously pursuing them,
but their acquisition of Gio Gonzalez alone should get Nationals fans excited
for the upcoming season (pitchers and catchers report in just over a
month!!!!!) Admittedly the Nationals
gave up a lot of prospects to the Oakland Athletics in the trade to get Gio, but Gonzalez is a solid
frontline starter and should benefit from switching to the National League and
facing other team’s third starters.
Sunday morning, Gonzalez and the
Nationals settled to terms on a contract agreement, keeping Gonzalez in the
nation’s capital through 2016. The
financial terms to the deal have not been released yet, but there are options
for the 2017 and ’18 seasons. UPDATE: Reportedly worth $42 million over 5 years. The main benefit
of this deal is that the arbitration process will be completely avoided. Arbitration is awful. Team X talks about how much Player A sucks
and isn’t worth a big contract, and then Player A inevitably returns to Team X
which just said he sucks. How weird and
awkward is that? Well that won’t happen
with Gonzalez!
The Nationals’
trade and contract agreement with Gio Gonzalez prove that they are ready to
contend. They, and Nationals fans, are
no longer looking into the extended future for hope. That hope is immediate. Making the playoffs this year will be
difficult, especially in a loaded NL East, but the times of Phillies fans
treating us like their 4-year-old cousin are over. In fact, they ended long ago.
Well maybe not long ago, but they ended on
August 20th, 2011. After a
two-hour rain delay, the Nationals came from behind to beat the Phillies with a
6-run 9th inning, including a walk-off grand slam from Ryan Zimmerman. There were more Phillies fans in the stadium that
night, but we were louder.
Sorry for the poor quality video, trouble embedding, the HR comes around the 3:50 mark.
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