I had only just heard the news of a potential Royce Clayton acquisition by the Nationals when the trade materialized. Finalized yesterday, the minor league signing sets up an interesting spring training competition between incumbent shortstop Christian Guzman and the new boy on the block with the dreadlocks (yeah mon!), Clayton.

When the Nationals were building their team for their inaugural season, I got quite excited about the signing of Guzman. In his time with the Twins, Guzman was frequently a nemesis to my Blue Jays, sporting pretty decent fielding and a strong bat. Strangely, the Guzman we saw last year on the field for Washington appeared to be a completely different player. I respect Frank Robinson for not benching him; no one making more than $4 million a year should be earning it by sitting on a bench! That being said, no one wants to see another lack luster season from Guz' either.

Royce Clayton was originally drafted by the SF Giants in the first round (15th pick) of the 1988 amateur draft. He's spent 15 years in the majors, including stints with the Giants, Cardinals, Rangers, White Sox, Brewers, Rockies and Diamondbacks. He's coming off 2 of his best seasons (with a little help from Coors Field's Rocky Mountain High):

Despite his age (36), Clayton appears to be a slightly better defender than Guzman. Neither of these guys have alot of power with the bat, but at their best, they can both get on base and move some butts around the diamond.

The Nationals have additional infield depth with backups Jamey Carroll, Damian Jackson, Marlon Anderson and the up-and-coming Ian Desmond. Desmond's bat is probably not ready for the big leagues, but watch for him to become a franchise player in the years to come. Jamey Carroll has been a longtime favourite of Frank Robinson's for his uncanny ability to accomplish the "little things": bunting, smart base running and timely defense. Jackson and Anderson are new Nats, coming from the Padres and Phillies respectively. Jackson has had impressive fielding stats throughout his career, and also adds speed to the bench. I think he'll be a fine defensive replacement and pinch runner in those late innings of tight games. I haven't seen Marlon Anderson in action, but judging by his stats, he's a decent player who has some experience at several positions around the field. If one of these backups is traded, it's Anderson that I'd like to see used as bait. Trading Carroll would be a big mistake, if you ask me (or Frankie).

Overall, I see the Clayton signing as an incentive to Guzman to kick it into gear or wind up humiliated and benched. As such, I think this is a smart signing, though it doesn't look like I have much company with this opinion. For instance, over at Capital Punishment, they're saying that Clayton's age is prohibitive to his potential effectiveness at short. While it's too early to say who will win the starting shortstop job for the Nationals, remember that Clayton won the position with the Cardinals in '96, beating out the Wizzard of Oz himself, Ozzie Smith. I for one welcome the competition between Clayton and Guzman. It's time to light a fire under Guz' and see if he's really worth that 4 year contract.

This post was added on Friday, February 3rd, 2006 at 10:14 am and is filed under Nationals . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.