Here's a rare smart move this off-season by GM Jim Bowden: the Nationals have avoided two years of arbitration and two years of free agency by signing home grown catcher Brian Schneider to a 4-year deal. Read the full press release on MLB.com. In the past three seasons, Schneider has not only positioned himself as one of the best defensive catchers in the game, but he's improved his batting average, on base percentage and slugging, while also significantly reducing his strikeouts. To top it off, he's a clubhouse leader and handles Washington pitchers very well.

While I liked the notion of Bengie Molina in a Nats uniform, I feel this deal with Schneider is more appropriate. It's always good for team morale to sign a hard working home grown player rather than bring in a star from elsewhere to do the same job. Any money left on the payroll has to go to more important areas, namely a left-handed pitcher.

While we're on the topic of Bengie, I will say that I love the idea of him playing on home turf at Skydome! (Ooops, I mean Rogers Centre.)

This post was added on Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 at 9:05 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.