[December 15th] -- As I began to read Bill Ladson's article that announced the (tentative) trade of second baseman Jose Vidro to the Seattle Mariners, I knew that in one of the remaining paragraphs, "it" was going to be there. Somewhere, buried deep within Ladson's prose, he was going to tell me something I already knew.

And there, in the 13th paragraph, was the "official news:" "The trade means one thing for the Nationals -- shortstop Felipe Lopez will be switched to second and Cristian Guzman will remain at shortstop."

There you have it, boys and girls. The strikeout-man cometh.

Cristian Guzman, the "most hated" National of 2005, will -- unless his shoulder isn't 100% -- be the team's opening day shortstop. Most fans on the message boards accept his presence only because he is still owed $8 million dollars and that no one -- no one -- will take him in trade coming off 1) the worst season in his career and 2) having missed all of last year with a bad shoulder.

I was surprised last spring when so many Nationals' fans were expressing their joy on team message boards at the possibility that Guzman might miss most/all of the 2006 season. Mlb.com reported on March 10th that "Cristian Guzman had an MRI on his right shoulder on Friday morning, and it was revealed ... that the shortstop has inflammation and bursitis. Guzman was given a cortisone injection and will be out of action for five to seven days." Apparently, Nats' fans weren't the only ones excited at the prospect of being without Guzman for the season. In that same article, Bill Ladson reported that "...the team is not overly concerned if Guzman is lost for a long period of time ... because Royce Clayton would be the starting shortstop" (I have to admit, I was rooting for Clayton to beat out Guzman during spring training).

A week later, Ladson reported that Guzman had a "slap tear" in his shoulder, and would likely be lost for the season. The cheering was deafning.

Ten months later, the cheering has faded and the sobering fact is that Cristian Guzman ...... is ...... back.

The hate-hate relationship between Nationals' fans and Cristian Guzman didn't begin during the 2005 season, the worst of his career. It took a late season surge for Guzman to get his batting average "up" to .230. He ended the season with just four homers, 31 RBI's and an embarrassingly low .260 on-base percentage. Heck, embarassing doesn't begin to describe a .260 on-base percentage. Nats' fans were upset the moment the team made public Guzman's 4 year, $16 million dollar deal. "Too much money" said some. "He's a terrible player on grass" said others. "He's not getting better, he's getting worse" said others.

And to an extent, they were all right.

Many were stunned that Jim Bowden, as his first move as the Nationals' general manager, signed Guzman to such a large contract, and so quickly at that. The free-agent season had barely begun when Guzman signed with the Nats on November 10th, 2004. Guzman and his agent signed with the Nationals as fast as they could -- before Bowden sobered up.

Many believed that Guzman wouldn't succeed in Washington because he was known to be a "turf player," someone with average skills but who had learned to use the "quirkiness" of artificial turf to inflate their statistics and their value. And there is nothing wrong with that, unless you're a team that plays on natural grass nearly every game of the season. That would be the Nationals.

Faced with these pressures, Guzman crapped out.

But really, what should we have expected? There is no question that playing all those games on astro-turf enhanced his statistics. But by how much? Was he really two different players as some suggested, an all-star turf player and a barely adequate grass player?

Take a look at these stats culled form Guzman's career numbers. I divided his statistics into games played on astro-turf, and natural grass. While it's obvious that Guzman plays better on astro-turf, I don't think you can say that he's a totally different player on natural grass. Yes, there is a 31 point difference in his batting average, but his doubles, home runs and rbi's are very similar. He hits a lot more triples on turf, but it's just too easy to roll a ball to the wall on the Metrodome's synthetic field. Guzman is able to steal more bases on astro-turf as well as stealing at a higher percentage of attempts because the turf offers far better traction than does the infield dirt.

I'm not asking a lot of Cristian Guzman in 2007; I don't think he has "a lot" to give us. He needs to play solid defense (he's averaged just 12 errors a year since 2002), and he needs to have an average year based on his play on natural grass. If healthy, he's likely to hit .260-5-40 and commit less than 13 errors in 2007. And if he does that, if he rebounds from his atrocious 2005, the $4 million dollars he's being paid will seem like a steal.

2005 was a tough year for Cristian Guzman. He heard what we called him at RFK, and I'm sure he was aware of what we wrote about him on our blogs. He'd like nothing more than to prove that -- while he's not an elite shortstop -- he's certainly a capable one.

I think he'll do it. I think he'll succeed and play well enough that Bowden might even considering extending his contract in 2008. If the team is to be built around pitching and defense, then Cristian Guzman will certainly do his part in the field.

I can think of many worse number-eight hitters, can't you?

# posted by Farid Rushdi @ 2:06 PM