With the departures of 40-40 man Alfonso Soriano, and clubhouse cancer, Jose Guillen one of the biggest questions remaining for the Nationals, to me anyways, is who is going to be the "Big Hitter. I would say Nick Johnson but who knows when he'll be back and it may take him a while to get his timing back once he does. Next theres Austin Kearns, who they acquired last season in a trade with the Reds. Kearns is a good, fly ball, hitter who the coaches last year were trying to convert to a line drive hitter to take advantage of the spacious outfield gaps of RFK. I dont think he has enough power to be the feared hitter they need. That leads me to Ryan Zimmerman. He hit 20 HR's and had 100+ RBI's last year as a rookie, i think he can only get better i think he may increase his HR total by 5-10 aND RBI'S probably stay about the same without Soriano at the top of the order to drive in all the time.

I have to go with ZImmerman, he showed a LOT as a rookie and I think can lead this team. Lopez is just too inconsistent, after a promising year in '05 he came back in '06 and just had no discipline at all, and not enough power to compensate for that. Kearns who once was very promising looks to be fizzling out, I still don't know why they gave him that extension, maybe they know something we don't. Also a guy like Johnson could be a big hitter, if he can hang in there for 150+ his #'s would look really good IMO, but 150 is asking a lot but he could.

The thing with Kearns is that he is a fly ball hitter which is problem with such a big ballpark in RFK. So they're trying to make him into more of a linedrive/gap hitter to take advantage of the big right-center, left-center outfield alleys. Although i dont think he'll be better than Zim i think he'll probably be the second best hitter there. A guy id also lookout for would be Larry Broadway if hes given the chance he has big power potential.

But even playing in Cincy he didn't appear to have the power as well

thats true, but i dont think he was ever completely healthy when he was with the Reds.

in '05 he got 387 AB and hit .240 with 18-67 with 107 k's. He has all the potential in the world and could benefit from a good hitting coach.

Thats true. I think he could benefit a lot from a guy like Ron Jackson, the hitting coach for the Red Sox until this year, but, i dont know if the hitting coach for the Nats (i forget his name) can make him what he has the potential to be.

The Nats are a team that can go either way at this point. If Lopez reverts back to '05, Johnson stays healthy, Kearns steps up and Zimmerman progresses they could surprise.

I agree completely. Their offense has a chance to be one of the better ones in the league this year, but the pitching is the big question. Besides Patterson its a dog fight between young guns, and old vets.

Doesn't look good for Johnson

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