Dec 10th 2008 3:53PM by Matt Watson (author feed)
No matter how you look at it, the Nationals are a bad team. A really bad team. They have holes in their lineup, holes in their rotation and holes in their bullpen. They are not “one player away” from contending for anything, certainly not in the NL East. where they finished dead last in 2008, more than a dozen games behind fourth place.

And yet, for whatever reason, the Nationals are making a serious push for Mark Teixeira, the most coveted slugger on the free agent market. Jose Mota of Yahoo! reports the Nationals have made a seven-year, $150 million offer, while Mike DiGiovanna of the cites “a source from a team that is involved in negotiations” that the Nationals are willing to match Teixeira’s demand for a 10-year, $200 million deal.

It’s one thing to make an offer just to get the team’s name in the paper so the front office can turn around and tell their fans, “well, we tried,” but it’s another altogether to open the doors to the vault and dare Teixeira to help himself to whatever he wants. I’m not completely convinced DiGiovanna’s source has the story right, but if the Nationals are going to break the bank on anyone, they may as well do it on a guy who grew up within driving distance of D.C.

The bidding war is hardly over — the Angels, for one, have yet to make their offer — but what looked like a two-horse race between the Angels and Red Sox (especially with the Yankees determined to fix their rotation first and lineup second) certainly got a little more interesting.