In Rebuilding Game, Nats Lead the Braves

Unfortunately, Stan, you need four of 'em to turn out to be "that guy." So, start sifting the drifters. Young Beltran Perez has poise, Shawn Hill savvy and Mike O'Connor moxie. Tim Redding and Jerome Williams had 10-win seasons once upon a time. As a prospect, Jesus Colome threw 100 mph. Jason Simontacchi pitched winter league ball on Mars. Billy Traber is left-handed, tall and once got a base hit. Ex-Red Brandon Claussen can walk -- although he has a shoulder injury and can't throw until midseason.

Almost all of them can be awful and it won't matter in the long haul. Not if just one of them has a miraculous recovery from arm surgery or some obscure southpaw becomes the next Jamie Moyer -- a journeyman with no fastball who one day figured out the art of pitching. Six months of sins will be forgotten if Matt Chico, the crucial chip in the Livan Hernandez deal, comes up in July and is half the pitcher that Smoltz became after the Braves got him in the same kind of trade for Doyle Alexander in '87.

Kasten sees all the parallels. He knows how many moves still lie ahead in the chess game of trying to build a champion. The Braves got Charlie Leibrandt, whose 15 wins helped them to the '91 Series, for long-forgotten first baseman Gerald Perry. They stole a bargain-basement free agent, Terry Pendleton, who immediately won the NL MVP award in '91.

"We didn't sign our first major free agent, Greg Maddux, until '93. And we'd already been to the World Series twice," Kasten said. In Washington, he won't have to wait so long. The budget will allow him to join the free agent hunt after this season.

Unless some rule change negates the need for starting pitchers, the Nats will probably fall somewhere between bad and sad this year. But that's no reason to turn our eyes from Viera this week. The present may be dark, but the future's getting clearer.

"We don't yet know the identity of the players who will win 90 to 100 games here," said Kasten, invoking the mandatory optimism of spring training. "But a lot more of them are already on this club now than was the case in Atlanta.

"I suspect we'll be a good team sooner than anybody expects."