Yes, you read that right. He will finish his goal of running a marathon on all seven continents if he completes tomorrow's (Sat., Dec. 12) Antarctic Ice Marathon. It's the southernmost marathon event in the world. The Washington Post had a feature article about him in Friday's paper, on the front page in fact.

I take extra interest in this story since I'm a fan of both the Nats and a new participant in endurance sports (triathlon and some shorter running races). And a resident of the Washington area. McCarthy could be the first true Washingtonian to run a marathon on all seven continents.

The president of the Florida Marlins finished the Ironman World Championship race in Kona, Hawaii, an impressive feat. (Despite the Marlins being a division rival, I have to give the guy his well-deserved due for that.) If McCarthy can finish the Antarctic Ice Marathon tomorrow, will he be the biggest bad-a$$ baseball executive in the major leagues? Hard to say, but if he finishes, all Nats fans should start boasting about him. Hey, we need something to boast about.

I didn't watch much of the World Series at all, mostly because it was the final steps in the completion of a money-fueled almost predetermined plan. Though money doesn't guarantee championships, it sure does make it easier to make mistakes. Most teams could not survive the disasters of Carl Pavano and other failed free-agent signings a few years ago, but the Yankees can turn right around and sign CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira in one offseason and basically buy a championship. If the Nationals had signed Sabathia, Burnett and Texeira last winter, they would probably have been one of the top teams in the league.

I suppose if you have the money and you're willing to spend it, then you should go ahead. But I don't think it will be good for baseball in general if the Yankees begin to dominate the league again the way they did at the end of the last decade. There was so much hope for opening up the playoff club to smaller-market teams when Tampa made it to the World Series last year but maybe that was just a fluke. It's not impossible for small-market teams to win but it takes a lot of luck. Most of the playoff perennials are the big spenders/large-market teams while the bottom tier of the league (Kansas City, Pittsburgh, et al.) is made up of small-market teams.

I'll still follow the Nats and watch the games next year but I'll probably watch even fewer national broadcasts than I did this year. I only watched a couple national games all year as it was (those not involving the Nats). I barely watched any of the playoffs. I hope baseball changes its economics in 2011 (?) when the next round of collective bargaining is supposed to begin.

Why is the baseball draft limited to residents of the U.S. or Canada? Other pro sports include prospects from other countries in their drafts. Limiting the baseball draft in this manner negates the attempts of the league to create more parity among the teams. After all, only the very wealthy teams can afford to shell out tens of millions of dollars just to negotiate for the rights of someone like Daisuke Matsuzaka. I don't think you'll be seeing the Pirates, Twins or Royals doing that anytime soon.

Why don't they make the draft a worldwide one? I can't see why the players' union would be opposed to this. As Boras said during the Strasburg negotiations, overseas players benefit from this system far more than U.S. prospects do. Not that I'm agreeing with everything Boras says, but I think the loophole should be closed. The current system limits the process of signing top foreign players to just a handful of teams, the usual suspects of the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Cubs, and a few others.

I admit to not following the amateur prospect scene too closely but I've started hearing more and more about Bryce Harper as a potential no. 1 overall pick in 2010. He plays a few different positions but his primary position is catcher. Jesus Flores has not proved to be durable for the Nats so maybe it would be a good idea to get someone who could compete with Flores for the starting job in 2011.

There aren't any "once-in-a-lifetime" pitchers (a la Strasburg) in next year's draft, are there? Who else might the Nats pick next year?

Until this September, Justin Maxwell hadn't shown that he could hit major league pitching. In his first stint of 2009, he batted just .125 in limited action. Many thought, justifiably, that Maxwell wasn't cut out to be a major-league ballplayer. Then something happened. He figured "it" out. He was recalled on Sept. 1 Over the one month-plus since that date, he has hit .311 over 26 games. He has also hit 4 HR and provided a spark to the offense in their current winning streak, along with Ian Desmond. Has Maxwell earned a roster spot for next season? He'll be 26 years old by next spring. If he can help to solidify the OF and provided good numbers on offense, he could help the Nats have more winning streaks in 2010.

Maxwell could split time in RF with Dukes. He could also give Nyjer Morgan and Josh Willingham a few days off over the course of the long season, giving him up to 10 starts in CF and 10 in LF to go with a possible platoon situation in RF. When Morgan went down with the hand injury, the Nats' offense went in the tank. But in recent weeks, Justin Maxwell and Ian Desmond have taken over Morgan's role of charging up the offense. If these two guys can play like this, and Morgan makes a full recovery, the offense could be much better next year. Not that it was that bad this season but the team was inconsistent until Morgan came along. Dunn, Zimmerman and Willingham will provide plenty of power but the Nats also need hitters like Morgan, Desmond and Maxwell to keep things flowing.

It's a universally held notion that the Nats need to fix (replace?) the starting rotation before the 2010 season. The bullpen has some good pieces in MacDougal, Tyler Clippard and Sean Burnett so GM Mike Rizzo probably only needs to fill out the depth of the bullpen. We don't need another overhaul like we had twice this year. CF was a huge problem until the Nyjer Morgan trade. Likewise, 2B and/or SS was seen as a problem area but Ian Desmond could be ready to step up full-time next year. Pete Orr and Mike Morse may be able to provide decent support as backups/utility players. So that leaves the starting rotation as the area most in need of attention.

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As we enter the final stages of the 2009 season, the Nats are trying to figure out who should stay and become part of the team's future and who doesn't fit their plans for 2010 and beyond. Former players like Lastings Milledge, Joel Hanrahan, Anderson Hernandez and Nick Johnson are no longer with the team (though NJ could return as a free agent this winter). Elijah Dukes spent some time back in the minors but is now back with the big-league team. Is he the answer at RF? He struggled badly last year before turning it around in the 2nd half of 2008. His play has been inconsistent this year. He was on a hot streak a few weeks ago but now he's in a slump. His average has dipped to .236. He only has 7 HR in 254 AB but he has driven in 45 runs. He has 2 stolen bases but he's been "caught stealing" 8 times. Many of those were actually Dukes getting picked off of 1B.

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Most Nats fans know that Scott Boras will probably wait until just before the signing deadline before undertaking any serious negotiations for Strasburg's possible contract. Putting aside the fact that Boras has several other unsigned clients, some of whom may miss out on the deadline and end up shattering their careers as a result (since they won't be in as much demand as someone like Strasburg), Boras AND Strasburg are generating a lot of ill will around baseball. Is this really the way Strasburg wants to start out his professional baseball career? Apparently so.

People understand that this is a business but you can tell that even some of the current major leaguers are frustrated by the negotiation tactics here. Strasburg hasn't thrown a single pitch in a professional game and yet he wants more money than most major leaguers are likely to see over the course of their entire careers. No. 1 overall pitchers have poor track records and none of them have ever turned out to be true, long-term stars. The Nats' other 1st round draft pick signed a long time ago and promptly got to work. Meanwhile, Strasburg is probably checking out Hummer dealerships and setting up deals to buy a tricked out monster SUV as soon as his big, hoped-for payday comes in. Ugh.

This all leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I'm sure Boras doesn't care but maybe Strasburg does. At least he should. He's going to be in a very prominent, public position over the next few years, assuming he actually signs and doesn't get himself injured a la Jordan Zimmermann. He's threatening to walk away from tens of millions of dollars? In the middle of a worldwide recession? Now he's threatening to not sign and play in Japan for a year. *shakes head* Yeah, that sounds like a real good career plan. Not that Japanese baseball is bad but what does Strasburg know about Japanese baseball and Japanese culture. He's going to have a tough time adjusting just to everyday life, let alone professional baseball, all as a young adult. Most American players who go over there are established MLB veterans who already know about the rigors of playing professional baseball.

If Strasburg signs, many fans will forget about the negotating tactics but I hope many others don't. I'd like to see a negative reaction so that future Boras clients see the downside to going along with Boras and acting like corporate raiders instead of prospective pitchers. Remember, these are guys who don't have any professional experience whatsoever. The players' union should be upset too. All the millions of dollars that are going to unproven prospects could be going toward salaries and bonuses for major league players with established playing credentials. Instead, they are going out to high-risk high schoolers and college players with no track record. It's one thing to roll the dice on someone like a Pedro Martinez who has a long history of injuries but an equally long list of outstanding accomplishments in the game. It's another thing to throw $50 million at someone who has only faced other amateur players, the vast majority of whom will never even play a single major league game. True, Strasburg was impressive in the international competitions last year with Team USA but how many prospects in all of professional sports have played great games only to do little over the course of their careers after that.

Sign a freaking contract already, Strasburg!

Austin Kearns' days in DC are numbered. No secret there. It's even surprising that he's still here but that might be the result of the large contract. He isn't even a major league hitter anymore, struggling just to hit .200. The coaching staff discovered that Daniel Cabrera was putting his foot on the rubber when he threw and they tried to correct it (unsuccessfully). So why haven't they taken a look at Austin Kearns' mechanics? There's one simple thing he can do, and it doesn't involve anything complicated. CHOKE UP ON THE BAT, AUSTIN!

He is consistently late on his swings. He often loses control of the bat and sends it flying into the stands. You can tell that he's trying to maximize the power of his swing by getting maximum extension and using the weight of the bat, instead of getting good bat speed. All of this is related to his bad habit of putting his bottom hand at the end of the bat, so that he is barely hanging on with that hand. This is why he has such a terrible hold of the bat and it may be why he can't catch up to major league pitching anymore.

Many hitters try to get through slumps by choking up on the bat. Why won't he do this? Or why won't the coaches make him do it? It's not rocket science. Is he afraid that he'll look like a weak contact hitter if he does? So what? Is that any worse than batting .198? It's not like he's hitting HRs with his current approach. The strikeouts wouldn't matter so much if he were also hitting HRs like Adam Dunn or Ryan Howard but he has just 3 HR in 167 AB this year to go with 49 K's.

Maybe he will always be too stubborn to change but he should realize that he is playing himself out of the major leagues, not just out of DC. Some have said that he is just homesick or that he doesn't like playing in a big city. That may be true but that's unrelated to the fact that he is consistently late on his swings and that he is holding the bat way too low. Some other players have their idiosyncrasies like Kevin Youkilis or Gary Sheffield but no one is going to complain if you are productive. When your idiosyncrasy directly affects your productivity, then you absolutely need to change the bad habit. At the very least, have him change his approach and choke up. Get him to improve his average to .260 or .270 (hopefully) so that the Nats can trade him for an OK prospect. That's about all the team can hope for. Then if he reverts to his bad habit of holding the bat so low next year, he'll be on a different team and it won't matter to the Nats.

Unfortunately I don't think this is going to happen. Frustrating since no one seems to be trying this simple solution. What is there to lose by telling Kearns to choke up on the bat? Nothing. So do it.

Jesus Colome was designated for assignment after the Nats' victory on the Fourth of July (Saturday). That roster move was long overdue. Colome had an 8.40 ERA over 16 appearances this season. He walked far too many batters and generally brought the pace of games down to a crawl. This contributed to the Nats' defensive lapses as the defensive players had to stand around out in the field waiting for Colome to throw his pitches, or watch as he walked yet another hitter. Time to bring up another of the youngsters and give him a tryout. Maybe Garrett Mock is ready to return to the big leagues again. But almost anyone would be better than Colome was this year.