Well, the Major League Baseball amateur draft is finally upon us, and regardless of all the sleight-of-hand and pseudo-uncertainty coming from the Washington Nationals, don't bother tuning in to the draft broadcast, hoping to catch some suspense.

Over the past few months, there have been hundreds of articles written about Steven Strasburg the man, the pitcher, and the pick. Some say the Nationals will be damned if they draft him while others say they'll be damned if they don't. He'll be the next Nolan Ryan, or he'll be the next David Clyde.

The reality of it all is this: While no one knows if he'll ever make it to the major leagues, he probably will. And while no one knows if he'll become a star, he probably will.

What is a certainty, however, is that the Nationals have to draft him, due in part for who he should become, but mainly for what he's already done.

Steven Strasburg was just a month into his sophomore season at San Diego State University. Though he had a superb freshman year with the Aztecs, Strasburg had been the team’s closer and wasn’t generally well known around the baseball world.

But now he was a starter, and was no longer cloaked in baseball invisibility.

A week earlier, the 19-year-old took a perfect game into the 7th inning against TCU before settling on a one-hitter while striking out 13.

Two weeks earlier, Strasburg struck out 23 Utah Utes while facing the minimum 27 batters, again giving up just one lonely hit.

And now thousands of fans had packed San Diego’s Tony Gwynn Stadium, but they weren’t there to watch the Aztecs play another little known Mountain West Conference foe.

They were there to watch Steven Strasburg.

Behind him was a young fan taping a giant “K” to the outfield fence each time Strasburg fanned a batter. In front of him was a buxom co-ed, sitting behind home plate, rocking side to side, holding a large white sign above her head.

“Yo mama let u date?”

No longer was Steven Strasburg just a tall, gangly kid from suburban San Diego who was playing his favorite sport solely for the love of the game.

He was now a hot commodity, someone who would likely be worth upwards of $10 million dollars within a year, and certainly a major league pitcher by the time he was 21.

His buddies and girl friends were now being pushed aside by financial advisers, investment counselors, and hangers-on.

The sophomore had a posse.

And Scott Boras' claws were already deep into the young pitcher's future.

“With the first pick in the 2009 Major League Baseball amateur draft, the Washington Nationals select San Diego State University pitcher Steven Strasburg.”

Forget about it. It’s a done deal.

Well, of course there is a small chance that something will happen and Strasburg won’t be the Nationals’ pick, but it would have to involve things like prison or space aliens.

Steven Strasburg is that good.

There was never a question that Strasburg was going to be a special ball player.

He had a 1.68 ERA in his senior year of high school, striking out 74 batters in 62 innings. He threw seven complete games in his senior year alone, an unheard of number for a high school player.

He could have played college ball anywhere he wanted. His arm was recruited by most schools in the west and his mind was recruited by Stanford and the Ivy League schools in the East.

But in the end, he chose San Diego State, his hometown school and his parent's alma mater.

And having the chance to be coached by Tony Gwynn certainly helped.

A starter in high school, Strasburg was converted into the Aztec’s closer his freshman year.

He was solid in that role but was short of dominant, going 1-3, 2.43 in 25 appearances. He allowed just four hits per nine innings, struck out 11 per nine and allowed less than one base runner per inning. His batting-average-against was a minuscule .143.

The only real chink in Strasburg’s armor in 2007 was his control; he allowed almost four walks per nine innings.

Strasburg was named the Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year.

He was moved into the starting rotation prior to the start of 2008, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Strasburg went 8-3, 1.57 as a sophomore. He allowed just five hits per nine innings (sixth best in the nation), upped his strikeouts to 12 per nine and lowered his walks to just one per nine.

His batting-average-against was .136, one of the very best in America.

He was named the Mountain West Conference Pitcher of The Week seven times, including five weeks in a row.

In two seasons, pitching against major college competition, Strasburg gave up just one home run.

Wow.

And then he got even better.

He pitched in an exhibition against Team USA, and allowed no hits while striking out seven in three innings.

Playing for Team USA, Strasburg went 4-0, 0.88, striking out 62 and walking seven in 47 innings. He pitched in the Olympics and finished with a 2.45 ERA, pitching against both the Chinese and the Cubans.

He was the only amateur on a team full of professionals.

Do I need to go on?

Yes, I believe I do.

Lincoln Hamilton, a writer for projectprospect.com, listed Strasburg as the best college pitcher in more than a decade.

Well, Strasburg or Mark Prior. He just can't decide which is the more complete package.

Either way, he's in elite company. He includes Strasburg in a select group that includes Tampa's David Price, San Francisco's Tim Lincecum, Los Angeles' Jared Weaver, Cleveland's Kerry Wood, and Prior.

When compared to the top college pitchers of all time (per Hamilton), Strasburg has the lowest WHIP, the lowest home runs allowed per nine innings, the third best strikeouts per nine and the second lowest walks per nine within the group.

So why is Steven Strasburg so good?

Because he can make a baseball dance.

His fastball touches 99 mph and cruises at 96-97 mph during a game. But that’s not his strikeout pitch. His slider looks just like his fastball but dies late and ends up in the catcher’s mitt before the batter realizes what he saw.

Strasburg’s best pitch (how can a 99 mph fastball not be his best pitch?) is his “plus-plus” breaking ball that has a two plane break.

Bats just can’t seem to find it.

Thebaseballcube.com has a unique scouting system that places a hard number on predetermined statistical categories. For pitchers, they use control, strikeouts and efficiency.

Johan Santana, perhaps the best pitcher in the major leagues since 2003, has the following scouting numbers (based on a 1-100 scale): control: 85, strikeouts: 95, efficiency: 98.

Take a look at Strasburg's numbers: control: 96, strikeouts: 100, efficiency: 100.

Hmmmm.

Now, I'm not saying Strasburg will be as successful as Santana at the major league level. I am saying, though, that Strasburg has the talent to be even better than Santana.

But there has to be drawbacks, right? I mean, all pitchers have drawbacks.

Well, no. Not really. But there might be.

His mechanics are a concern.

His elbow is positioned farther back then one would like during the “scap-load” phase of his delivery. This places too much stress on his arm and could lead to the same type of troubles that Kerry Wood and Mark Prior have experienced.

There is also too much recoil in his follow through, and he completes his delivery standing up.

This may indicate that Strasburg, like Kerry Wood and Mark Prior before him, may have problems keeping his arm sound and strong.

The problem is that no one dares tinker with the premier pitcher in college today. Nationals' fans know that Ross Detwiler's troubles this past year were a direct result of the team changing his mechanics, hoping to prevent him from damaging his arm early in his career.

Would the Nationals retard Strasburg's growth in the short term for his long term success?

I don't know. I hope not.

Those questions not withstanding, pitchers like Steven Strasburg come along once every decade or so. There is a chance that he’ll develop his arm trouble later in his career, but it’s a chance the Nationals must take.

And let’s not forget that the chance of the team holding on to Strasburg once he is a free agent is almost zero.

Scott Boras is his agent, after all.

Memo to Washington Nationals: Draft Strasburg with your No. 1 pick in June and then hand a blank check to Scott Boras and bend over.

Having not signed Aaron Crow last year, Boras knows that it would be a public relations nightmare for the team not to sign Strasburg and sign him quickly.

From a dollars perspective, it's going to get ugly.

Once signed, give Strasburg a plane ticket to Washington and put him in the starting rotation.

Forget about his delivery. Forget about the future. Wind him up and point him towards the mound and watch the wins pile up.

With Steven Strasburg, the Washington Nationals could actually have one of the strongest rotations in the National League in just a year or so.

Scott Olsen and John Lannan have have been successful at the major league level and both will be just 25 during the 2009 season. Jordan Zimmermann has the chance to be a true No. 1 starter, and Strasburg is a No. 1 starter.

That leaves one spot in the rotation, and the Nationals have several young pitchers able to fill it. Whether it's Shairon Martis, Collin Balester, Colton Willems, Ross Detwiler, Josh Smoker, Matt Chico, or Tyler Clippard filling that spot, the Nationals will have five special arms in the rotation for the first time.

Ever.

"The Plan" is less than a year away from finally leaving the station, and Steven Strasburg will be the engineer driving that train.

And watch out: Strasburg won't be stopping for disbelievers.

Do you remember retired Admiral James Stockdale, who in 1992 was Ross Perot's running mate in that year's Presidential election?

I will never forget his deer-in-the-headlight stare into the television camera during the Vice Presidential debate. He leaned over the podium and said to the American people in a gravely voice, "Who am I? Why am I here?"

Sometimes, that's just how I feel.

I'm not a writer; I'm a high school history teacher. My command of the English language is no better than any of you who read what I write. I mean, why would anyone take time out of their busy day to read what I have to say about the Washington Nationals when they could just as easily read what real journalists have to say about the team.

But as I was reading Thomas Boswell's column in the Washington Post this morning, I remembered exactly who I am and why I'm here. Those of us who moonlight as sportswriters here at bleacherrepot.com-I'll call us fanjouralists-are the Radio Free Europe and Voice of America of the sports world.

Paid journalists-writers like the aforementioned Boswell-don't always report on what we fans want to hear. And sometimes, what they report is their subjective opinion couched in a blanket of perceived objectivity.

Twenty years ago, Tracy Ringolsby or Dick Young or Howard Cosell would write an article and we had no way of knowing if they were being honest with us. Today, each column is subject to introspection, vivisection and fact checking, all done by an on-line Army of unpaid seekers of the truth.

People like the writers at Bleacher Report.

Take that column by Thomas Boswell for example. As a young man, I began reading his articles when the Washington Redskins finally started to win some games (thank you George Allen). I would run down the stairs on Monday morning and snatch the Washington Post off of the porch, checking to make sure Boswell's byline was on the story before munching a bowl of Rice Chex while reading every word.

He was my only conduit to Sonny Jurgenson, Billy Kilmer, Larry Brown and Chris Hanburger.

He wasn't God, but he was close.

But see, I had to believe what he told me; I had no reason to question him and no way to verify what he said.

But today, the path between fan and team isn't just a single, unpaved road traveled only by a single, anointed reporter. Now we have the information superhighway with it's ten-lane blacktops and maglev mass transit system.

Now, we put into use my all-time favorite quote from former President Ronald Reagan.

"Trust, but verify"

And so I trust men like Thomas Boswell, but I also verify. And, today at least, what he wrote wasn't pretty.

In the beginning of his article ("Route To the Bottom? It Starts at the Top"), Boswell makes the tired and unfair comparison between this year's Nationals and the 1962 New York Mets, the model of franchise futility.

But there is no honest comparison, save of course the number of Mets' losses that year (120) and the projected losses for the Nationals this year (117). The Mets were a rag-tag, moribund group of has-beens and never-will be's. Only one of them-17-year-old Ed Kranepool-is still remembered by Mets' fans today (though to be fair, pitcher Vinegar Bend Mizell went on to become a United States Congressman).

The Nationals' roster is full of players that other teams lust after. Jesus Flores, Nick Johnson, Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn, Elijah Dukes and Jordan Zimmermann are just some of the team's young talent around which a winner can be built.

So why the comparison, Boz?

Referring to the team's "blueprint of broken promises," Boswell points to the Nationals' refusal to resign Alfonso Soriano following the 2006 season.

So Tom, you think the Nationals should have resigned him?

For his $18 million a year salary ($136 million total), Soriano has averaged .283-25-57 with a .334 on-base percentage for the Chicago Cubs.

Do you hink the Nationals would have paid that much to Soriano and still been willing to plunk $15-20 million down for Steven Strasburg this summer?

He also complained about Stan Kasten and "The Plan," saying that if Kasten was truly copying the Braves model that he created, the team would be signing many more free agents. He referenced the 1991 signings of Sid Bream, Rafael Belliard, Terry Pendleton and Otis Nixon as proof that the Braves would sign badly needed players, but the Nationals won't.

Oh, Boz ....

Kasten as repeatedly promised that when the Nationals were ready to contend, the Lerner family would happily pony up the resources to sign the "final pieces" for a contending Nationals' team.

Memo to Boz: the Nationals aren't ready to contend yet.

If you'll notice, Boswell didn't mention that in those developing years, from 1988-1990, Kasten didn't sign anyone. He waited until the team was ready to compete before signing those veteran players players.

If Boswell wants to see Stan Kasten do in Washington what he did in Atlanta, he need only open his eyes.

The Nationals, just like the Braves, have refrained from signing big name free agents because they aren't ready to win. Once the young pitching staff matures, I'm sure we'll see the Nationals make the same kind of moves that the Braves did two decades ago.

Look, I'm in no way suggesting that Tom Boswell and other writers shouldn't be subjective in their writing, but they sure should be honest. Sports fans today are far more knowledgable and have access to all of sports history at their finger tips. It's almost impossible to slip a curve ball by them anymore.

The Washington Nationals are facing so many real problems these days that they don't have time to defend themselves against this neverending silly symphony. And that's where the Bleacher Reporters come in.

We read. We research. We evaluate. We fact check.

And then we give you our view. Sure, it's subjective at times, and not always wholly accurate.

But it gives you, the reader, a second opinion.

I hope this isn't copyrighted but, we report, you decide.

A few nights ago, I caught my 17-year-old son sneaking into my house at two in the morning. He was repeatedly warned about breaking curfew and this was the last straw. To teach him a lesson once and for all, I ran downstairs, threw open my 12-year-old daughter's bedroom door and woke her up out of a sound sleep. "You're grounded for a month!" I shouted.

Boy, I sure taught him a lesson.

What's that you say? It didn't make sense to punish the innocent while letting the guilty go free?

Well, change "son" to Manny Acta and "daughter" to Randy St. Claire and you get the gist of the latest drama eminating from Nats Town.

Manny Acta has lost control of his team. He sits in the dugout and remains stoic and silent, unmoved and unfazed while doubles turn into home runs and outs at home magically disappear into the realm of mulligans and do-overs. I would say that his team does a great impression of the Keystone Cops, but that would be doing a grave disservice to that comedy troop of the silent era.

Manny Acta is Nero watching Rome burn. He's Hitler planning a new offensive while Berlin is surrounded by the Russian and American armies. Acta is Richard Nixon, trying to convince the Washington press corps that he's not a crook.

But unlike those other guys who eventually saw the writing on the wall, Manny Acta continues to dismiss the obvious and refuses to try something new, something different.

And the Nationals, for a reason that both escapes me and defies logic, fired the one coach on the staff that is generally well regarded throughout the baseball world.

Don't believe me?

Remember all those bruised and beaten pitchers that Jim Bowden brought in every spring? From Esteban Loiaza to Daniel Cabrera-and including a cast of thousands in between-former general manager Jim Bowden would announce the signing of a pitcher who was but a shell of his former self and say, "Randy St. Claire is one of the premier pitching coaches in all of baseball. We believe he can help (fill in name here) regain his ability.

And he often did just that.

And now, St. Claire is the reason the Nationals have embarrassed both themselves and their fans for the second year in a row?

No.

Part of the fault lies with the Lerner family, owners of the Nationals, for the way in which they built their franchise. And part of the fault lies with Stan Kasten, who needed to be more forceful with his vision as to how the team should have been put together. And part of the fault lies with Jim Bowden, though to be fair he was just playing the hand he was dealt.

And in other situations, Manny Acta might have-probably could have-succeeded as a thoroughly competent manager. It's just in this situation, he's dragging the team down with him.

But why would the front office fire Randy St. Claire? I mean, Mark Lerner must know that his team's starting staff is the youngest in the major leagues and has the fewest number of wins as well.

If the Lerners, or the team president, or its general manager believed that John Lannan, Jordan Zimmermann, Shairon Martis, Craig Stammen and Ross Detwiler should be pitching better then they are, then they have even less baseball acumen than we thought.

Again, why Randy St. Claire?

Because either the big-shots are fools, or they think we are.

They hope-maybe they believe-that by sacrificing St. Claire to the baseball gods, the rioting citizens of Nats Town would settle down and buy them more time to field a winner.

But they are oh so wrong.

Every last Nationals fan who still cares about the team-I think there are about 20,000 or so of us left-can see this act as a canard, a prevarication, a lie. The fans aren't stupid enough to think Randy St. Claire was the problem and see this move on the part of the Nationals like a Michael Jordan pump-fake.

The problem is, we're not biting.

If the Nationals don't do some serious introspection and then dance the mea culpa (and fire Manny Acta), they will have lost what little good will remains for baseball in Washington.

By firing St. Claire, they are telling us that they aren't going to fire Manny Acta this year. I mean, if things aren't bad enough to fire him now, what will it take to make that change?

It's a dark day for baseball in our nation's capital. If the Nationals can somehow extricate themselves from this very bad decision, the fans will kiss and make up.

But if they don't .....

Things are turning ugly in the Nats' Nation.

To be sure, the problems didn't just begin. The community was being held together with a combination of prayers and duct tape when the doors of Space Coast Stadium swung opened this past February. The demons from the previous year, injuries, under performance and a lack of talent, seemed to have been exorcised from the team's roster.

Adam Dunn's towering presence, Ryan Zimmerman's maturing demeanor and the youthful talent of Jordan Zimmermann and Jesus Flores seemed to salve the team's near-mortal wounds from 2008.

But general manager Jim Bowden was forced to resign just days after Spring Training began and it was all downhill from there.

With nearly a third of the season completed, the Nationals are 13-35, 23 games below .500. If they were to play .500 ball for the rest of the season (a near impossibility), they would still finish with one of the worst records in the league at 69-93.

The season is, in a word, hopeless.

But what about the future of the franchise?

The drive-by fans, those who only support a winning team, left long ago. Most of them have never seen the inside of Nationals Park. The serious fans, the students of the game, have seen their numbers slowly erode as crisis after crisis enveloped the team, smothering the present and imploding the future.

For the moment, all that remains to cheer on the Nationals are the die-hards, those of us who would attend a game during a nuclear raid because the fallout would add a nice purple haze to the evening sky.

But, based on home attendance and viewership of Nationals' games on MASN, there are only 20,000 or so of us left. That's not much of a base to count on.

And oh, how the fans of the Indians and the Red Sox and the Yankees scoff at baseball in Washington.

Scoff they might, but they couldn't be more wrong about the team, the city, and especially the fans.

While the city of Washington may have a baseball history that dates back to Teddy Roosevelt, Washingtonians certainly don't. Most of us old enough to remember Frank Howard and Del Unser and Dick Bosman are now in our fifties.

Native Washingtonians under 40 don't have a relationship with baseball and the transient nature of the city brings us baseball fans that have already pledged their allegiance to their hometown teams.

Washington is a cynical city; it's hard not to be when the politicians outnumber the common folk. Every statement by the team, every excuse and every justification is scrutinized as if it came from the president himself.

The "plan?" Yeah, right. It's code for "No way I'm going to blow my billions on a bunch of guys past their prime."

The Lerner family-owners of the Nationals-have more money than most of the big city, East coast teams but are considered frugal to a fault because "The Plan" doesn't call for the signing of expensive free agents.

Stan Kasten, the architect of the miracle in Atlanta, keeps talking about building for the future, but fewer people are listening these days. It's kind of hard, after all, to preach a "from the bottom up" building process when the team keeps getting worse every year.

Jim Bowden was universally hated, but his replacement, Mike Rizzo, isn't "officially" the team's general manager, so he can't be hated yet. And manager Manny Acta's days are numbered, in part because of his horrific record, but mostly because he has lost his team. They are rudderless and in need of some fiery rhetoric, something poor Manny just can't deliver.

Sound hopeless? Nope.

When healthy, the Nationals have solid major leaguers at all eight positions, and have a wealth of young starting pitching. The bullpen, which couldn't have been worse over the team's first 38 games has been yeoman, perhaps even above average, over the last week or so. The defense, which couldn't get to balls they should have and booted the ones they reached, is showing signs of improvement.

In other words, it took a perfect storm to capsize the 2009 season before it ever got started.

But it won't take much to right the S.S. Nationals. The fix is really very simple.

Rizzo and Acta, aren't playing to win. They are playing not to lose. Their jobs are on the line and so they are are trying to stop the leaking dike with their finger instead of rebuilding it entirely. So end the suspense; give Rizzo the GM's job officially and fire Manny Acta. Bring in a manager who will fight for his players and chew a few umpire's backsides for both cause and effect.

Make the tough trades sooner rather than later. It must be difficult for the clubhouse as they watch the clock tick down to the July 31st trade deadline, knowing full well that when the clock strikes midnight, Nick Johnson, Austin Kearns and several others will most likely be former Nationals.

The Nationals are a team waiting for the other shoe to drop. So drop it already. Lance the boil that is the 2009 season and let the healing begin. Trade some veterans, get some prospects and give Steven Strasburg the combination to the Lerner's vault and see what happens.

The Nationals aren't a 1988 Yugo in need of a major overhaul and a new paint job. They're more like a classic Camaro that isn't firing on all cylinders. Give it a tune-up, throw on some custom wheels, grease the differential and get out of the way.

The boys just need to find some cohesiveness.

That, and a center fielder.