Nationals Farm Authority

VIERA, Fla. - Some conversations and observations from the morning workouts on the fields. Rain has come and gone, but the players are doing weights or treatments and then done for the afternoons anyways. The highlight of the afternoon was the power outage in the offices here.

Erick San Pedro NFA: “How’s the leg?” ESP: “Good. Good. Everything is starting to come back.” He seemed genuinely appreciative of me asking.

Kory Casto NFA: “Where do they have you working out?” KC: “2nd and 3rd” NFA: “Both? Evenly?” KC: “Yep, evenly.”

Soriano was catching batting practice flies in the outfield, but this may just be something that everyone does after some BP.

I knew which spring training instructor was Rick Eckstein (St. Louis Cardinals’ SS David Eckstein’s older brother) before looking him up by his number. They look a lot alike.

After everyone was stretching to end the practices, Brendan Harris, Ian Desmond, and Kory Casto took an extra hour of middle infield practice with spring training instructor Jose Alguacil. Desmond at shortstop, Casto at second, and Harris working with them at both second and shortstop. The odd man out would catch double play throws at first when they were working on that skill.

Not knowing that he wasn’t done after stretching, I tried to ask Harris a couple of questions, but he said he had to finish his work. They began those extra infield drills, but then had to move to another field as some pitchers began to throw side sessions. One of those pitchers was the first NFA interviewee, Shawn Hill. He looked good on the mound and his relatives that were watching saidthat his arm is completely back to normal. They also confirmed that he will NOT be playing for Team Canada.

Then the best part of the day - after Harris was done with his drills and walking back to the clubhouse with Desmond and Casto, he stopped and found me to finish answering my questions. I didn’t have a tape recorder, but in general, I asked him about what positions he was working on and he confirmed shortstop, second, and third. I told him that Frank said they might even try him out at first, but that Frank said it in a joking manner. Harris said that’d be fine with that and that he worked out at first in the Dominican Winter Leagues two years ago.

Harris said he really enjoyed playing shortstop under Washington Nationals bench coach Eddie Rodriguez out in the Arizona Fall League. If you don’t recall, Harris was one of the best hitters in the 2005 AFL this past October. I told him that he looked very fluid at shortstop during his drills and he said that between the AFL and here he felt like he was back in college where he played shortstop for three years and loved it. I asked him what his goals for the year were and he said his main focus was to not spend another entire year in the minors and to be able to help the major league club however he could - be it as an everyday player or as a role player off the bench. I encouraged him, told him that there were many of us pulling for him, and that the versatility he’s working on here in spring training will help him make the big club at some point.