2013 World Series or Bust?

When I started this blog, one of my name choices was 43/63.

Those were my goals for the season, first to reach 43 wins and put the specter of the '62 Mets away then 63 wins to lift the burden of a 100 loss season.

Expectations have taken a marked turn for the better since then.

A 98 win season and a near perfect off season will do that.

But I don't expect the Nats to win the world series.  At least if you gave me even odds, I'd take the field.

Such is the nature of baseball's postseason . . . if Game 5 didn't already highlight that.

Will the Nats make the postseason?  Yes. They absolutely should. There is no reason they shouldn't barring catastrophic injuries or underperformance.  I think we'd all be bitterly disappointed if that happened, more so with underperformance than with injury but disappointed nonetheless.

Will they win a championship?  That is left to the fates.

They have everything they need to do it and they should have a shot but I am not going to judge this season's success or failure based on the postseason luck-o-rama.

One of the reasons I've been quiet lately is: there just isn't much to criticize.  Back in the bad old days, there were plenty of bad decisions being made. But this front office has been nearly perfect in its handling of decisions not just for 2013 but for beyond.

That means instead of a luck-filled magical post season run followed by 5 years of starry-eyed failure, they have built a team that should contend for years.  They have built the 1990s Atlanta Braves.

That's all any Nationals baseball fan could ask for.  That all any baseball fan can ask for.

So its important to remember what the legacy of those Atlanta teams are: they only won 1 championship.  And they are considered losers.

I only hope the Nats can enjoy such successes.  I believe they can based on their current salary structure, team age and continued development of prospects.  The only thing that can sully it, at least in my view right now, is an overemphasis on postseason success.

Yes, it would suck to get to the postseason five years in a row and come up empty but that's a damn sight better than 43/63.