Beltway blitzing in-house today on Grant and Danny here on the fan.

Nats lefty Shinnosuke Agassawara got a preview of Major League Baseball hitters.

On Monday, this was yesterday throwing the live hitters for the first time in spring training.

My expectations for him are low.

There wasn't a big market to acquire him, which I think somewhat telling.

He's a lefty.

He doesn't throw that hard.

But I do think it is a huge deal that the Nats finally signed a player from Japan.

100%.

This has to be a story.

They have just neglected this.

They have kind of refused to engage in the market.

And they finally did.

This gives me hope not that they'll actually spend any real money, but that maybe it's another avenue

to get some players like Agassawara moving forward. Absolutely. And that's to be more

significant than the actual player himself. Because, you know, I think maybe he starts in

AAA to, you know, stretch out a little bit, kind of get used to paying or pitching every fifth

day. Maybe he's a swing guy in the

bullpen and they work him along that way. It's, you know, it's an adjustment because those

guys, I think in the Japanese, like I think they throw every six or seven days. This is obviously

a different schedule here with Major League Baseball. So he's not as higher profile guys,

some of the dudes that are fetching these $100 million posting fees and the like, the significance is more that they actually dip their toe into that marketplace for the first time.

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