Former Nats Greats - #17

Today's edition of Former Nats Greats focuses around a 1-time all-star, who was out of the game just 4 years after the fact. Quite a precipitous fall from being 18th in MVP voting in 2004, to finishing his career with the Nats in 2008.

The winner of this magnanimous award today, is none other than Johnny Estrada. Congratulations!

Estrada is a very peculiar case, having played just 23 games in a Nats uniform way back in 2008, when Jim Bowden was struggling to maintain control of a flailing franchise. Trying to build on a positive 2007 season, Jimbo decided to take a chance that Estrada could rediscover his stroke, offering the catcher a $1.25 million dollar contract to assist Paul Lo Duca behind the plate... Wow... That just sounds awful in every way imaginable.

Moving on... There really is no way I can highlight anything good that he did while in Washington, as he managed just 9 hits (all singles) in the curly W. I'm still gonna take a shot at finding his best/worst game in DC.

Best - April 21st vs Braves - 2 for 4 with 2 singles.
Worst - April 16th, April 29th, July 18th - 0 for 4.

All told, that year is when Jim Bowden lost his job, not helped at all by the extension for Dimitri Young, or the signings of Estrada or PLoD.

2008 Stats in Washington: 55 Games. 9 Hits (all singles). 4 RBI. 1 BB. 4K. .170 AVG. .200 OBP. .370 OPS. -0.4 WAR.

In the 16 previous incarnations of Former Nats Greats there was at least something interesting to find from each player, Johnny Estrada is probably the most boring player so far... I guess he is the perfect definition of the 102-loss 2008 season.

Anyway, congrats to you Estrada - I hope the readers don't fall asleep when they read your induction article!!!