An all-time Nationals roster - with a twist

Everyone's putting together "All-Time Best" lists right now. I half expect someone to compile the "All-Time Best All-Time Best List" before the pandemic ends.

So, we might as well get into the game here. But we're going to add a twist to this one. This won't just be the All-Time Best Nationals Roster. That would be too easy. (Just take a bunch of guys from the 2019 club, add a couple others from the pre-championship years and you've got it.)

No, this one requires a little more brain power. Or, at least, the ability to move various pieces around and find the best combination.

What's the twist? Our All-Time Best roster features one player - and only one player - from each of the Nationals' 15 seasons in town.

Yep, that's right. Somebody from the 102-loss team in 2008 has to make it. And then somebody else from the 103-loss team in 2009 has to make it as well.

On top of that, we're only taking one player for each position on the field, plus five starting pitchers and two relievers. That really complicates this exercise, because it pretty much guarantees certain players who undoubtedly are among the best to ever play for the Nationals can't make this roster because someone else who played the same position takes his spot.

I approached this several different ways - pick players by year, pick players by position, pick the obviously great individual seasons first and fill in the rest after that - and I can't say I'm thrilled with my final result. There are players I really believe should make this roster, but I just haven't been able to figure out a way to do it without simultaneously being forced to include someone who has no business making this roster.

I encourage all of you to give it a try and see if you can come up with a better arrangement. If you can, I'll fully credit you for being better at this than me.

In the meantime, here's the best I could do ...

CATCHER: WILSON RAMOS, 2016
"The Buffalo" is the best catcher the Nationals have ever had - sorry, Iván Rodríguez, but you were way past your prime when you played here - and 2016 was the best season of his career. Ramos hit .307 with 22 homers, 80 RBIs and an .850 OPS. He was named to the All-Star team for the first time, he won a Silver Slugger Award and he even finished 17th in MVP voting. And on top of all that, he stayed healthy enough to play 131 games - until he tore his ACL (for the second time in his career) in the final week of the regular season, knocking him out of the playoffs and ending his Nats career on a terribly sour note.

FIRST BASE: DMITRI YOUNG, 2007
OK, now you're starting to see why this isn't as easy as it sounds. The Nationals have had plenty of better seasons from first basemen: Nick Johnson in 2006, Adam Dunn in 2010, Michael Morse in 2011, Adam LaRoche in 2012, Ryan Zimmerman in 2017. But somebody from the 2007 club has to make this roster, and "Da Meat Hook" is the best fit. Plus, he legitimately had a very good season, going from a late February minor league contract to National League Comeback Player of the Year thanks to a .320 batting average, .378 on-base percentage, 38 doubles, 13 homers and 74 RBIs. Yeah, his defense will be a liability, but that bat will play.

SECOND BASE: DANIEL MURPHY, 2017
No second baseman has come close to matching Murphy's offensive production during his first two seasons in D.C. And though he was a little better in 2016, we need to take his 2017 season for these purposes. Not that a .322/.384/.543 slash line, 43 doubles, 23 homers, 93 RBIs and a whole lot of "A-swings" with "traffic on the bases" is anything to scoff about. Again, defense is a concern. Between Murphy and Young, any ball hit to the right side of the infield is going to get through. Or possibly be knocked down in comedic fashion by two guys not exactly known for their graceful moves in the field. But that doesn't matter. This team is going to win by scoring a lot of runs and getting a ton of strikeouts from its starting rotation, as you'll see.

SHORTSTOP: CRISTIAN GUZMÁN, 2008
I know, I know. How can any All-Time Nationals Roster include Guzmán, one of the original washed-up veterans who were inexplicably given long-term contracts by the previous administration and then spent years clogging up space? Again, somebody from the godawful 2008 team has to be included. And this was easily Guzmán's best season. Thanks to laser eye surgery, he became a master at making contact and hitting line drives. That resulted in an out-of-nowhere .316 batting average on an otherwise dreadful team. Now, it was about as empty of a .316 batting average as you're ever going to find. And this season doesn't top Ian Desmond's 2012 campaign or Trea Turner's 2019 performance. But at least Guzmán will put the ball in play out of the No. 8 spot in the lineup he's sure to occupy.

THIRD BASE: RYAN ZIMMERMAN, 2009
It kills me not to include Anthony Rendon on this team. Absolutely kills me. But every time I tried to squeeze him in, the domino effect caused way too much damage to the rest of the roster. And while there's no denying the greatness of Rendon the last several years, let's not forget just how incredible Zimmerman was in 2009. He hit .292/.364/.525 with 33 homers and 106 RBIs. He won the Gold Glove Award. He was worth a whopping 7.3 WAR (according to Baseball-Reference.com), nearly a full win more than Rendon during the best seasons of his career. It feels like a lifetime ago, but it bears the occasional reminder: Zim was the man back in those days.

LEFT FIELD: ALFONSO SORIANO, 2006
Speaking of guys it kills me not to include on this team ... Juan Soto. I mean, I feel ridiculous as I write this and admit I just put together an All-Time Nationals Roster and it doesn't include Rendon or Soto. What is wrong with me? Well, perhaps you'd like to include a pitcher off the 2006 staff on your roster? Who you got: Liván Hernández, Tony Armas Jr., Ramón Ortiz or Pedro Astacio? All had ERAs over 5.00. Sorry, I gotta take the 40-40 man himself. Soriano's one and only season in D.C. was a real treat to watch (once he was actually willing to shift from second base and play the outfield at the club's insistence). I mean, the guy wound up with 46 homers (still a club record), 41 steals, 41 doubles and 22 outfield assists! The Cubs still massively overpaid for him that winter, but his 2006 season holds up over time.

CENTER FIELD: DENARD SPAN, 2014
This one might get lost in the shuffle for some, but Span was absolutely terrific in 2014, the perfect leadoff-hitting center fielder this team spent so long trying to find. He batted .302 with 52 extra-base hits, 31 steals, 94 runs and a club record 184 hits. He also tracked down everything hit in his general (or not-so-general) direction in center field, making every play look easy even when many weren't. On a really good team with plenty of bigger names, Span still had enough impact to merit MVP votes. (He wound up finishing 19th.)

RIGHT FIELD: BRYCE HARPER, 2015
Yeah, we couldn't ignore this season. Say what you want about the guy, but when he was healthy and put it all together, he was an unstoppable force. And he really put it all together during a 2015 season that unfortunately turned into a train wreck for the team as a whole but still earned Harper a unanimous NL MVP award. He led the league in homers (42), runs (118), on-base percentage (.460), slugging percentage (.649) and OPS (1.109). That OPS, by the way, was the highest by any player not named Barry Bonds or Albert Pujols since 2002.

STARTING PITCHER: STEPHEN STRASBURG, 2010
OK, now we're getting to the real strength of this fantasy team. Just like the real Nationals over the last decade, it's all about the rotation. And what better way to kick the rotation off than with the rookie version (pre-elbow ligament tear) of Strasburg? He only made 12 big league starts that summer, but what a summer it was. He struck out 14 Pirates in his major league debut. His fastball topped triple digits all the time. His starts were cultural events, with extra media and extra fans in attendance to witness the phenomenon. Yes, Strasburg has become a better all-around pitcher since. But he can't ever duplicate the sheer excitement of his rookie season, when anything and everything seemed possible.

STARTING PITCHER: GIO GONZÁLEZ, 2012
If you took my Nats Trivia Quiz last week, you already know the answer to this, but for those who didn't: Who holds the club record for wins in a single season? Yep, González, with 21 of them in his first season in D.C. And I know what you're thinking right now. No, I'm not including him on this roster because he won 21 games that year. I'm including him because he had a great year. His ERA was 2.89. He struck out 207 batters in 199 1/3 innings. He was a finalist for the Cy Young Award. This was as consistently excellent as González would ever be for the Nationals. And he was consistently excellent.

STARTING PITCHER: JORDAN ZIMMERMANN, 2013
Zimmermann was a little bit better in 2014, but he was still really, really good in 2013. In addition to a 19-9 record and 3.25 ERA, he allowed only 192 hits over a career-high 213 1/3 innings. He tossed four complete games, two of those shutouts. He finished seventh in Cy Young Award voting. He allowed two or fewer earned runs over seven or more innings in 16 of his 32 starts.

STARTING PITCHER: MAX SCHERZER, 2018
I mean, take your pick of years for Scherzer. He threw two no-hitters in 2015. He won the Cy Young Award in 2016 and again in 2017. But for this exercise, we're taking his 2018 season, when he led the league in wins (18), innings (220 2/3) and WHIP (0.911). Oh, and also became only the sixth pitcher since 1989 to strike out 300 batters in a season. And yet still finished a distant second to Jacob deGrom for what under normal circumstances would've easily been his third consecutive Cy Young Award win.

STARTING PITCHER: PATRICK CORBIN, 2019
The Nationals gave Corbin a huge contract last winter, and some wondered if he merited it. Well, what do you think now? The lefty was everything the Nats thought he would be and more: a 3.25 ERA and 232 strikeouts in 202 innings, with one of the sport's deadliest sliders. But then he really etched his place in franchise lore with his postseason performances out of the bullpen, capped by his three scoreless innings in Game 7 of the World Series.

RELIEF PITCHER: CHAD CORDERO, 2005
The Nationals' first season was magical for many reasons, but Cordero's performance was high on the list. He may not have had the pure stuff of some of the game's best closers, and he may have had a penchant for creating his own unnecessary jam. But "The Chief" had nerves of steel, and when his team needed him to lock down a razor-thin win, he got the job done. He finished with a league-leading 47 saves and 1.82 ERA. And of those 47 saves, 21 came in one-run victories.

RELIEF PITCHER: TYLER CLIPPARD, 2011
Closers like Mark Melancon (2016), Sean Doolittle (2017), Daniel Hudson (2019) and even Drew Storen (2014) had cases to make this squad. But we needed someone to represent the 2011 team, and even though Storen (with 43 saves) could've filled that role, Clippard actually was better that year as the setup man. The bespectacled righty had a 1.83 ERA and 0.838 WHIP while throwing a whopping 88 1/3 innings. He surrendered only 4.9 hits per nine innings. He struck out 10.6 batters per nine frames. More than anything, he proved to everyone great relievers don't have to pitch the ninth inning. Sometimes the real save situation comes in the seventh or eighth.