Who are these guys anyway? Over in Minnesota (they have a team — and it plays in a division called the A.L. Central), the Twinkies have been pounding the snot out of anyone who shows up in Target Field. After the Nats win on MASN (that oughta up their Arbitron ratings), I switched over just in time to hear the Twinkies’ announcers talk about “that kid Valencia” — a rookie third baseman who recently stroked four homes runs in four at bats. The pride of Boca Raton was picked in the 19th round (the 19th round) of the 2006 draft. Valencia moved effortlessly through the Twins system, until he showed up this year in June, and commenced putting on a hitting display. The Twins have just about everything else, so why not a little hitting? And — oh yes: the Twins won tonight, so they are almost (but not quite) the division champs, depending on how the Pale Hose fare. It doesn’t matter, stick a fork in the White Sox. They’re done . . .

Speaking of new guys: The Angels are taking a look at a catcher by the name of Hank Conger, who was drafted ahead of Valencia in 2006 (25th overall). Conger isn’t like most catchers, he’s fast. He smacked a hard triple tonight against the Rangers and by the time that Dwayne Murphy retrieved it, Conger was rounding second. It was a little strange watching Conger, because he reminded me of (okay, this is a little . . . well . . . remote) former Cub, Marlin and Dodger first bagger Hee-Seop Choi, who had a wicked quick bat — albeit not one that gave him a long career in the majors. Choi played only four seasons in the bigs, and will no doubt be remembered as the guy the Marlins got for Derrick Lee (what the hell was Miami thinking). Sure enough, Conger (it turns out) is Hyun Choi Conger, a California native who (despite the obvious resemblance) might be Hee-Seop’s younger brother: a straight-up stance and an out-of-the-batter’s box speed that makes infielders hurry their throw. Conger’s numbers in the minors are outstanding, his defense is reportedly first-rate and he’s moved through the system quickly. The Belinskis are auditioning Conger for their number two (behind former Gold Glover Mike Napoli), which isn’t a surprise — Jeff Mathis is hitting Willie Harris numbers (actually, a little better –  at .193). Hee-Seop Choi, by the way, now plays professionally in Korea . . .

Nats fans will be saddened to note that Felipe Lopez, the former slick fielding second sacker for our very own Half Street Nine, was released today by the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals weren’t going to keep the struggling Lopez in any event, but his official release struck me as oddly timed, coming two weeks before the end of the season. A slap, really, at an MLB veteran who has (from time to time — including this year) played well. Sure enough: the Cardinals said they were fed up with Lopez’s attitude. Hmmm. Imagine that. The ten year veteran (he started in Toronto in 2001 before moving on to Cincinnati), had an okay career that could have been a lot better. His years with the Nats were fairly typical: he played with fire in his first months, then tailed off, then got lazy. It would be a surprise to see any team give him another shot . . .

The New Twinkie: Danny Valencia

After all of this time, and despite their uneven press, you have to give this to the owners of the Washington Nationals: they’ve apparently realized that they’re going to have to pay for talent. This wasn’t always so obvious: in the early days after the franchise moved from Montreal to D.C., the Lerners were castigated for their penny-rubbing paperclip-counting ways, as it became gut-wrenchingly clear that the moguls that owned the Nats were as concerned with the bottom line as they were with the team’s place in the standings. Or more so. Articles slamming the Penny Pinchers reached a crescendo in mid-2009, corresponding to both the team’s status as baseball’s worst team and the franchise’s continued woeful performance at the gate.

But things have turned around for the real estate developing dynasty over the last twelve months, the result of two events that took place on exactly the same day — and nearly at the same moment — exactly twelve months apart. Just minutes before the signing deadline for the MLB first year player draft in 2009, and just minutes before the closing of the same signing period in 2010, the Lerners shelled out uber millions of dollars to the most-talked-about young players in major league history: first-round-first-pick Stephen Strasburg and first-round-first-pick outfielder Bryce Harper. We’ll start with Strasburg, who was signed for four years and $15.1 million, the largest contract ever given a player out of the draft. And yesterday, just before midnight, the Nats signed Bryce Harper to a five year deal worth $9.9 million. That’s a lot of money for two players who, prior to their signing, had never played a major league game. But the Lerners signed the checks — for an exact total of $25 million.

It’s hard to argue that the Lerners have learned that (as they would be the first to testify) good investments yield good returns. The investment in Strasburg, for instance, has started to pay for itself — with an estimated additional $5 million increase in revenue in 2010 ticket sales alone. Then too, the sale of Strasburg jerseys has ensured additional revenue; it has been the bestselling baseball jersey this summer and outpaced the sale of any Nats jersey from any player — ever. It’s not much of a guess to speculate that Strasburg will now have some competition, as Harper jerseys (when they arrive), will rival anything “the kid” has sold. So it’s no secret: putting fans in the seats and eyeballs in front of a MASN broadcast will make the Lerner family financially healthy (or, rather, more financially healthy) than they were when the bought the franchise from baseball five years ago.

But let’s not kid ourselves: despite all the talk among baseball owners about how the game is really “a public trust,” it’s much more of a business — with success measured not simply by a team’s place in the standings, but by a franchise’s financial health. Players win games, but profits (big profits) make signing good players possible. Finding the right balance between the two, between investments and returns, is the key to all of this, though it’s only sometimes mastered. It’s hard to wrestle this equation into submission for small and medium market  baseball owners, though much less difficult in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. But it’s possible. The relationship between investments and returns has been mastered in Minnesota (as an example), but not in Pittsburgh, in San Diego, but not in Kansas City. And in Washington?

The D.C. market is the ninth largest in the country (that’s twice the size of Pittsburgh), with a potentially large television audience and a fan base that would be the envy of Minnesota, Pittsburgh or K.C. But in the first years of their tenure as owners, the Lerners acted as if the team was playing in Boise — they cut the payroll and trimmed away what they viewed as marginal baseball operations. If there was a plan here, it didn’t work: after the two year honeymoon with the team wore off, team attendance plummeted nearly at the same rate as team wins. In 2007, the Nats were paying out a mere $37 million in player salaries, an embarrassing amount of cash for what is essentially a large market team. But the Lerners must have gotten the message, which was hard to miss: Nats fans started voting with their feet. They stayed home. The result is that the team’s payroll level has increased in each of the last three years, to nearly $55 million in 2008, $60 million in 2009 and $66 million in 2010. The Harper signing is yet another indication that Mark Lerner is going to keep his promise: that “spending money is not gonna be our issue.” Great. Good. Now then, we need only one more piece of evidence . . .

That leash you see dragging on the ground behind Rob Dibble? That’s the leash his wife has on him. And that collar? She put it there too. Listen, we don’t know anything about Rob Dibble (not a damn thing, honest), but the droogs who write for this blog (and just for the record, here we — all males — are) have a sense about these things. And our sense is that we’ve heard just enough from Rob Dibble himself during his MASN broadcasts to conclude that his wife (a teacher, he says), knows him well enough to understand his irritating little foibles. And (we’re also sure — based on our own experience) to endlessly and grindingly try to correct them. So when “Taliban Rob” lowered the boom on some female Nats fans the other night during a MASN game broadcast (“Those ladies right behind there, they haven’t stopped talking the whole game”), our hunch (and believe us, we oughta know), was that Mrs. Dibble probably lowered the boom on him. She wasn’t alone.

Dan Steinberg leaped on Dibble about his comments, which included one of those in-game graphics — where Dibble circled the women and noted that “they have some conversation going on. Right here. There must be a sale tomorrow going on here or something . . . Their husbands are going man, don’t bring your wife next time.” Ugh. Steinberg seemed to relish Dibble’s gaffe (all of four days ago now), and touched on it again this morning, when he noted that Dibble had issued an apology. Of course, as Mrs. Dibble will surely tell her chagrined husband, that is certainly not the end of it. She’d be right: Nationals Fangirls are all revved up about Dib’s comments (or “fired up,” as the case may be), issuing a broadside about Dibble’s “sexist, misogynistic” ideas. We’re fans of Nationals Fangirls (we actually read them, and regularly) and can’t take issue with them, except for their added, unnecessary and interesting (as in “it’s interesting they would commit the same gaffe”) comment that maybe Dib’s wife “helped feed the stereotype.” And then, one of the fangirls added this: ” . . . but perhaps I shouldn’t say that. I’m sure she’s very pretty.” Ah yeah, now we get it: pretty women can’t think. Groooowwwwww, phtttt.

Listen, we’re not exactly drum beating fans of Rob Dibble (we find his endless talk of how “these guys have to learn they’re competing for jobs” pretty tiresome), but maybe (just maybe) it’s time for a little perspective. Dibble issued an apology and it sounds to us like he was sincere. Then too, Rob Dibble’s repetition of a common stereotype hardly makes him a scimitar wielding Taliban leader; frankly, it’s a stretch to say he’s “misogynistic” — a crime that ought to denote something a  bit more loutish than the rather banal opinion that women go shopping. Rob Dibble as Mullah Omar? C’mon. But really (really) what we’re most afraid of is that the Dib’s gaffe will send the Nats’ front office into a search for a more appropriate but far more nauseating voice. Like Don “I Love America The Beautiful” Sutton or Ron “where the hell am I” Darling.

And there’s this. For all of his faults, Dibble beats the daylights out of the ever popular Steve Czaban and sidekick Andy Pollin, who make book on saying that men who don’t weigh 350 pounds and play left tackle “wear skirts” — a phrase that’s more offensive than anything Dibble has ever, ever said. No one has ever complained about them, perhaps because they do it so often if confirms their lack of even a minimal middlebrow intelligence (“this quote is from George Bernard Shaw, ever heard of him?” Pollin once asked “the Czabe” — and guess what . . . ). Then too, unlike Czabe and the crew (who sound like they actually hate baseball — and want the Nats to fail), Dibble not only knows about the game he’s covering, he actually once played it.

Apology accepted.