26-year old righty swinging outfielder Wily Mo Pena exercised his player option for the 2009 season valued at $2 million bucks. Pena played in 64 games for the Nationals last season and he was 40 for 195 (.205 avg, .510 OPS) with 10 runs scored, 2 homers and 10 RBIs. Pena has now played in 560 games in his major league career and he is 402 for 1,590 (.253 avg, .754 OPS) with 196 runs scored, 77 homers and 225 RBIs. Pena has showed good power in his career but he also fails to make contact very often as he has whiffed a stunning 520 times in his major league career. It will be interesting to see if Pena is motivated to have a good season or not as he still has a huge upside.

The Nationals have outrighted infielder Pete Orr and Ryan Wagner to AAA making them free agents. 29-year old lefty swinging Pete Orr played in 49 games for the Nationals last season and he was 19 for 75 (.253 avg, .589 OPS) with 10 runs scored and 7 RBIs. Orr has now played in 320 games in his major league career and he is 116 for 444 (.261 avg, .623 OPS) with 75 runs scored, 2 homers, 25 RBIs and 11 stolen bases. 26-year old righty reliever Ryan Wagner did not pitch last season as he was recovering from surgery. He pitched in parts of two seasons for the Nationals covering 40 games (0 starts) in which he was 3-5 with a 5.05 ERA and a 1.59 WHIP. The Nationals won’t lose any sleep over letting these two guys walk.

The Nationals have outrighted 26-year old righty reliever Chad Cordero to AAA making him a free agent. Cordero only pitched in 6 games (0 starts) for the Nationals last season and he was 0-0 with a 2.08 ERA and a 2.08 WHIP. Cordero was injured most of last season but if he returns to full strength he will come back to haunt the Nationals in the future. Cordero pitched six seasons for the Nationals/Expos in his career and he pitched in 305 games (0 starts). In his career with the Nationaks/Expos, Cordero was 20-14 with 128 saves with a 2.78 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP. It will be interesting to see how well Cordero does when he recovers fully from this surgery.

The Nationals have outrighted 28-year old righty pitcher Lavale Speigner to AAA making him a free agent. Speiger pitched in 7 games (0 starts) for the Nationals last season and he was 0-1 with a 11.25 ERA and a 2.38 WHIP. In two seasons with the Nationals, Speigner pitched in 26 games (6 starts) and he was 2-4 with a 9.19 ERA and a 2.08 WHIP. The Nationals won’t miss Speigner at all as he pitched awful for them the last two seasons.

The Washington Nationals have outrighted 28-year old lefty swinging outfielder Ryan Langerhans to AAA making him a free agent. He played in 73 games for the Nationals last season and he was 26 for 111 (.234 avg, .776 OPS) with 17 runs scored, 3 homers, 12 RBIs and 2 stolen bases. In two seasons with the Nationals, Langerhans was 58 for 273 (.212 avg) with 41 runs scored, 9 homers, 34 RBIs and 5 stolen bases. The Nationals have a lot of younger outfielders that they like better than Langerhans so they won’t miss him too much.