"I don't want to gauge my feelings on it. We are working extremely hard at it. ... I'm hopeful. ... [If we sign him to an extension], it would take something off our plate for the future. We have Ryan for two years. It would put a punctuation on Zim, at least, knowing that he would be with us for the long term."
(Mike Rizzo, via Nationals.com, 2/23/2012)
Seems hard to believe that a no-trade clause is the only major hurdle standing between the Washington Nationals and Ryan Zimmerman doing a long-term extension. You have to wonder if the stalemate has less to do about dollars or bells-and-whistles (like no-trades, backloaded money) and everything to do about length of contract? Sounds familiar. Unfortunately, Zim's agent Brodie Van Wagenen won't return our texts requesting comment. Oh well. Zim's agent Brodie Van Wagenen texted us back Thursday night after having dinner with client Drew Storen to say "No comment"...but did confirm that not only is he not staying in Viera through Saturday, he is already gone.
In any case, we're guessing this thing doesn't get done before Zim's Saturday deadline. Or maybe the deal is already done. Who knows? Until then, here's Michael Morse on Zim, via Amanda Comak of the Washington Times:
"Zim, I like to say he’s like the silent assassin. You look at him, he works very hard, he does his routine. He never argues, he’s never up, he’s never down, he’s always confident and consistent. In this game, consistency is one of the biggest things you can [have] and he leads by example that way."
(Michael Morse, via Washington Times, 2/23/2012)
And here's a screencap of Michael Morse before he was The Beast, videobombing The Silent Assassin during a post-game interview after a July 2010 walkoff HR by Mr. Walk-off himself beat the Padres.
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