This much is known about the Nats’ managerial search:

1) With Piniella and Girardi having withdrawn, the position is unlikely to be filled by recognized “name”.
2) The process has been conducted with Karl Rove-like secrecy.
3) Because of #2, the press is essentially groping in the dark for leads, and the final selection will most likely not have been on anyone’s lists two weeks ago.

For the prospective candidates, the description of the Nat’s opening seems pretty clear, and it ain’t pretty: start with this year’s 91-loss team. Subtract a huge chunk of the offense by losing Alfonso Soriano, who hit more than a quarter of the team’s homers (and filed for free agency this morning). Also, remove your three primary inning-eating hurlers – Livan Hernandez via trade last season, and Ramon Ortiz and Tony Armas, who presumably will file to become free agents this week. Replace them with young, unproven arms, and if you’re lucky, a couple of bargain-basement free agents. Don’t count on the $10 million that’ll be saved on Soriano’s salary to be reinvested in the ’07 squad.

If the new guy sticks with it through a losing season or two, develops some of the young talent, and gets the team on the verge of a playoff run, he’ll likely be rewarded with the Alan Trammell treatment, according to Post hardball guru Tom Boswell:

The guy who’s intended to bring Washington to the playoffs probably isn’t even on anybody’s radar yet. If team president Stan Kasten follows his pattern in Atlanta with Bobby Cox, he’ll let somebody else, someone bumptious and grateful for the job, suffer through the losing for the next couple of years, then hire the real manager-for-a-playoff-run when he thinks the team is on the doorstep of contending.

So good luck to you, Mr. Acta, Mr. Russell, Mr. Peña, and Mr. Oquendo. You’re gonna need it.

Photo of John Russell from Scranton/Wilkes Barre’s website, Redbarons.com.