The best way for the local baseball team to counter the biggest pitching acquisition of the year by a division rival? Signing a 42-year-old first baseman who comes to bat accompanied by Stone Cold Steve Austin’s entrance theme, of course. Welcome to Washington, Matt Stairs! The Nats signed the first-baseman to a non-guaranteed minor league deal this morning.

The Capitals have signed restricted free agent forward Boyd Gordon to a one-year, $800,000 deal. Gordon received only a $40,000 raise over last season’s salary, but he’ll be an unrestricted free agent next season if the Caps can’t work out an extension in the coming year. So who is Boyd Gordon? If you’ve been following the Caps as long as we have, you already know. Gordon was the Caps’ first-round draft pick in 2002,…

MASN’s Ben Goessling really grabbed a hold of today’s big hardball news: the Nationals have locked up free agent pitcher Chien-Ming Wang on an arrangement that could see him in D.C. for the next two years. The Nats aren’t sharing details about the acquisition at the moment, but they are slated to unveil Wang at a news conference on Friday in Viera, Florida, where they’re holding spring training. Goessling reports that Wang will pull…

Ivan Rodriguez Between the Capitals’ success, the Redskins’ woes and the Wizards’ near-invisibility, it’s easy to forget that the Nationals — or at least the team’s front office — are busy at this time of the year, too. Baseball’s winter meetings are in full swing this week, where the league’s general managers all get together to wheel and deal. This off-season, one of the Nats’ highest priorities was to find a reliable backup catcher,…

We mentioned it briefly at the end of the day yesterday, so by now you’ve heard that the Washington Nationals have signed outfielder/firstbaseman Adam Dunn, breathing a bit of off-season life into what’s been a fairly tepid winter for last year’s worst team in baseball. Dunn theoretically adds some much needed pop to the anemic Nats offense. The left-handed power hitter has hit 40 homeruns in each of his last 5 seasons, and has…

Could the Nationals actually be splashing some cash? Outlets were reporting earlier this week that the Nats made an offer to big-ticket free agent Mark Teixeira in the range of eight years and $160 million. By the numbers, a move for the switch-hitting first baseman makes sense — especially since the Yankees seem to be grabbing any available big-money pitcher from here to Mars. Offensively, the 2008 Nationals were at or near the bottom of…

Photo of Gilbert Arenas by Kyle Gustafson True to his word, yesterday Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas opted out of the final year of his contract, leaving $12.8 million on the table in the hopes of signing a longer and more lucrative deal. Whether that will be with the Wizards remains to be seen. Arenas played only 13 games this year, his season cut short by a nagging knee injury, leaving open the question…