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Late yesterday, the Washington Nationals agreed with the Florida Marlins on a trade that would send Josh Willingham and Scott Olsen to the Nationals for minor leaguers Emilio Bonifacio, P.J. Dean, and Jake Smolinski.

This borders on an absolute hose-job on the part of Nats’ GM Jim Bowden, which might be the first time anyone has ever said that. he Nats get a pretty good RF (Willingham) who’s under control for a few more years, and a pitcher (Olsen) who’ll probably be better than anyone on their staff not named John Lannan, in exchange for three guys that might never see a major league field.

Based on this trade, might the Nationals have finally turned a corner?

The team will have a trio of outfielders – Elijah Dukes, Lastings Milledge and Willingham – that can hit, and will probably get better over the next few years. Ronnie Belliard had a pretty good year, and Nick Johnson and Dmitri Young make a capable 1B tandem, assuming they’re not beset by horrific season-ending injuries.

Now, Bowden is still among the dumbest men in baseball. He probably should have sold high on Tim Redding, Cristian Guzman, and, hell, basically everyone.

But Washington is about to take a big whiff of hope-ium, and not just because of Barry O. If Johnson somehow stays healthy, if Ryan Zimmerman gets better instead of worse, if Milledge stays out of the recording studio, if Olsen stays off the sauce, and if Dukes doesn’t take advantage of DC’s gun-ban, the team could make some noise in the NL East as early as 2009. [Ed. Not if the Mets spend and if the Braves get Peavy!] And with Stephen Strasburg on the horizon in next year’s MLB draft, it feels like the Nationals are at least moving in the right direction. It’s been a long time since anyone could say that.

Now imagine if they had actually come to terms with Aaron Crow.