Posted by Zach Sanders on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 10:13 pm

Tracee Hamilton shares this tidbit from the Arizona Fall League:

So do the players really care about the AFL championship? Nats reliever Jeff Mandel says yes.

Mandel and his Phoenix Desert Dogs teammates, champions of the East division, will play the Peoria Javelinas at 2:30 p.m. ET Saturday. The game will be televised on the MLB Network and also available on mlb.com. The Desert Dogs and Javelinas had identical 18-12 records going into Wednesday’s games.

“When you’re in the hunt it makes it a lot more fun,” Mandel said. “Six weeks is not a full season but it’s always a lot more fun. Everybody’s in a better mood. It’s only an extra day, we’re not spending too much extra time here. We might as well win the whole thing.”

Most people would just overlook this quote, and it seems Hamilton did as well. She focused on profiling Mandel as a player and not on the overarching story that I see here. With this statement, Mandel is telling us that the Nationals, as an organization, are committed to winning. It could just be my crazy way of looking at it, but I don’t think so.

The AzFL is seen as instructional and a chance for scouts to see what players in their organization have to offer. I would not expect to hear any player say that they are actively trying to win a title, but here we have one who does. By speaking up and professing the desire to win, Mandel seems to be speaking for the whole club and Nationals franchise.

When the Nationals spent the money to sign super-prospect Stephen Strasburg, they were conveying the same message. They did it last offseason as well, when they signed Adam Dunn to provide a big bat in their lineup. This team is dying to win, and they want players who have the same feelings.

One small, supposedly innocent statement has given insight into an team that has been in shambles since it moved inside the USA. Losers no more, the Nationals will come out of this rut. I can feel it.