Nats Scrap Wily Mo, last of the Great Yank '90s Money Pits

Their names should be inscribed into the stadium's loading dock.

Drew Henson
Ricardo Aramboles
Wily Mo Pena
Jackson Melian
Ruben Rivera
Hensley Muelens
Kats Maeda
El Duquecito

They're the elite '90's superprospects, the master thieves we wooed via financial muscle, the former Ruths and Gehrigs of the future.

Remember Henson? The quarterback behind Tom Brady. We paid him to quit football. He was going to play 3B, form a Michigan connection with Jeter, and there would never even be an ARod.

Remember Aramboles? He was the next Marichal, Wily Mo the next Vladimir, Melian the next Jackson -- everybody the next somebody. Except that they were probably 26. Remember how we traded Drew, then dealt Wily Mo to get Drew back? Yeesh.

I dare you to calculate the money we pissed away on those bums. We'll make AIG look frugal.

Of the boats we signed in bidding wars, only Jose Contreras and Alphonso Soriano floated. We flubbed Contreras. We dealt Alphonso for the Mirror Master.

So now what? We're expecting 600 career HRs (at catcher, no less) from millionaire Jesus Montero. We're clicking heels that millionaire Ivan Nova got bounced back to us by San Diego, (assuming that 20 percent of the bonuses we paid either of them actually got there.)

What happens to teen-age millionaires from Third World countries? Does the wealth compel success?

Well, aint our money. But maybe -- just maybe -- the key, organizationally, is to teach and nurture the talent we have, not to just bid the world on the biggest Latino necksize in the pre-puberty sweepstakes. Because they won't be the next Mariano, the next Mattingly. They'll be the next Aramboles, the next Wilo Mo.

The worst part of this is how our organization coddled these bums. We paved their way through the system. We sat cheaper, hungrier prospects on the bench, to get them out of the way. A lot of them - the Marcus Thames, the Zack Days - had decent careers.

Wily Mo is done. Have we learned?