David Huzzard: Savoring July as baseball's most enjoyable month

Welcome to July, one of the busiest months on the baseball calendar. First off, today is the opening of the international signing period which means a bunch of 15- and 16-year- olds out of the Caribbean will be signed by major league teams with the hopes of one day making it to the American minor leagues and then possibly the majors. This is only interesting in the fact that one day some of these players will be good but that is so far off it isn't even worth thinking about. Wilmer Difo has made brief cameos in the majors this season and is expected to one day be a regular in the Nationals lineup, and he was signed in 2010, when he was thought to be too old at 18.

My point about the international signing period is that while many of the players signed today will turn out to be the future of baseball, that future is so far off that it is impossible to get excited about anything regarding the international signing period. The time to get excited about international prospects is years down the road when they're making wave in Single-A or Double-A the way that Difo, Pedro Severino and Reynaldo Lopez have this season, but that is the deadline at the beginning of the month. The one at the end of July is far more interesting and entertaining.

By this point in the season, we have a good idea of which teams are fighting for a playoff spot and which are not. The Nationals are currently first in their division with a decent lead and any trades they make will be to improve a roster already good enough to make the postseason. This is where you want your favorite team to make trades from. While it's a good idea for the Nationals to trade for Tyler Clippard or Aroldis Chapman, it is not a good idea to trade for them believing they are the one missing piece between the Nationals and a playoff berth.

The Nats bullpen has looked a lot better over the last couple of weeks, but they've also only pitched 27 1/3 innings over the past 12 games. That is an average of just over two innings a game. The starting pitching in those games has been fantastic and if they go on a scoreless streak like they did in June, in October the Nats could have Bob Carpenter, F.P. Santangelo, and TV's Dan Kolko setting up Drew Storen and be just fine. It is, however, unlikely that that will occur and the Nationals will need a setup man better than the ones they have.

David Carpenter and Casey Janssen have looked good since debuting with the Nationals, but neither are lockdown setup men, and while the Nationals don't need that for success in October, it would increase their chances at success. The Nats can make do with what they have, but there is a difference between surviving and thriving. The Nationals shouldn't be looking to make due and hope someone gets hot at the right time. Having a second reliever as good or better than Storen will substantially increase the Nationals' odds at October success.

Now this being baseball, all that nothing will happen until precisely one minute before the trade deadline, and this is what makes July one of the best months on the baseball calendar. There is going to be so much speculation and rumor and fake rumors flying around. I honestly can't wait to see what Ken Rosenthal or Jon Paul Morosi have to say this month. I look forward more to the fake trade rumors than I do the real trades. No one will forget last July, when former Nats GM Jim Bowden got fooled by a fake Twitter account, passed off the information as his own and then changed his Twitter display name to Ralph for reasons still unknown. And let's not forget there are real baseball games being played in hot and humid weather and the ball will be flying out of the park. Welcome to July, where baseball is fun.

David Huzzard blogs about the Nationals at Citizens of Natstown. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidHuzzard. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our regular roster of writers.