Turner and Eaton will play critical roles for Nats in 2017

Two important changes to the 2017 version of the Nationals are at center field and shortstop. Trea Turner moves from center field to his natural position of shortstop. Newcomer Adam Eaton now mans the middle of the outfield. Both are expected to hit near the top of the order to take advantage of their contact bats, speed and patience at the plate.

Even after playing shortstop for his whole baseball life, Turner said it still takes a while to get back in tune with the speed you see from the batted ball that close to home plate.

"Yeah, I think I feel like I am in the action again," Turner said. "Especially in the outfield, you feel pretty far away. It's a matter of getting those game reps and getting as many ground balls as I can, slowing the game down.

"I realized in spring training I had a lot more time than I thought. I guess the older you get, the more you figure that out. The more games you play the more you figure that out. You have the time to do stuff - just slow down and relax a little bit."

So is it like riding a bike, just get back on and go?

"The basics are there, like riding a bike," Turner said. "But I learned a lot in spring training I wasn't doing last year at any point and I feel like this year I've kind of figured some things out, some things have clicked and I will continue to try to get better."

Eaton arrives from the Chicago White Sox, and sports a .362 on-base percentage in two of the last three seasons. He was seen on the first weekend back in D.C. from spring training, sitting at his locker smiling and conversing with new teammates Wilmer Difo and Rafael Bautista, quickly getting acclimated to the clubhouse.

I asked Eaton how crucial clubhouse camaraderie is to the success of a team for 162 games each summer.

"It's everything. You see these people more than your own families," Eaton said. "People laugh and they don't realize we are here at one o'clock and we leave at 11 p.m. every single day. I won't see my kid all of two hours if he doesn't take a nap. These people are extremely important to us. We want to bond as a team and have a good base of personalities of what works and what doesn't work."

Believing and feeling comfortable with your teammates, who all come from different walks of life and sometimes don't even speak English as their first language, is critical to a positive vibe on the field. They want to fight for each other because they have built up a bond established a lot of times in that 45-day period in spring training.

"You want to be able to enjoy coming to the ball park every day," Eaton said. "So far so good with this clubhouse. I think everyone has really bonded together. We have a lot of fun with each other. I think when you look at successful teams of the past, they have good camaraderie. The Giants, Kansas City, you can't duplicate that. Winning definitely helps. Winning cures everything, but liking each other and really enjoying playing for one another is high on my list."