We Got Our Answer ... Sort Of

Barry Svrluga, the Nats beat writer, has an article in Friday's Washington Post providing some of the answers to why the Nationals only recalled Ryan Zimmerman as part of roster expansion yesterday. Yesterday, Bill Ladson of MLB.com explained that the Nats would only call up Zimmerman due to "roster restraints" which definitely caused me to scratch my head. For completeness, Deivi Cruz was also added to the roster without anyone being sent down. Why didn't the Nationals call up more than two players?

...Nationals President Tony Tavares nixed that plan for financial reasons.

Financial reasons? The Nationals are a team that has made more than $12M than expected on ticket revenue alone. Tavares continued:

"The average amount of guys to call up is something like five. I pushed back on Jim and said, 'Make sure you're calling up people that are going to be used.' If you bring up 11 guys, you start talking about changing the size of the [chartered] airplane and all kinds of things. Everybody, including the Yankees, has to have some kind of budget"

The average amount is five. The Nationals called up two. There is still no reason they could not have brought up another pitcher given the fact that they had a doubleheader on Wednesday and were starting a pitcher who is known to rack up high pitch counts in low innings pitched. And guess what happened, Tony Armas went 4 innings throwing 81 pitches forcing Frank Robinson to use 5 relief pitchers in a 10 inning game. Definitely not the type of roster management one would hope for in a pennant race. Ok, so let's turn the page and prepare for a 10 game homestand against playoff contenders Philadelphia, Florida, and Atlanta. Now that the Nats are back home, I guess it's time to add a few more players to the roster. Perhaps a pitcher or two given the heavy usage of the bullpen recently and perhaps a middle infielder who can play 2B given that Jose Vidro may be done for the season. Who's in line for a call-up today? Back to Svrluga:

They will start Friday by adding speedy outfielders Brandon Watson and Kenny Kelly -- addressing the team's sloth-like base running -- as well as infielder Rick Short, who flirted with hitting .400 for Class AAA New Orleans.

Excuse me? Who was called up? Two OFs who are the mirror image of one another and a guy who deserves a call-up but is really not a major league quality 2B. Who is making these decisions? Once again Jim Bowden tries to solve a RP/MI problem by calling up OFs. I'm not even going to get into the fact they are bringing up Kelly who is not on the 40-man roster instead of Ty Godwin who is the exact same player and is on the 40-man roster. The Nationals do not need two pinch runners who can only play OF. They need a RP and a MI. Where is RHP Travis Hughes? Where is Brendan Harris? If they are bound and determined to promote someone not on the 40-man, where is LHP Bill Bray? Once again, the Nationals GM has proven himself to be an inept roster manager ... at best. I will close with a positive spin provided by a guy I've really been impressed with this year, CA Brian Schneider

"This team is making a lot of money right now. Just put it like that. Revenues are higher than predicted. The good thing is if these guys come up a couple of days late, they still get the experience."

I hope it's only a couple of days late, Brian. I really do.