Baseball America Q&A with Zimmerman

Baseball America's Chris Kline sits down with Ryan Zimmerman for a Q&A. Most of it is fluff, but there is this one exchange I want to highlight:

BA: In your opinion, how'd the "experiment" go when they asked you to move from third to short? RZ: It was a lot different, just in terms of the game being a lot faster than it was in college. I tried it for a little while because they asked me to, and I think I could do it full-time if that's what they wanted me to do. I'm more comfortable at third, just because that's where I have the most experience. I'll be playing third out here; they might get me in some at short, but I'll mostly be splitting up games with (White Sox third baseman Josh) Fields.

Kline added this:

The Nats toyed with moving Zimmerman, who played the majority of his college career at third, to shortstop earlier this summer. But that experiment was short-lived, and when Zimmerman made it to the big leagues, manager Frank Robinson played him sparingly because he didn't want to mess with team chemistry.

What this tells me is there clearly is a lack of communication between Jim Bowden and Frank Robinson. Jim Bowden was likely the advocate for the Zimmerman to SS "experiment" to distract attention from the unmitigated failure that was Cristian Guzman. Frank Robinson then refused to play Zimmerman at SS in the name of team chemistry. Sigh. It's a good thing that by all appearances Zimmerman seems to be a well-grounded person who wasn't impacted by a GM and manager conflict. Because the apparent lack of communication between the GM and manager is an issue the new owner needs to address immediately.