Just when you thought we were free of Jim Bowden, his heavy, terrible hand reaches out and slaps Nats fans again. Thanks to a handshake deal the leatherpanted GM made with Dmitri Young, the Haynesworth-sized DH/1B is going to be put back onto the Nats 40-man roster.
Young is in the second year of a misguided two-year, $10 million contract extension that Bowden gave him, after pulling him off the scrapheap. The obvious joke would be to wonder how much Bodes was skimming (allegedly) off the top, but that wouldn't be fair.
Da Meathook took the money and ran. Well, to be accurate, mostly he sat.
He missed most of last season when he let his lack of conditioning affect his diabetes to a point where he was unable to even travel with the team. The team seemed gravely concerned for his health, showing that this wasn't just a little fluky flareup.
The Nats outrighted him to Syracuse, which means he cleared waivers, and was taken off the 40-man roster. The Nats used the space in the off-season for their free agent signings, but also to select and protect players in the Rule 5 draft.
Apparently, Bowden agreed that he'd put Dmitri back on to the roster at the beginning of the year.
Amazingly, even though Bowden slinked out of town about a month ago, the team's going to honor it.
The problem with this is that one of the reasons the team probably won't call up Jordan Zimmermann is that there's not much room on the 40-man as it is. Calling Zimm'nn up would mean the Nats would risk a younger player.
Now nobody's going to weep over losing Irish Mike O'Connor, but what's more important to the franchise? The tiny chance that Irish Mike becomes a passable reliever or making an old, out-of-shape DH who hasn't lived up to his end of his contract happy?
The Lerners are known for their letter-of-the-law analysis of contracts. They even sued the crap out of the city for the stadium not being done exactly as their contract said.
So where are they here? They don't owe Dmitri anything, especially on the basis of a handshake deal with a deposed GM who was a personal friend of the player.
If it's a business with Zimmermann, it should be a business here, too.
Chris Needham used to write Capitol Punishment. He wonders if Dmitri would like AAA more if they still played in New Orleans.
