Kasten Plans 'Surge' of 21,500 Pitchers into Rotation

Speaking before a joint session of Congress at the end of the Nationals Caravan, President Stan W. Kasten took responsibility for the lack of progress in the last year and announced a new strategy for Nationals efforts in 2007.

Saying the key to future stability was restoring order to the rotation, Kasten announced plans to 'surge' 21,500 reinforcements into the starting rotation when Spring Training opens on Feb. 13. Some of the surge will come from pitchers who were scheduled to leave the big leagues but will now stay on through Spring Training, such as Jerome Williams and Brandon Claussen, while the bulk will be fresh reinforcements. These include 13 minor league pitchers offered contracts as well as the entire male populations of seven cities in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Panama.

The surge comes at a time when the Nationals have filled only one of five starting spots -- Kasten nominated Long John Patterson to be the Opening Day starter. Planned starter Mike O'Connor is unlikely to be recovered from surgery in time to start the season in the rotation, so Kasten will need the starters in his surge to cover approximately 950 innings in the coming season.

Sources close to other teams questioned Kasten's surge strategy. "There are only forty spots on a roster," one senior Yankees official said. "I don't know how [Kasten] thinks he can get an extra 22,000 pitchers on the roster. [Heck], if that were legal, we'd have bought the contracts of all 1,200 major-leaguers years ago." Another senior official with close ties to Boston questioned that statement, asserting that in fact the Red Sox would have bought all 1,200 major-league players if such a thing were possible. "And unlike New York," he said, "we'd have won the World Series, too."

Others cast doubt on whether Kasten could even find enough pitchers to accomplish the surge. "Even in the Dominican, where any random squad of twenty fifth-graders would make a better team than Pittsburgh, it will be tough to find anything like 20,000 pitchers who haven't already been signed by the Mets or Los Angeles," one former Cubs staffer said. "It's already the only third-world country where rich Americans mob around local children to beg. What, are the Nationals going to start poaching kids from Dominican Little League teams now?"

When read that quotation after his speech announcing the surge, Kasten was ready with an answer: "Yes."