Post-season Roster

OK let's start with the obvious ones

Wieters, Zimmerman, Murphy, Turner, Rendon, Werth, MAT, Bryce

Scherzer, Strasburg, Gio, Roark

Kintzler, Doolittle, Madson

You gotta have your starters (yes that includes Werth right this second), your starting pitchers, and the back of your bullpen.  That is 15.

You have to have back-ups though.

Catcher - Lobaton. He's started twice recently compared to Severino's once and Severino has done nothing to earn a spot.
Infield - Lind, Difo, Outfield - Kendrick . These are obvious choices based on performances and how often they've played recently.
Relief - Matt Albers - best of the original pen arms and continues to pitch strong

That's 20.  So we have 5 spots left.  Is there anything that can inform us about which way these last 5 get distributed? Sure there is. There's last years 25 man. After the "Key 15" it broke down like this.

1 Back-Up C (Severino - Ramos was out remember)
3 IF Back-Ups (Drew, Difo, Robinson)
2 OF Back-Ups (Heisey and MAT - Turner was in the OF, Espy was at short)

1 long reliever (sort-of) Lopez
3 lefty relievers (R-Zep, Perez, Solis) - this assumes the back of pen was defined as Kelley, Treinen and Melancon.

There's no good reason to assume the Nats will take MORE pitchers. There are actually two off days in the NLDS (have been since 2013) and that lets guys get rest more easily. So we need two more bats and 3 more arms.

Here are the stats for the potential players over last two weeks

Robles : 16 PA  .214 / .267 / .357
de Aza : 15 PA  .231 / .286 / .538
Sanchez :  9 PA .000 / .000 / .000
Bautista : 6 PA .000 / .167 / .000
Stevenson : 5 PA .000 / .200 / .000

If you look at the last week to see if you can see any late movement you see Robles (11) and de Aza (10) with the most PA then Stevenson (5) and Sanchez (5) with Bautista basically done (1 PA)

It's pretty obvious from here the Robles and de Aza are the ones that make it.

BUT WAIT! Some complications. Season long bench players Drew and Goodwin are trying to make it back in time.  Drew is not going to be ready so that takes him out but Goodwin is in the instructional league getting as many at-bats as he can get. Do you bring in Goodwin?

Let's understand first that the question is Goodwin or Robles. de Aza is pretty solidly the 5th OF right now. He's an experienced vet who's doing the best (in comparison) and getting the most playing time. He's a lefty bat which is more complimentary to the bench set up so far (Difo is a switch hitter but favors batting right by a good margin. Lobaton is better from the left side historically but as the back-up catcher and as the terrible hitter he is - he's the last man pinch-hitting) He's also splitting time equally between RF and LF as you'd want someone to do who could come in to cover any position in an emergency.

So the question is - is Brian Goodwin good enough that you risk him not being up to major league level and just stick him on the bench? Or do you go with Robles? Personally I go with Robles. For the things you will want that last player to do - basically pinch run - you want Robles to be that guy. He's super fast. Do the Nats go with Robles? Without knowing how Goodwin is doing in Florida it's hard to say. All I know is that they wouldn't be going through this trouble if they didn't think Goodwin was better than Robles*. I'll go ahead and guess Goodwin makes it then, though I'm hoping it's Robles.

For the three relief arms, you can look at the last two weeks as well

Perez : 4g, 2 IP 0.5 WHIP
Solis : 4g, 3.2 IP 0.818 WHIP
Blanton : 3g, 3IP, 1 WHIP
Romero : 3g, 3 IP, 1.3333 WHIP
Grace : 2g, 2 IP, 0.000 WHIP

and then there's

Cole : 2g, 10.2 IP, 1.594 WHIP
Jackson : 2g, 10.2 IP, 1.500 WHIP

The last week show Solis in 3 games, Blanton and Romero in 2, and both Cole and Jackson having much better outings.

This is a tough call which in part is why I think you see different sites starting from 8 and 9 man bullpen spots.  I just don't see that happening. If they didn't do it last year, what is the impetus to do it this year? You hope guys like Max and Stras give you at least 6. You hope K, M, D shut down the 7th, 8th and 9th. So you are going to carry around 5 more arms and cost your self a bat for what exactly? Nah I see another 7 man pen so let's roll up our sleeves and guess at it.

I'm going to say... man I keep wavering here... ok I think Solis is in. He's a lefty, which they need, he gets out lefties, which is the point, and he's been pushed over an inning here and there which makes him a potential long man - really only like a 2-3 inning one but it's there if you need it.

So the pen needs two more arms. Ideally a left and a righty. On the left side, Grace feels edged out, leaving Perez and Romero. I think Dusty likes Romero more - as a guy you can just stick in and use. However, like I said with Solis, I think the point of the lefty is to get lefties out and Romero just doesn't do that. With Rizzo and Schwarber (and solid bench bats Jay and La Stella) sitting out there I think Perez wins out.

That leaves the righty arm. Kelley is dead. So it's Cole or Jackson, if you want a real long reliever, or Blanton, if you don't. I'm going to guess, because of his regular use and not crashing and burning, that Blanton makes it. Jackson was the leader in the clubhouse coming out of August but his September was just too bad to ignore and he's never been used as a reliever by the Nats, which is almost certainly the role he'd have in the playoffs. Cole has been used as a reliever but hasn't in the past few weeks, making me think they took a look at him in that spot and decided against it.

So there you go

14 bats
Wieters, Lobaton (2)
Zimmerman, Murphy, Turner, Rendon, Lind, Difo (6)
Bryce, Taylor, Werth, Kendrick, de Aza, Goodwin** (6)

11 arms
Scherzer, Strasburg, Gonzlaez, Roark (4) 
Doolittle, Kintzler, Madson, Albers, Solis, Perez, Blanton (7)


*Better today obviously.  Ideally I think they'd want Goodwin and Robles with de Aza the odd man out. But you can't do that if Goodwin hasn't played a game in the majors yet, imo. You need at least a little security that your guy is major league ready. 

**though I'd prefer Robles