Buy or sell? What will it take?
I did Chris Spielman's radio show today on the way from the Denver airport. (The traffic was slow enough that I could safely talk on the phone. Hell, it was slow enough that I could have done the USA Today crossword.)
Anyway the co-host -- don't remember his name, I do a lot of radio shows, all baseball beat guys do -- asked if the Reds would be sellers or buyers at the trade deadline. If the trade deadline were today, they'd be selling like crazy. But I said something like: It depends on how they play in June. If they can play seven or eight games of above .500, they'd probably be back in the NL Central and they might be buyers.
I thought about that a bit during lunch. The Reds are 21-34. They play 26 games in June. So 16-10 makes them 37-44 on the July 1; 17-9 makes them 38-43; 19-7 gets them to 40-41.
Pretty deep hole, eh?
And this club has shown no evidence of the being about to put together those kinds of streaks, but what do you think it would take over the next month for Bob Castellini and Co. to be convinced that this year is not lost?
12 Comments:
"If the trade deadline were today, they'd be selling like bond traders."
This doesn't really make sense. You could also say that they would be buying like bond traders.
Either way, come trade deadline Reds are sellers. Dunn and Griffey are gone. Probably the Angels for one of them, they have pitching and need a bat.
The bad analogy has been moved.
The Reds might be able to chip away a few million, but I really doubt anyone is going to pick up the remainder of Griffey's deal or for that matter, Dunn's. If anyone took those contracts, they won't be giving up talent, too. Meanwhile, Milton can't be given away. I assume the Reds would like to keep Arroyo and Harang. Lohse is making 4.2 million. Maybe someone would take a gamble on that. Gonzalez is staying. Everyone else makes less than 2.3 million, with the bottom 10 making less than 1 million. It'd be great to lose Stanton, but he's done and the Reds are on the hook for him for next year too.
I just don't see where the purge is going to come from. After all, only 10 teams have lower payrolls than Cincy. There really isn't that much fat to trim and my bet is that the fat that's there is going to remain stuck in the Reds' teeth.
I agree that it depends on where they are come July. With the way the Central division is stacking up, a losing record could win the division.
I think they have to make some kind of a run in June but I don't see how that is going to happen with mediocre pitching and inconsistent hitting. Heck, 16 strikeouts last night, that's just not going to cut it.
The only buying that will never happen is if Bob Castellini and Co call up the other group, i.e. Rick Steiner et al, who wanted to buy the team. Since that is not going to happen, the Deds will unload everything and everybody so they can squeeze that last buck out of the pockets of those die-hard fans who waste hard-earned money following this joke of a professional franchise.
as trigger-slow as the front office has been this season, it seems as if nothing will change that before hte trade deadline. I hope that's not true, though.
The obvious piece to be moved is scott hatteberg. he's a solid lefty first baseman, and it's time for votto to move up. hatte is probably being eyed by gms in both leagues right now, and he's a guy krivsky absolutely has to move.
most of the other guys dont fit in real well to a trade scheme. there's too much fan devotion to griffey (and likely not enough value in a trade), dunn's contract is not structured well for a trade (and if it were I don't trust Wayne to get a good value for him), our aces are too important to let go of, and the rest of the players are arb-down, so theyre probably too inexpensive for us to afford to get rid of. Oh, and there are the overpriced bits and pieces i cant imagine anyone would want, like milton and stanton.
beyond hatteberg, i dont see a lot of moves being made.
I wouldn't wait until the trade deadline if a good offer comes around. Sell Hatte, Conine, & Lohse. Anything you can get for Milton or Stanton, even if you have to send money with them.
Call up Votto, Bailey, and McBeth and let's see what they've got. Who knows, they may make all these moves and the team could play better this year.
Dunn and/or Griffey stay with the team until 2008. The Reds will need that offense next year to contend, and it won't be easily replaceable from within or via trade.
i have a hard time believing this team will be competitive enough to be buyers before the deadline, especially after watching last night's game. it's good to see some better starting pitching (arroyo's start last night notwithstanding) and some defense at 3rd base... but they still left a dozen runners on base last night. and since that's been the problem the last two years and all year this year, i don't see it changing until the personnel changes. i hope they have enough sense to try to move griffey... would you rather watch a guy hit his 600th homer or watch a winning ballclub two or three years from now?
I think everyone acknowledges the Reds' season is over if they simply play nice baseball over the next couple of months. They need a stretch where they go 20-3 or 19-4 to enter any discussion of the division.
Lower ticket prices, lower beer and food prices and only hire players that make under $400,000.
The Reds are small market, essentially a Triple A team that will develop players (Bailey, Hamilton, etc) at the major league level and then trade them to the real teams.
Rooting for small market teams are like going to the slot machines and expecting to win big. The odds are always against you, but everyonce in a while you win and you think that's normal. It ain't.
Could've sworn there was a NL team that did a fire sale recently and it turned their season around...
2006 Phillies?
Looking at the June sched I think 16-10 might be the best they could do; if the Brewers go 13-13 then the club is 6.5 back going into July and they've still only played them TWICE. I still think a move with Dunn could make this club better if it could return the right piece, say Salty in Atlanta.
I say very few moves and they work on things in November
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