ball talk

baseball's annual winter meetings begin tomorrow morning in nashville and im in the mood to talk a little baseball... with healy in korea and me living with 2 females now, i dont get to talk a lot of ball these days, so im gonna use this as a bit of an outlet...

first, with all the big news pretty much already non-news (torre to the dodgers, a-rod back to the yanks, hunter to the angels), and the free agent pool sporting a sign that reads "NO DIVING IN THE SHALLOW END!!", it seems all the good action this winter will be coming in the form of trades.. and with some top quality players on small market teams heading into their free agent/arbitration years, you can bet there's gonna be at least a couple big moves.

a message for wayne krivsky

as far as my cincinnati reds go, i like what they've done so far getting dusty and signing cordero, and i think we're in a great position and with one or 2 more key moves we could be set up to compete for a long while. you listening, wayne? we could have the next big red machine on our hands here, its up to you not to fuck it up. you do, and we could be screwed for another half decade. i say go with the youth movement. phillips, hamilton, votto, cantu, encarnacion, bruce.. this is the makings of a tough, powerful, young line-up. what does that mean? good-bye dunn, freel, hatteberg, griffey.. hello pitching. a package including some of those guys should net them a bonafide #3 starter to compliment harang and arroyo, and sit in front of homer bailey who should blossom over the next few years in the 4 spot. i think freel and dunn have to go to make room for the younger outfielders (hamilton, bruce, possibly hopper, sometimes votto)... yes, freel can play the infield, too, but with encarnacion, phillips, cantu, gonzalez and keppinger already taking up 3 spots, where's he gonna play? he's too injury prone, and lets face it, balls out and fun to watch, sure, but he doesnt hit like any of those aforementioned players... and with the reds recent pitching history, they need all the runs they can get. a line-up like this gives the team a lot of depth and flexibility because so many of these guys can switch up positions. votto lf/1b, cantu 1b/2b, keppinger 3b/ss, etc.. over a long 162 game season the ability to keep players fresh would really show its dividends. dunn and hatteberg might be attractive trade options for teams looking for solid left handed hitting, but i might consider hanging onto griffey. he's a hometown guy who's just shy of 600 homeruns - he's still the draw in cincinnati, and as long as this team is losing they need to find ways to put bums in seats anyway they can.. and not only that, i'd imagine he'd be a great mentor for the younger outfielders coming up. his contract is up at the end of this season anyways, so you can look to the mariners when they're making their play-off push around the trade deadline. he should have already hit the milestone and sold the tickets, so give him a chance for a ring if we're not in the hunt as well. truthfully, though, i think we're still a couple maturing years away. so far, i like what we've done with the bullpen, and im really hoping they've targeted livan hernandez as an innings-eating #3 starter.. a soft-tosser who's pitched 200+ innings every full-season he's pitched in the bigs, except 1 where he pitched 199 2/3's innings. this is something they need to give that bullpen some rest - especially in a #3 slot, where it can give some key guys a day off before you get down to your 4 and 5 starters, where you typically know you have to rely on your relievers more. having shored up the closer role by signing cordero, they move weathers back to his more natural set-up role and have burton there as well adding depth to the late innings. the back of house is lookin' good, and if bray, majewski, and/or livingston start to pan like they're supposed to, and coffey regains form, they've got a fairly solid foundation in the pen. the reds bullpen has endured some painful years recently, but these guys are young, and i think with the hardknock experience and now the added confidence in the end of game scenario, you'll see a different pitching staff next season. if we can keep our young line-up intact, possibly move dunn/freel/hatteberg/maybe gonzalez/maybe griffey later on, and get a decent #3, some experienced and proven bullpen help, and/or pull of a hernandez-like signing, i think this team could be set for great things for the next 5 years, and start to make a real push within the next 2. if we lose the opportunity on some of these guys, or trade away too much of our youth, i think we can kiss our asses goodbye for a good long while. its already been 17 years, dont fuck this up, krivsky.

whew.. ok.. done with that..

so, the real biggest news, now that a-fraud has slipped the pinstripes back on, is who the next big yankee acquisition will be - and what it will take to get him. johan santana. for possibly, the previously untouchable phil hughes, coupled with melky cabrera and a tba. if im the twins, its a go. if im the yanks, im obviously doing it, but i think im pretty stupid. santana is 29 and coming off a not-so-santana like year. whats this penchant the yankees have with signing players on the downswing? im not saying santana is done, not by any means, but shit, hughes is 21. twenty-one. and dynamite. i think cashman would be wise to remember the names maddux, smoltz, and glavine and what they meant to someone else's organization, and think what the names chamberlain, hughes and kennedy could mean to his. there is fear, obviously, of the red sox landing him, and part of the prestige is having the current, albeit arguable, "best pitcher in the game", wearing pinstripes. they open a new billion dollar stadium in 2009, they have the next home run king playing 3rd. they are the new york yankees. of course they are going to get johan santana. when will they ever learn?

of course, there's still the possibility that the sox could pull off a deal - they're said to have put previously untouchable ellsbury into the mix, a key element for the twins who've just lost star centerfielder torii hunter to the angels. how could anyone possibly deal with a rotation that consisted of beckett, santana, dice-k, an emerging clay bucholz or jon lester (whoever the twins dont get in the deal), and an aging curt shilling and tim wakefield? no thank-you.

the consolation prize could very well be dan haren, at a slightly lesser cost, which, in my opinion, in the long run, may be the way to go anyhow. again, you gain a few years on a pitcher going into his prime years, rather than about to be exiting his prime years, and you likely get to hang on to something. other teams said to be in the mix for these guys are the mets, dodgers, and angels, but i wouldnt say any of them have the bargaining chips that the yanks or sox do.

another blockbuster deal that could be made involves the bat of miguel cabrera... the marlins looking to unload a contract for young talent, and more than a few teams looking for a power bat at the corner infield, especially with the a-rod sweepstakes over so quickly. apparently the marlins are asking for quite a lot, so its possible a deal may not get done, but again, you gotta expect he'll be going to a larger market who can pay him for quite a while... either of the los angeles teams, is my best guess.

i also wouldnt be surprised to see the orioles dangle bedard and tejada once the santana's, haren's and cabrera's have been plucked and teams are looking for final pieces.

the free agent class is lacking punch this winter, but the bigger stories will likely be which owners overpaid for which remaining centerfielder... rowand, jones, or cameron... somewhere, someone's going to get screwed, i guarantee it. i think even with the weak free agent class, there'll be enough signings and movements through trade to make for an interesting re-shuffling of the deck next season, but i think the real stories at the end of the year, as usual, will be which teams stayed true to their systems and built from within using what they had to fill key holes, as opposed to just blowing a wad of cash on a bunch of numbers accumulated elsewhere.

with that, im sayin' go reds, and screw the yanks! come on, wayne, let us hear it one more time... "... and this one belongs to the reds!"

- r.i.p. joe nuxhall