What If ??? -- Purely Hypothetical -- Must Be the NyQuil
Pardon me for rambling with some possibilities that didn't happen. I have a terrible cold and have been taking NyQuil. Must be the hallucinations.
What if -- the Reds had dumped Bowden a few years back and made a couple of moves differently....
(1) What if -- they had gotten just one first round draft pick right and had a starter in their rotation to show for their efforts? An example would be Mark Prior or Barry Zito or Tim Hudson or countless others from teams who did get one right. Let's go with Prior and say he represents this one change.
(2) What if -- they had kept Roberto Petagine and Paul Konerko and traded Casey when his value was high for more pitching? Let's say it was for a Livan Hernandez.
(3) What if -- instead of dinking around so long trying to get Mark Wohlers turned around, or Jose Rijo to comeback or Deion Sanders or Kevin Mitchell or Jimmy Anderson or countless others -- and some youngster had developed like they could/should have.
(4) What if -- Barry Larkin had been traded and the Reds got some decent young infielders for him, and kept Bret Boone.
(5) What if -- Junior had just come to Cincy as a free agent and never got hurt and kept his play at pre-Cincy levels?
(6) What if -- the Reds had taken Scott Rolen up on his desire to play for Cincinnati?
(7) What if -- they brought in someone like Rob Nen who won't get much more opportunity in SD now that Trevor Hoffman is coming back?
(8) What if -- because of the moves above -- we could be grooming Adam Dunn to really be a decent ball player long term, with improved contact and/or defense?
C -- Jason LaRue
1B -- Paul Konerko
2B -- Brett Boone
SS -- Pokey Reese
3B -- Scott Rolen
LF -- Roberto Petagine
CF -- Junior Griffey
RF -- Austin Kearns
P -- Mark Prior
P -- Livan Hernandez
P -- Brandon Claussen
P -- Paul Wilson
P -- Jose Acevedo
P -- Ryan Wagner
P -- Rob Nen
P -- John Reidling
P -- Aaron Harang
P -- Danny Graves
P -- Chris Reitsma