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Originally Posted by Patrick Bateman
I agree.... he wasn't exactly in a position to be adding established types of players, or high end prospects for that matter. But, Walt hasn't been particularly proactive in taking some risks on some of the lower end roster players. The Reds being fairly non-competitive, are in a position that they could be filling up parts of the bench, or perhaps even offering partial playing time opportunities to some young players that have failed in other organizations.
One such guy he did pick up was Balentin, and I think that is the right type of move that he should be exploring more often. Those types of guys can be had, and you know, it's not that surprising when they develop into meaningful players. The best thing Kriv ever did was turning nothing into something (I'm not meaning to bait you). For all the faults he had, that is one area that he had right, and it came at no cost to the other areas of the team.
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I agree. But I think dumpster diving has become even more expensive over the past few years. Every team wants cheep, young, good talent and the price keeps going up. IMO Walt over his career has been very good at judging minor league talent. Figuring out who is legit and who is over rated. Taking the over rated minor leaguers and trading them for bonified major league talent.
I do think a team like the Reds should be active dumpster divers. But at the same time a player like Balentin isn't free. The Reds had to give up something in order to get him. It may have been a fringe major league bull pen arm, but he wasn't free.
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Walt has done a very good job for the most part in excercising patience, sticking to the rebuilding effort, and not strap himself with future contracts. And rightfully so, that was Kriv's biggest downfall and the reason that he shouldn't be GM.
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That may have been Walt's most important job. Building from inside, resist the urge to trade prospects even as the fans grow more restless. The only prospect of any value that Walt moved was Stewart. He has done a good job keeping keeping a core group of young players together.
To be honest I think Krivsky is a very good person to have in your organization. He has a good eye for young talent and more often than not was able to acquire that talent on the cheap. If he were director of minor league operations I would be ecstatic. However as an overall GM I think he was lacking. I think he had trouble balancing everything on an organizational level. I think Jocketty does a very good job of seeing the big picture. I think Cast sees it that way which I think is why Jocketty is here and being provided quite a big more leeway than the prior GM's.