Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric_the_Red
I don't follow you. How does Alonso make essentially the same team from last year worse? I think Bruce improves, perhaps even Stubbs and Heisey too. The defense improves with Janish playing SS, and hopefully the young pitchers can step forward to improve also.
Trading Alonso may improve the team this year, but what happens when Votto goes somewhere else? I want to team to experience sustained success, not just a two year window.
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Holding onto Alonso doesn't make the team worse, it simply passes on the opportunity to make a good team strong enough to win. Right now the window is 2011 and 2012. After that 2B and 3B will be holes. The core will be expensive. The same team in 2011 won't be good enough IMO. They made the play-offs by playing in a weak division and beating up on those weak teams. Good teams manhandled the Reds not only in the play-offs but all season. In 2011, they won't get a two month Cy Young turn from Leake. They won't likely get a two month Cy Young run from Travis Wood either. They will see declines at 3B, C and most of the bench players. In the line-up, I'm guessing that we won't see an .800 OPS at 3B, its possible we won't see a .700 OPS behind the plate and there is a very real possibility that we won't see a .600 OPS at SS. IMO the team needs to add talent to the major league team to not only get to the next level, but to offset the drop-offs we're likely to see in multiple spots. I see a solid team that can win with the right addition or two, but status quo isn't good enough.
If/when Votto leaves it might be nice to have Alonso around, but he's most likely nothing more than a backfill and not an MVP caliber replacement. Backfills at 1B can be had pretty easily and there is no need to hang onto him for that. If things go well he's Dan Dreissen to Votto's Perez. But Dan Driessen's are out there every year in the form of the Lyle Overbays, Adam Laroches, aging Lance Berkmans or aging Derek Lees of the world. Other than the long shot chance that Alonso becomes an upper echelon player, there really isn't a future value that he'll have to make it worth passing on an upgrade when the team is in position. I won't pass on the now on the long shot bet that Alonso becomes that caliber and at 1B, even if he's only a notch below, a similar guy won't be hard to find. If he was a starting pitcher or a middle infielder it might be different.