Originally Posted by
GAC
My assertion concerning the lack of a serious effort (so far) made by this FO on Choo is buoyed on two things .....
- they tendered him an offer. A 1 yr contract, which was nothing more then a formality, that they knew was going nowhere. IMO, it doesn't matter that Boras is his agent or that other teams are going after him. You still make that serious effort, throw out your best deal, in an attempt to resign the guy. If you lose out, OK, but you gave it your best shot.
But they didn't. Now, yes, they may still attempt to do that, but I seriously doubt it based on my second point....
payroll constraints.
First off - I applaud Bob C, over the last few years, for spending the money and making that effort to build the core of this team. I have no qualms, though others may, with contracts such as Votto, Phillips, Bruce, Cueto, Bailey, Chapman, etc. Since he took over the payroll has risen from approximately $60M to $106M. That's one heck of an increase. But that's what you gotta do. He fulfilled his pledge to bring winning baseball back to Cincy and the fans.
But at the same time, reality has now set in that even though the team is winning they still haven't been able to reach that next level with the current team's construction, there are still critical pieces missing.
So now they are at that stage of "changes need to be made". But they've basically "hit a wall" due to the fact that they've stretched payroll a far as it can go and those guaranteed contracts. They really have no financial wiggle room. They'll obviously create some by not resigning Arroyo, possibly staying out of the Choo sweepstakes, but those are takeaways.
Sure, they have options for the rotation by possibly moving Chapman and inserting Cingrani (fingers crossed there).
But what about the offense? The way I see it, they went into this off-season needing a #2 and #4 hitter. Yet they've added to those "woes" by now having to look for a #1.
And there are rumors flying they may be trying to trade away one or two of those guaranteed contracts of core players (BP? Bailey?) in order to give them more financial wiggle room and effect those positive changes we need while keeping payroll within reason.
They got one heck of a huge job ahead of them this off-season for sure. And while there is still plenty of time obviously, they still are facing a tall order. And right now all we're seeing is subtractions. And until we, the fans, start seeing some productive additions, we have every reason to be highly skeptical.