There's no room to include them. People are saying "the Reds have not found suitable replacements." Actually, in terms of production, they have.
In other terms...
I am so tired of hearing, "The Reds have not replaced Adam Dunn." "Woe is us." "Oh how I wish the Reds had not traded Dunn." "We took such a hit to the offense."
All the while, here you have a guy ripping the cover off the ball, who by coincidence, plays the same position. It's a slap in the face to him to say the Reds have not found anyone to replace Dunn. They may have, but people are ignoring him.
Let me put it this way:
Say you are told you have two options. One is 29 years old, the other is 28 years old (both getting into the peak years of their career, obviously). Both are poor defenders.
Player A has a consistent, proven track record. His 3-year averages with the club:
.379 / .520 / 899 OPS (6.4% HR rate)
Player B has not been consistent, though has shown upside before. His current production in a couple hundred plate appearances:
.357 / .584 / 941 OPS (7.9% HR rate)
Taking away the names. Only knowing that Player A clearly has a proven track record, but Player B is slightly younger and just now hitting his peak, you're still probably inclined to go with Player A. Right? That's safe and clearly logical.
But throw in this:
Player A is going to make $10 mil for your team
Player B can probably be had for around $2 mil or one-fifth of the cost.
I'm no economics major, but what's the better value? I know it's easy to see which one has less risk.
Gomes is no Adam Dunn. But for crying out loud the dude is carrying the Reds offense right now, and people want to continue to cry over spilled milk about how the Reds didn't keep/replace Dunn. Gomes might not be able to continue this. That's still up in the air. But he's just now hitting his prime, where players tend to break out, and he's carrying the offense.
It's really a shame people can't give him credit and give the organization credit for getting him. Instead, they want to continue to harp on Dunn being gone and ignore that the franchise could have potentially found themselves an excellent player for cheap that wants to play for the organization without costing a pretty penny.
Maybe that's just too simplistic. But as long as Gomes continues to mash, I refuse to toe the company line that the Reds didn't do anything to replace the Dunn production.