Bill Bray and Wilson Valdez non-tendered

[kaldaniels]

Originally Posted by Gallen5862

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/

Minor Moves: Bray, Valdez, Rondon, Hernandez
By Mark Polishuk [November 8 at 4:38pm CST]
Here are a few of the day's minor transactions...

Left-hander Bill Bray and infielder Wilson Valdez have elected to become free agents, according to MLB.com's transactions page. With Valdez entering his second year of arbitration-eligibility and Bray his third, both players were seen as non-tender candidates by MLBTR's Tim Dierkes following their disappointing seasons for the Reds. Valdez, 34, posted a .463 OPS in 208 plate appearances as a backup infielder. Bray was limited to just 14 games due to groin and back injuries, but he'll surely draw interest from teams looking for lefty relief help; Bray posted a 2.98 ERA and recorded 44 strikeouts over 48 1/3 innings for Cincinnati in 2011.

Wait Valdez got non-tendered and it didn't get stickied? That's a 2 win improvement!

[_Sir_Charles_]

no kidding. Much bigger news than Bray IMO. Soooooo glad to see him gone.

[Tom Servo]

And so the Wilson Valdez era ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.

[camisadelgolf]

Who would've thought the Reds should've traded Bray for Valdez instead of Jeremy Horst?

[M2]

Originally Posted by camisadelgolf

So is In Utero.

It is absolutely NOT better. In Utero is a plodding, tiresome mess of a record.

[RedsManRick]

Originally Posted by camisadelgolf

Who would've thought the Reds should've traded Bray for Valdez instead of Jeremy Horst?

Well, I'm pretty sure most of us thought it was really silly to trade for him at all...

[M2]

Originally Posted by REDREAD

Clayton and Maj were extreme negative production at the worst possible time.. when we were contending. (Bray was pretty bad too) The trade pretty much knocked us out of contention by weakening the offense and bringing back nothing in return.

Exactly. The Reds instantly became a much worse team after the trade. The two worst players in the deal were Clayton and Majewski. Majewski, in fact, is one of the greatest post-trade flops in any deal ever made. How he was given 78 IP of work by the Reds remains a mystery. He was never anything but awful.

Say what you will about Lopez and Kearns, they both went on to have extended careers in baseball. Lopez had a horrible 2007 (after a serving as a functional leadoff hitter in 2006), but was pretty useful for a few years after that once he shifted to 2B. Kearns gave the Nats a season and half of decent production before falling to pieces. Since then he's picked up the pieces and he's still playing in the bigs. Given that it cost the Nats NOTHING in terms of talent to get those two, I suspect the view from the DC side of things is folks hoped for more, but it was worth a shot at the time.

Meanwhile, all the Reds got in return for their starting RF and SS was an oft-injured LOOGY. I don't care who the RF and SS are, a team that does business like that is headed for trouble. And, sure enough, trouble is what the Reds found. The organization's inability to recover from that deal ultimately cost Wayne Krivsky (who did a good job overall) his job.

[M2]

Originally Posted by RedFanAlways1966

Pretty obviou$ who got the wor$e of that deal.

This isn't the Low Payroll Olympics.

[camisadelgolf]

Originally Posted by RedsManRick

Well, I'm pretty sure most of us thought it was really silly to trade for him at all...

I don't know anyone outside the organization who thought it was a good idea.

[AtomicDumpling]

Originally Posted by camisadelgolf

The trade hurt the team in 2006 but helped the team for the future. Although I think you're right in that the team could've gotten a better return, it was still a positive trade for the Reds. It saved them several million dollars and allowed for them to upgrade a couple positions.

True, the trade ended up saving them some money because the players they received were so terrible that they failed to earn any raises and were eventually released. The trade was not designed to save money. That was never part of their rationale for making the trade. The Reds were in a pennant race at the time and were not trying to purge salary. The trade was made with the idea of improving the team for the stretch run and it failed miserably. The Reds earned a lot of laughs around the league for getting taken to the cleaners by Jim Bowden.

[Patrick Bateman]

Saving money only means something if it is reinvested to either obtain other players or help key important parts of the team when existing payroll is maxed.

Trading Kearns and Lopez did nothing at the time to explore either of those.

It was an awful trade at the time, and really, even in hindsight. There's just no way they got fair value at the time of the trade, and it directly hurt our playoff chances that year.

The fact that Lopez and Kearns had pretty bad careers after the trade helps ease the pain, and perhaps shows some foresight on the Reds part in targeting them as tradeable parts, but the bottom line yielded nothing positive for the Reds.

[_Sir_Charles_]

Originally Posted by camisadelgolf

I don't know anyone outside the organization who thought it was a good idea.

The deal had supporters here. Not me for sure, but there were some.

http://www.redszone.com/forums/showt...ghlight=Valdez

[camisadelgolf]

Originally Posted by AtomicDumpling

True, the trade ended up saving them some money because the players they received were so terrible that they failed to earn any raises and were eventually released. The trade was not designed to save money. That was never part of their rationale for making the trade. The Reds were in a pennant race at the time and were not trying to purge salary. The trade was made with the idea of improving the team for the stretch run and it failed miserably. The Reds earned a lot of laughs around the league for getting taken to the cleaners by Jim Bowden.

I don't see how you can be so sure about that. I don't think it was any coincidence that Kearns and Lopez were about to hit their arbitration years, and that point was even brought up at the time of the trade.

[camisadelgolf]

Originally Posted by _Sir_Charles_

The deal had supporters here. Not me for sure, but there were some.

http://www.redszone.com/forums/showt...ghlight=Valdez

Well, I guess nothing on RedsZone is unanimous. But I'd say they had the right idea in obtaining a veteran utility player who can play shortstop, but he certainly wouldn't have been my target.

[Wonderful Monds]

Originally Posted by camisadelgolf

I don't see how you can be so sure about that. I don't think it was any coincidence that Kearns and Lopez were about to hit their arbitration years, and that point was even brought up at the time of the trade.

Lopez was an All Star SS the year before. No way he was a salary dump.