Denard Span to the Nats

[HometownHero]

Originally Posted by [deleted]

This is insane to me. The Nats just landed a young, relatively cheap 4 win CF who plays exceptional defense with above average speed and on-base skills (sound like a fit for any other team you know?)... for a 22-year-old who has pitched one year of A-ball. I'm sure Meyer has wonderful potential, but I can't help but see this as an absolute steal.

How did no other team top this deal? Atlanta just gave Upton 75 million dollars - surely that organization had some plus pitching parts to spare; I mean, it's the Braves. We kept hearing about how Minnesota was asking the world for Span. I'm more than a little surprised.

Alex Meyer is a front of the rotation type pitcher or a lock down closer, many people online are talking it up as the Twins winning the trade. He is 50th on MLB's prospect rankings.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2012/

[MoneyInTheBank]

Originally Posted by [deleted]

This is insane to me. The Nats just landed a young, relatively cheap 4 win CF who plays exceptional defense with above average speed and on-base skills (sound like a fit for any other team you know?)... for a 22-year-old who has pitched one year of A-ball. I'm sure Meyer has wonderful potential, but I can't help but see this as an absolute steal.

How did no other team top this deal? Atlanta just gave Upton 75 million dollars - surely that organization had some plus pitching parts to spare; I mean, it's the Braves. We kept hearing about how Minnesota was asking the world for Span. I'm more than a little surprised.

According to Jonathan Mayo, MLB.com's prospect expert, Meyer was the 50th ranked prospect in all of baseball, so we are not talking about some middling prospect. For reference, Stephenson was listed at 55, Cingrani 57 and Corcino 71.

[MoneyInTheBank]

Originally Posted by texasdave

Sitting back and letting teams that were better than you in 2012 obtain better players than you obtain doesn't seem like a winning recipe to me.

What leads you to believe the Reds are "sitting back"?

[texasdave]

Originally Posted by MoneyInTheBank

What leads you to believe the Reds are "sitting back"?

Hometown Hero:

Your response:

Exactly right Hero.

And, with that, I am out of this conversation. I will just wait and see how it all shakes out.

[MoneyInTheBank]

Originally Posted by texasdave

Hometown Hero:


Your response:


And, with that, I am out of this conversation. I will just wait and see how it all shakes out.

Nice try. There is context to those comments. He's letting the FREE AGENT MARKET come to him. He could have been in Span until the 11th hour. We have no idea. He could be working the phones like a mad man trying to get something done. We don't know. What we do know that free agents are still too expensive, so he's letting that market settle before he dives in.

[Salukifan2]

Originally Posted by MoneyInTheBank

Exactly right Hero. The more spots that get filled, the cheaper Ludwick, Victorino and the rest of the 2nd or 3rd tier OFers get. This is good for the Reds

Unless they're gone

[MoneyInTheBank]

Originally Posted by Brittingham.Sam

Unless they're gone

Yeah... but they're not

[texasdave]

Originally Posted by MoneyInTheBank

Nice try. There is context to those comments. He's letting the FREE AGENT MARKET come to him. He could have been in Span until the 11th hour. We have no idea. He could be working the phones like a mad man trying to get something done. We don't know. What we do know that free agents are still too expensive, so he's letting that market settle before he dives in.

How do you know that he is letting that market settle before he dives in if, as you say, he could have been in on Span until until the 11th hour? Or if, as you say, he could be working the phones like a madman trying to get something done? Neither you nor I know what he is or is not doing. What we do know is that teams that were better than us in 2012 are getting better players so far. And that does not strike me as a good thing.

Furthermore, I did not read anything about FREE AGENT MARKET only in the above comments. So you may want to be a little more specific in your posts.

[Salukifan2]

if you wait to long they might. I don't doubt Jocketty, im just saying it is possible to wait too long, but its not even winter meetings yet so obviously its not too late

[dMaus14]

While they may be a better team than us I don't believe that trade really pertains to us. We both lost in the Division Series and we both had the best records in baseball. I believe in making our team the best in our division because once you get to the playoffs its pure luck. Look at the Cardinals and Tigers from last year. Look at the Cardinals the year before. Anything can happen in the playoffs so all we should worry about is making the Reds the best team in the NL Central every year.

[HometownHero]

While the Nats now have a top of the order hitter and can use Harper to drive in runs they still appear to be losing 100 RBI and 33 HR guy from last year who was 6th in MVP voting and won the SS and GG at 1B or a monster in Michael Morse of the 2012 team so they aren't the same 2012 team getting better. If Harper isn't ready to hold down the 4 hole yet they could run into some issues next year.

[[deleted]]

Originally Posted by MoneyInTheBank

According to Jonathan Mayo, MLB.com's prospect expert, Meyer was the 50th ranked prospect in all of baseball, so we are not talking about some middling prospect. For reference, Stephenson was listed at 55, Cingrani 57 and Corcino 71.

I'm sure Meyer is very talented, but beside the whole "prospects are just unproven players who could easily flame out" thing, Cingrani seems to be somewhat similarly valued. The big difference being that Cingrani (just a year older) already has ML experience. Would you have said "no" to Span-for-Cingrani straight up? I'm sure some would, but I'd do that trade in a heartbeat. I'm just surprised because we had heard so much about how the asking price for Span was monstrous. Most likely the Twins just like Meyer a lot more than our guys.

[MoneyInTheBank]

Originally Posted by texasdave

How do you know that he is letting that market settle before he dives in if, as you say, he could have been in on Span until until the 11th hour? Or if, as you say, he could be working the phones like a madman trying to get something done? Neither you nor I know what he is or is not doing. What we do know is that teams that were better than us in 2012 are getting better players so far. And that does not strike me as a good thing.

Furthermore, I did not read anything about FREE AGENT MARKET only in the above comments. So you may want to be a little more specific in your posts.

Here was my quote "Exactly right Hero. The more spots that get filled, the cheaper Ludwick, Victorino and the rest of the 2nd or 3rd tier OFers get. This is good for the Reds" I apologize for not pointing out that those guys are free agents.

Here is an article from 2 weeks ago with comments from Jocketty:

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...up-well-little

And another:

http://www.redlegsreview.com/2012/11...=1354198995908

And Another:

http://cincinnati.reds.mlb.com/news/...s_cin&c_id=cin

Look, I'm not saying I didn't want Span or that Jocketty shouldn't go after him to wait for cheap free agents. I happen to think he would have been a good fit but for whatever reason he saw the cost as prohibitive. However, the silver lining I take from this is that as other teams fill OF needs, the leverage of the available free agents goes down. The Reds can't afford $15M a year for Upton or $20M a year for Hamilton and guys like Ludwick are not going to just settle this early in free agency. Their agents are going to try and get as much money for as many years as they can. So maybe a guy like Bourn sees the market dry up and, like other Scott Boras clients, decides to play for a winner on a 1 year deal and give it a shot again next year. The Reds could then squeeze him in on a Ryan Madson type deal. Ludwick may take a 2 year deal with the Reds when there are only 2-3 teams vying for his services rather than 5-6.

I apologize if I came off as snarky before, that was certainly not my intent. I was just trying to understand your point of view

[MoneyInTheBank]

Originally Posted by Brittingham.Sam

if you wait to long they might. I don't doubt Jocketty, im just saying it is possible to wait too long, but its not even winter meetings yet so obviously its not too late

You're right. I just trust that agents will do their due diligence and give one last call around before their client signs, so I don't feel like it happens very often where a team is totally blindsided by a player signing elsewhere. You know what I mean? I feel like finalists for a player's services have to make the decision themselves to let the player go elsewhere because they are holding firm with their price rather than the player just deciding he wants to play for a certain team whether another team he likes wants to pay more or not

[MoneyInTheBank]

Originally Posted by [deleted]

I'm sure Meyer is very talented, but beside the whole "prospects are just unproven players who could easily flame out" thing, Cingrani seems to be somewhat similarly valued. The big difference being that Cingrani (just a year older) already has ML experience. Would you have said "no" to Span-for-Cingrani straight up? I'm sure some would, but I'd do that trade in a heartbeat. I'm just surprised because we had heard so much about how the asking price for Span was monstrous. Most likely the Twins just like Meyer a lot more than our guys.

I'm not sure if I would have done that deal or not. Just trying to put some perspective about what kind of prospect we were talking here.