Why All The Negativity?

They should have already signed Dunn to a long term deal! It is very unusual

[traderumor]

Originally Posted by flyer85

Having seen this organization over since Lindner bought the team I am skeptical.

What if Milton pitches poorly and the Reds flop early. We will see another purge? Will Dunn and Kearns be traded because Jr and Milton are overpaid and the Reds "can't afford them"?

Spending a little money this offseason is a start but will this FO see it through if the teams starts losing and the fans don't show up? I have little faith that they will and the cycle begins all over again.

The flip side would be that each time they get a little deeper into the water, they realize that they didn't drown and try to go into even deeper water. Sometimes cycles get broken from learning and humbly admitting past failures. Now, I'm only saying that's possible, once again giving folks the benefit of the doubt rather than always assuming that, given a course of actions, that the worst alternative will always be chosen.

[TRF]

Originally Posted by Ryan the Reds Fan

Such as? I'm just curious, trying to understand your perspective.

Why sign Randa when you have Freel?

Why offer 25.5 mil to Milton if O. Perez is still on the market?

Why trade a Mosely for an Ortiz? Especially if from all reports it is likely the reds could have gotten him for much less?

Why not sign or at least go after Wade Miller? for 1.5 mil, he might be the steal of the off season.

it's mistake after mistake after mistake going all the way back to drafting homer bailey over chris nelson.

that's the reason for negativity.

[maniem]

If the Reds do poorly next year, expect to see a fire sale.

You are absolutely right. I believe that Milton's contract was backloaded for that reason, 4.5 mil for 2005. If the Reds really tank the first half of the 2005 season, i'd expect Milton to be gone at the deadline.

[flyer85]

At some point you have to build around something. The only player the Reds had signed LT(past 2006) before yesterday was Jr and he is not something to build around. He contract is just living with a past mistake.

The Reds have 3 players to build around for the next 4 to 5 years. We have seen or heard of no effort to sign these players. Instead we have seen the Reds throw money at complementary players(Larue, Randa, Ortiz, Milton, Jimenez, etc). Nothing wrong with that if they are used to build around a nucleus for the LT.

[Trace's Daddy]

I Like This Team As Is. Look At All Of The Depth - There's Someone To Step Up At Every Position.

Originally Posted by TRF

Why sign Randa when you have Freel?

Why offer 25.5 mil to Milton if O. Perez is still on the market?

Why trade a Mosely for an Ortiz? Especially if from all reports it is likely the reds could have gotten him for much less?

Why not sign or at least go after Wade Miller? for 1.5 mil, he might be the steal of the off season.

it's mistake after mistake after mistake going all the way back to drafting homer bailey over chris nelson.

that's the reason for negativity.

I agree.

[flyer85]

Originally Posted by maniem

You are absolutely right. I believe that Milton's contract was backloaded for that reason, 4.5 mil for 2005. If the Reds really tank the first half of the 2005 season, i'd expect Milton to be gone at the deadline.

He may be untradeable like Jr and Graves have been. Meaning they will be stuck with him unless they want to include a decent sized amount of cash.

[Puffy]

Originally Posted by archiebunker

They should have already signed Dunn to a long term deal! It is very unusual

Why? He strikes out too much and doesn't hit sacrifice flies. Not to mention he never bunts. :mhcky21:

[Puffy]

Originally Posted by TRF

Why sign Randa when you have Freel?

Why offer 25.5 mil to Milton if O. Perez is still on the market?

Why trade a Mosely for an Ortiz? Especially if from all reports it is likely the reds could have gotten him for much less?

Why not sign or at least go after Wade Miller? for 1.5 mil, he might be the steal of the off season.

it's mistake after mistake after mistake going all the way back to drafting homer bailey over chris nelson.

that's the reason for negativity.

Wow - great post TRF. Kinda sums up all of most people's problems with the signings in half the words - good job. I especially agree with the Miller and Randa sentiments.

[deltachi8]

Dunn's batting average is kinda low too! :allovrjr:

[westofyou]

Why sign Randa when you have Freel?

Because they don't like him at 3rd, think he might be a "career year" recipent?

Why offer 25.5 mil to Milton if O. Perez is still on the market?

Are they're any reports that the Reds were interested in him? Or vica versa? Perhaps he had no desire to live in the midwest?

Why trade a Mosely for an Ortiz? Especially if from all reports it is likely the Reds could have gotten him for much less?

Mosley is likely a few years away (if he even makes it), and other reports said that other teams were going to trade for Ortiz before he was non-tendered.

Why not sign or at least go after Wade Miller? for 1.5 mil, he might be the steal of the off season.

Maybe they did? The Reds prior MO was signing guys who "might" help out, that is a perhaps a sunk cost and we all know that term is too new for the Reds. Plus I think Miller envisions bigger things from the Sox then he'd get in Cincinnati.

See there are lots of reasons for everything.

Doesn't make everything ok though.

[Ryan the Reds Fan]

Originally Posted by TRF

Why sign Randa when you have Freel?

Why offer 25.5 mil to Milton if O. Perez is still on the market?

Why trade a Mosely for an Ortiz? Especially if from all reports it is likely the reds could have gotten him for much less?

Why not sign or at least go after Wade Miller? for 1.5 mil, he might be the steal of the off season.

it's mistake after mistake after mistake going all the way back to drafting homer bailey over chris nelson.

that's the reason for negativity.

Randa, to me is depth, it gives you a utility guy like Freel to fill in whereever needed, and having lost Castro, we need someone like that. I also still am not sold on Felo at SS and think they may still feel that D'Lo could play short and Freel at 2nd.

How do you know O Perez didn't turn us down? (which I believe he did, plus the draft pick compensation kept us from doing), Who's to say they liked OP as much? He pitched in a pitchers park, and there are rumors of him being a malcontent.

I've heard much from scouts that Mosely won't turn out to be more than a 5 man or bullpen fodder.

Wade Miller wanted to go to a sure fire contender while establishing his value with a one year contract. He was contacted, we were shot down.

How do we know that Nelson will be better than Bailey yet? Have either of them been in a system long enough to show this?

IMO, that's the problem with some not all of the naysayers, some think that every option was available to us, realistically that is not the case. I don't like the fact that we gave Milton so much money, but as long as it doesn't hinder us from doing other things, I don't care, it makes my beloved team better on paper. As for truly evaluating this signing, I don't think any of us can at this point. We'll just have to take a "wait and see" approach to see how things turn out. At this point in time, anything any of us say is conjecture and opinion alone. I just dont see how it can be a negative, but that is your opinion and many others, I'm just having a hard time seeing it that way and trying to understand where you are coming from.

[traderumor]

Originally Posted by TRF

Why sign Randa when you have Freel?

Why offer 25.5 mil to Milton if O. Perez is still on the market?

Why trade a Mosely for an Ortiz? Especially if from all reports it is likely the reds could have gotten him for much less?

Why not sign or at least go after Wade Miller? for 1.5 mil, he might be the steal of the off season.

it's mistake after mistake after mistake going all the way back to drafting homer bailey over chris nelson.

that's the reason for negativity.

What makes you think that Perez didn't just flat out say "no" to the Reds? After all, he has had Jose Rijo and Jim Bowden talking in his ear. I'm sure they gave the Reds props.

Because Randa was cheap, gives us a legit (not perfect) third baseman, and allows Freel to do what he should be doing--being a supersub that gets 250-350 ABs filling in all over the diamond.

Ortiz was not likely to be non-tendered. Moseley was a middling prospect. Of course, suddenly he's a top prospect because he isn't ours anymore.

The Reds made it publicly know they were going after Wade Miller. Maybe they didn't like what they heard with respect to medical opinions--from the Red Sox, he got their equivalent of the major league minimum, and he probably wanted to be a part of a more sure thing than the Reds.

[traderumor]

Good to see I'm on the same page with someone, Ryan. :MandJ: