I was thinking about all the trade ideas thrown out by posters and a thought hit me: trades are difficult to make for a GM. You have to trade an excess and fill a need all the while taking the other teams excesses/needs into account. ( not to mention salary needs ). It got me to thinking: what if WK can't pull off a nice trade this off season? what if the Reds basically stand pat?
If we resign our decent free agents ( Aurillia, Weathers, Schowenweis ) and sign one halfway decent free agent 2B or OF ( I am think of cheap but decent guys like Kenny Lofton or Jose Valentin ) we would have:
SP Arroyo Harang Lohse Milton EZ ( Bailey starts 2007 in AAA )
RP Weathers Schowenweis Coffey Cormier Bray Majik Belisle
C Ross/Valentin & LaRue
1B Hatteberg/Aurillia ( Votto starts 2007 in AAA )
2B Freel or free agent
SS Phillips
3B EE
LF Dunn
CF Deno/Freel or Deno/free agent
RF Griffey
This team has 2 good starters, a decent but unspectacular pen, a decent but unspectacular offense, and a decent defense.
I really can't see this team being more than average.
Arroyo & Harang had very good years and this years team went 80-82.
2/5 of the SP being solid and 3/5 being suspect is not a good recipe for a playoff team.
This team would really need Bailey to arrive early in 2007 and make an impact right away and it would also help if Votto's bat arrived early { pushing Hatteberg to the bench }
- Will ( looking forward to 2008 )