- 10/11/07 - Lost Mark Bellhorn, Jason Ellison, and Kirk Saarloos to free agency. All are ~replacement players, so no big deal.
- 10/15/07 - Signed Dusty Baker. My thoughts here and here.
- 10/18/07 - Lost Ryan Jorgensen to free agency. Jorgensen had one great game, and then shortly thereafter flunked a drug test. Shame.
- 10/26/07 - Pedro Lopez and Michael Gosling claimed off of waivers by Toronto. I'm just glad Lopez is ok after his scary accident in July. Gosling had one of the stranger k v. bb profiles I've ever seen (8+ k/9, but just 1.1:1 k:bb ratio), especially for someone with a history as a soft-tossing lefty. Both are replacement players.
- 10/27/07 - Phil Dumatrait claimed off of waivers by Pittsburgh. Dumatrait seemed to be universally overrated by a lot of fans, but I don't see this as much of a loss.
- 10/30/07 - Lost Eric Milton to free agency. Too bad it never worked out, but at least he's off the payroll.
- 11/1/07 - Exercised options on Adam Dunn, Javier Valentin, and Scott Hatteberg. Declined option on Eddie Guardado, which immediately made him a free agent. My thoughts on all these moves are here.
- 11/20/07 - Added Richie Gardner, Tyler Pelland, Ramon Ramirez, Daryl Thompson, Paul Janish, and Craig Tatum to 40-man roster to protect them in the Rule 5 draft. I'm doubtful that any of these guys can help us next year except in a very limited role, but a few of these guys could potentially contribute in a bigger way in '09.
- 11/28/07 - Signed Francisco Cordero. My thoughts are here.
- 12/5/07 - Traded Buck Coats to Jays for PTBNL or cash - Meh.
- 12/5/07 - Released Jorge Cantu - This one surprised me, as I had penciled him in as the platoon-mate for either Hatteberg or Votto next season at first base. My guess is that this means that Keppinger will get some time at first base, which the Fans think is probably the only position where he's an above average fielder (edit: I wrote that before seeing Krivsky's comments confirming this). Or, we could see Encarnacion over there against left-handers... This does answer the question of how Hatteberg can make the 25-man roster, and frees up the Reds to make a Rule 5 pick if they so desire. It also makes the loss of Calvin Medlock even more annoying.
- 12/6/07 - Reds lose Carlos Guevara to Marlins, but pick up Sergio Valenzuela from Braves in Rule 5 draft. My thoughts here.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Reds transactions since the end of the season
I'm working up something for THT, and wanted to try to get a handle on all the Reds' player transactions since the end of the season. I'll throw in scattered commentary here and there too. If you see that I missed a transaction, please let me know.
Random thoughts: When it comes to building a bullpen, I trust Kevin Towers more than Wayne Krivsky, so yesterday's series of moves worry me. That said, the likelihood of either guy contributing anywhere is pretty low.
ReplyDeleteI'm also not a fan of installing Jeff Keppinger at 1b in anything other than an emergency. As we've all noted before, dude has a career .420 SLG in the minors. (Though the limited data I've seen has him hitting better vs. LHP).
Both Votto and Hatte have pretty extreme platoon splits themselves (caveat - I've only seen 2007 data for Votto), so a platoon partner might not be a bad idea. Maybe, since we're only talking 150 ABs, I could live with Kepp over there after all. (If the alternative is keeping Cantu around just as half a 1b platoon.
If we could somehow ditch Castro and/or Freel, I think there's room and budget for Cantu to fill the role Conine filled in '07.
Yeah, I think the reference to using Keppinger at first was strictly in light of the need to platoon Hatteberg and Votto. I still don't see how both of those two are going to find AB's, but I'm choosing not to freak out about it for now. :)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, by my counts, even with the loss of Cantu, there's still no room for Castro on the roster. If you figure 12 pitchers, that leaves room for 13 position players. Subtract the starting eight (I'm putting Votto in that group, but not Bruce), and you have five backups...which I have as:
Valentin
Hatteberg
Keppinger
Freel
Hopper
That's assuming no injuries, of course, and there always seems to be at least one. But if not, my guess is that Castro will go to the minors (along with Valenzuela, maybe!) on as long rehab assignment, assuming he's even available to play come April 1...
-j