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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2009 > January > 23
Friday, January 23, 2009
Answering some truths and some falsehoods
Appreciate all the comments (most of them, anyway) from the last blog about Cincinnati Reds owner/CEO Bob Castellini closing his wallet for the time being, claiming the baseball-spending compartment is bare.
Got a hearty gut laugh out of Ryan’s post, telling me to eat more hot dogs and retire and quit being negative. Don’t you know, Ryan, that hot dogs aren’t good for you? And I told the paper I’m going to do this for at least two more years - no retirement forthcoming, my friend (they told me I was welcome as long as I wanted to stay) - and as for being negative, how do you put a positive spin on eight straight losing seasons?
Something positive? Most of the Reds look good in those spiffy uniforms. How’s that? Except clothes don’t make the player (I just can’t stop being negative, can I?).
About some of the other posts:
-Yonder Alonso has to be on the team’s 40-man roster, but NOT on the 25-man major-league roster. The Reds still can option him to the minors for at least the next three years.
-For those who keep saying the Reds were better after they traded Ken Griffey Jr., well, they were 51-58 when they traded him, 21-30 after they traded him, including losing nine of their next 10 after the trade.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t have traded him, nor am I saying they shouldn’t have traded Adam Dunn, but neither trade made the team better and they certainly didn’t put the money they saved to good use - other than to pay salary increases for Bronson Arroyo, Aaron Harang, Brandon Phillips, Francisco Cordero and a few others.
They did get Micah Owings in the Dunn trade and we’ll reserve judgement on that one.
-Speaking of Cordero, I’m not a big Moneyball guy (but I agree with a lot of their points, disagree with some), I agree that it is foolish to put huge money into a closer when you are a bottom-tier team and there aren’t that many save opportunities. From what I’ve seen of Jared Burton, he has closer stuff and the right makeup.
-Castellini, who said the day he took over the club that he is an impatient man and wants to win NOW, now says the club is building for the future via the farm system.
That’s great. But he fired Dan O’Brien then quickly fired Wayne Krivsky, two GMs known for building farm systems. The young players in the system now were put there by O’Brien and Krivsky, other than Yonder Alonso.
Castellini gave the job to Walt Jocketty, an immensely talented baseball guy, but in St. Louis he built the team by trading prospects to make the Cardinals good every year. He is not a farm system guy.
-And as I said in the previous blog, yes, the Reds have a ton of young talent in the minors. But how will they keep them if they can’t pay them after three or four years with the Reds? They’ll go via free agency to the big money teams. That’s what I fear will happen to Joey Votto and Jay Bruce and Drew Stubbs and Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez and Yonder Alonso and others.
-Forget Sean Casey. He is retiring.
-No, Adam Dunn hasn’t signed yet. But I’ll wager a dozen hot dogs (in honor of Ryan) that Dunn is signed by somebody before spring training. Dunn is a perfect example of what I’m saying about developing players and losing them. Dunn was drafted by the Reds, developed by the Reds, then traded by the Reds when they couldn’t afford him any longer.
And he was not an ego problem nor a clubhouse problem. He was one of those most self-deprecating players I’ve ever covered and he was loved in the clubhouse by his teammates. Ask Jay Bruce.
-For those who believe Chris Dickerson is the answer to left field - well, he didn’t make the majors until last year, at 27, he is injury-prone (several surgeries on his shoulders and knees) and he strikes out at about the same pace as Dunn.
While I loved what he did late last season, I’m not convinced he is the answer. And I feel the same way about Jonny Gomes, who has not hit above .244 since his first year, when he hit .282 for Tampa Bay. Some players, like Dickerson and Gomes, come into their own late.
For the Reds’ sake in 2009, let’s hope that’s the case.
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