Cincinnati Reds
Claimed OF Jason Romano off waivers from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
Ouch. It’s one thing to trade Antonio Perez because you believe, though erroneously, that Jason Romano is some promising young outfielder, but it’s another thing altogether to dump Perez for a player you think so little of that going 1-for-11 is enough to make the team give up.
As bad as that sounds, it’s much, much worse. Romano’s quote on the trade is one of the funniest things I’ve read in awhile:
”[The Devil Rays] were looking for a middle infielder,” Romano said. “They thought I was a shortstop or second base type, and when I got there they found out I was more of an outfielder. They’ve already got a pretty good young outfield out there, so it wasn’t really a good fit.”
Translation: The Devil Rays didn’t even bother checking who Jason Romano was before trading Antonio Perez for him.
It’s very funny that Chuck LaMar is now one of the longest-tenured GMs in baseball. Perhaps Rachel Phelps should have hired him 15 years ago.
Dan Szymborski
Posted: April 26, 2004 at 04:55 PM |
17 comment(s)
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Dan's fishing for some sort of long-term plan.
That said, he's always been a lousy pitcher, and the Reds are really reaching here if they expect him to be at all helpful.
Those shoulders didn't look narrow to me. Come on. He has a big fat stomach for a ballplayer. Whether it's bad conditioning or genetics to blame for that I do not know, but I think it's likely not to be conducive to being an effective pitcher.
You can't preach things like MLEs, and the importance of skills like control, and keeping the ball in the yard, and the importance of looking at performance over prettiness...and then bash the Reds for giving Anderson a start or two.
Which means he's right in line with every single starter on the staff, with the lone exception of Paul Wilson. Based on your snide comment that is fueled by ignorance, I'd have to surmise that you'd propose going to a 1-man rotation. What do you want Bowden to do?
I know that if YOU were the GM, you would have pulled off a magnificent Wily Mo Pena for Johan Santana trade, but since we're judging the actions of mortals, it's not that bad a decision:
Give Lopez some pressure free development time, give Anderson one more shot to give you 3 or 4 good starts, and hold off rushing one of the pitchers that actually might be able to help you in 2-3 years.
As it was, Anderson was one pitch away from recording a quality start against the division leaders.
I believe in MLEs, but I also believe in small sample size. Anderson needs more than 9 starts that translate to league average to cancel out his career.
I'm not a fan of Jimmy Anderson either on a statistical or observational basis. The Blue Jays just announced that Wessex is throwing out the first pitch and I almost rather the Reds scout and sign him.
Now that's a weak chin.
The league went under at the end of last year, and he is now a pitching coach with Yakima (NW League, Diamondbacks short-season Class A affiliate), under the tutelage of Bill Plummer.
Alomar on the other hand is old, expensive and declining as a player. Plus he is a free agent at the end of the year.
They both play 2B, though Alomar is better with he glove Jimenez at this point is better with the stick.
I don't get the White Sox at all. At first I thought when they acquired Alomar it was to move Jimenez to 3B and get Crede out of the lineup. I figured they would let both Alomar's become free agents at the end of the year and move Jimenez back to 2B.
So much for that idea, I now think the plan is to acquire as many over priced veterans as you can while trading away the future. Therefore, they are ceding the pennant race to the Royals and the Twins.
Alomar is an upgrade defensively. Offensively, Alomar from the left side is pretty much similar to Jiminez. The Sox aren't paying Alomar at all this season. Jiminez was expendable mostly because of his faulty play (defensively, baserunning, and declining offense since the first month or so) and because the Sox have two second-basemen (Hummel/Miles) in their system that are younger/cheaper/as good as Jiminez.
And yes, someone had to be cleared off the 40-man roster. Why that man's name wasn't Willie Harris or an anonymous reliever is a mystery to everyone.
The end result is that Williams made a nice move by picking up Alomar for no money, then negated that move by kicking Jimenez (who at this point is essentially Alomar's equal) off the roster. In the long run, this trade is Ring, Almonte and that other guy for Scott Dunn -- anyone really think Williams is going to be bragging about that trade in the future?
Chances are none of this will result in a hill of beans. Jimenez will continue to be a decent but underwhelming player, Alomar won't be the difference in the Sox's season, and none of the minor-leaguers will amount to much. But for Williams, this set of transactions still amounts to one small step forward (getting Alomar without paying him) and two small steps backwards (losing Jimenez and the three prospects). As a whole, the Sox organization has less talent on hand than they did before and their chances of winning the division were not substantially improved.
Now the Everett deal improves their chances of winning the division. In response to that, they DFA'd a player worthy of being DFA'd and apparently will not give up a substantial amount of prospective talent. That was a good trade.
The Reds improved with this trade. Anything to get Felipe Lopez and/or Juan Castro out of the line up is a good thing. Like the Sox, the deal probably won't amount to anything for Bowden and friends, but unlike the Sox (at least in the Alomar trade) they did manage to improve their team. Of course D'Angelo Jiemenz doesn't have the name recognition that Roberto Alomar does, so Reds fans likely see this as another half-hearted attempt to build a good team. Along the lines of last year's desperate attempt to sign every #4 starter in baseball.
Fine, as long as we all realize that the team has not really improved.
As for me, I think keeping Josh Fogg and Sean Lowe and Keith Foulke would have translated to a good record this year (and last), which would have obviated all this churn.
On the other hand, I didn't think Bradford for Olivo was such a hot deal, so what do I know? Olivo reminds me a lot of Officer Karkovice, one of my faves.
He's only worth more than what Williams got for him if there was someone out there who was willing to make that kind of offer.
Jimenez is a talented player with an abysmal work ethic which is (apparently) preventing him from getting the most out of his talent. Three different teams have tried to take advantage of his talent, and given up because they haven't been able to get him to work as hard as he should to maximize that talent. What makes anyone think that other teams aren't aware of Jimenez's history, and thus that Kenny Williams could something more than he did for him? Major league baseball teams aren't going to give up significant value for questionable value, and Jimenez's value is certainly questionable at this stage of his career.
-- MWE
*Sigh* I would that it were so.
I was thinking this same thing just the other day... how eerie the parallels between Giff and Hill are.
It's just amazing though... while still in Seattle, Griffey was easily on pace to the be THE greatest ballplayer of my lifetime (just 24 now). I really looked forward to the day I could get all crusty and crotchety with my kids about how great he was the way my dad talks about Mantle and Mays, et al.
Now, I doubt if many folks would blame him if he just hung'em up, Koufax-style.
THUPPPTT!
s/
What about Cameron and Encarnacion? Don't they count as well?
Cameron was never a tools goof; he just had a bad '98 season.
Encarancion's mediocre, but at the time of the trade he was perceived as replacement-level, so Bowden bought in on him at the right time as well.
Max: your Royals should go for one of Cincy's NO-MONEY-DOWN offers. Less Cash out of pocket, so I hear.
He's got a wonderful name!
Pitchers: Carlos Almanzar, Bobby Bevel, Rick Croushore, Lance Davis, Kris Keller, Willie Martinez, Chris Michalak, Aneudy Perez, Jose Rijo, Scott Service, Scott Sobkowiak.
Catchers: Jason Hill, Michael Stefanski.
Infielders: Wilmy Caceres, Dionys Cesar, Felipe Crespo, Jason Dellaero, Wilton Guerrero, Jason Maxwell, Santiago Perez, Calvin Pickering, Ivan Reyes, Eric Shanks.
Outfielders: Emil Brown, Mark Budzinski, Michael Coleman, Jacob Cruz, Bobby Darula, Robin Jennings.
Er, this year I guess.
As for the new GM; he's not Minaya, so I'm happy. Player development is vital, he's got a background in player development, the Astros and Rangers weren't (at the time he was with them) completely incompitent organizations; he's got a big job ahead of him, to be sure, but for now I approve of the signing.
I looked up Belisle's numbers this year and his 25K's in 46 AAA innings do kind of look like a finesse guy, although he had 94 Ks in 125 innnings in AA.
I seem to recall his K rate being a good deal better a couple years back, although that was before back injuries.
Maybe it's because, when he's pitched in the majors, he's used his right hand?
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/alltime/playercard?playerId=2504
-- MWE
My guess is the Reds will get about the same -- a guy who'll get blown up about half the time out there, but a guy who pitches well enough the rest of the time that you can't really pull him from the rotation (especially if you're the Reds and don't particularly have anyone better to stick in there in his place).
Oh. Dan, compose more better sentences, you git.
that's being overly generous to a bunch of incompetents. they trade for a guy thinking he plays a position he doesn't because their scout "thought" he saw the guy play the infield in spring training? for this they give up a guy whose upside is regular MLB 2nd baseman, and at the least could be expected to be a utility player?
having chuck lamar, cam bonifay and syd thrift in the same front office is like, well, it's probably not like anything in the history of baseball. the three worst GMs of the past 20 years on the same team. it's so devil raysian.
What's really amusing to me is that when the Reds claimed Romano, they sent out a release announcing they'd signed John Romano.
I'm not sure Cincinnati really has any idea who he is, either.
Where in the hell do you get this? Rommano, over the past three years, has played in 78 games in the field (not counting 5 as a DH). 28 eight of those were in the infield (21 at 2B). In fact, most of 2002 was at 2B. You can argue his worth as a player and how smart it was to assume he could be a regular (or utility) infielder, but there is at least some factual basis for it.
Trading for a player thinking that he could be moved back to the infield is one thing. Trading for him and not realizing that he's been an outfielder for the past year plus is foolish.
Personally, even though he just came back from the dl himself, I would have called up Cody Ross. But that's just me.
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