Reds - Acquired Guardado

Cincinnati Reds - Acquired P Eddie Guardado from the Seattle Mariners for P Travis Chick; designated OF Quinton McCracken for assignment.

You have to feel for Travis Chick.  He’s become one of “those” guys, one of the Andy Prattish prospects that are good enough to fetch a player that another team doesn’t want but not good enough to pitch in the majors.  The Reds are looking for pitching salvation, but if it comes, it’ll be named Homer Bailey, not Chick.

The Reds are in a pennant race and have a wretched bullpen, made even worse by the fact that Todd Coffey’s stuff has looked off lately, possibly due to being turned to endlessly this season as the only dependable reliever on the team.  Cincy’s the type of team that should be taking a flyer on Gopher Ball Eddie, though if it doesn’t work out, the results will be 2005 Milton Ugly.

The team also dumped McCracken.  Why they waited until July to dump the useless McCracken, only Krivsky knows.  They’re calling up DeWayne Wise instead of Chris Denorfia again, which is a mistake.  The team’s got a shot at the playoffs and should have their best options on the roster.  They say they want Chris Denorfia to play full-time in the minors, but how does that help the team?  He’s 26 and most likely done developing and certainly a better option than Wise.  Denorfia’s hitting .348 in Louisville - what’s he going to do, learn to hit .400?  Either use him in the majors or trade him for another player that you can use in the majors.