And I didn't realize Griffey's injury was that serious.  They don't think he'll be ready by next season?

All Things Bubba: Because how can you not love a baseball player named Bubba?

Speaking from experience, groin injuries are quite painful and take a long time to heal. It will take a while for him to get back to playing strength, and even then I doubt he'd be fully 100 percent next season. Of course, when has Griffey been at 100 percent? And groins are so damn easy to tweak and re-aggravate. The Reds should be happy if he can get on the field for 100-120 games next season.

"The best way I can describe it is it felt like somebody bungee jumped off my right nut."

WC: Couple of other interesting things to note with Dusty Baker to the Reds. First off a lot of people wondering whether or not Adam Dunn's option will be picked up. I think it's an absolute no-brainer. I know you agree.

JS: Yes.

WC: And if you're looking to tip your hand Dusty Baker and Adam Dunn share an agent. Does that mean anything? I don't know--

JS: I don't think it means anything. The decision to not, to pick up that option is such an obvious one that you have to pick it up--one year, 12 million dollars, good player--it's one of those things that's like a bright-line test--

WC: All those walks are just going to clog the bases.

JS: We can get to that in a second. It's a bright-line test of front office competence.

Wc: Yeah.

JS: If you have a good player on a one year deal in the current environment where everyone has plenty of money to work with--

WC: What is Adam Dunn worth on the open market?

JS: If you, if he, he would immediately become, well... because they're coming off strong years and their defensive reputations you might say that Hunter or some of the others, Aaron Rowand certainly, are ahead of him in the hitter line. But he's certainly no worse than the fourth or fifth best position player on this market.

WC: Mmm hmm.

JS: And you're talking, what's the fourth or fifth guy on this market gonna get? Four and... sixty? Five and 75?

WC: I would say he's going to be very comparable to JD Drew.

JS: Yeah, that works. That works for me.

WC: And JD Drew was five and--

JS: Five and seventy.

WC: Yeah, that's a large number. Um, the other thing to watch there is that much of the Reds' future relies on Homer Bailey, Johnny Cueto. Ooops. Young pitchers and Dusty Baker. Oil - water.

JS: That's the part, my initial gut level reaction was that this would be a really good time to short Homer Bailey stocks.

WC: (laughs) Way ahead of you there, buddy.

[ED. Carroll has always been down on Bailey as a prospect]  

...
JS: But it's worth making the, see I'm trying to come back from that initial gut level reaction and say, okay we know that Dusty Baker had a lot of flaws and I personally think that he got a lot more credit for the success of the Giants in the Barry Bonds era than the guy who was mostly responsible. However, okay let's try to get away from the gut level reaction here. What does Dusty Baker bring to the table? We know he works well with veterans. At this point doesn't Ken Griffey look like Ellis Burkes, roughly when Burkes came to the Giants? This could be a good thing for Ken Griffey.

WC: Well we gotta see if Griffey can come back from this devastating groin injury.

JS: You keep calling it a devastating groin injury.

WC: It's bad.

JS: Okay, I'm simply making the point that there, okay what are the positives here? The negatives: Dusty Baker doesn't work well with young starters. The positive is that Dusty Baker has had success with veteran starters and the Reds have a rotation fronted by two good ones. The Giants put together some decent no-name bullpens.

WC: I'm very curious who he's gonna bring in as a pitching coach.

JS: And I think that's gonna be a big part of it 'cause remember the Reds have to assemble probably seven spots on that pitching staff. There's a lot of work to be done. We talked a couple weeks ago on the show that, about, I like the Reds offense. This team could score a lot of runs next year. But Dusty Baker's a guy that likes to play smallball. Does he short circuit that by having Norris Hopper play everyday and bat second, and maybe... Josh Hamilton is supposed to start next year in AAA, but he's clearly the future of this team. I think Dusty Baker's a bad offensive fit for this team because if he's trying to play his little ball with a team that really should be trying to score 900 runs in that park, he's gonna hurt them.

WC: Hamilton's not only a guy who I think won't do well... Dusty's well known for not coddling his players.

JS: Oh yeah.

WC: And I don't want to call it "coddling" what they did with Hamilton. I think it was necessary given his situation--

JS: Absolutely.

WC: --with Johnny Narron, for lack of a better word, babysitting him, but it's gonna be really tough. The other thing I wonder is, you know Dusty always seems to fall in love with a player that shouldn't quite be the same kind of guy--

JS: Nor-ris Hop-per...

WC: Ryan Freel. I can see Ryan Freel edging Edwin Encarnacion out of that third base job.

JS: Oh dear.

WC: And I, yeah.  

JS: Ryan Freel is not an everyday player. Ryan Freel is a phenomenal extra player. Chone Figgins, that type of guy. But Ryan Freel playing everyday is just not gonna get it done. This is what I'm saying, Dusty Baker has a history of choosing the wrong guy. He's been good with veterans, and there's no question that he's a guy who likes his veterans and he likes his smallball. And I don't see him as a good fit for this Reds team. The Reds' problem wasn't some kind of motivation, attitude, guys quitting. The Reds' problem is talent.

WC: Yeah. And in so many situations, whether it's Freel-Encarnacion, whether it's Freel-Hamilton, whether it's Hopper-Dunn, whether it's Votto versus Hatteberg--

JS: Ooh. Good one.

WC: There are so many situations--or Jay Bruce versus a hobbled Ken Griffey--there are so many situations where historically Dusty Baker will make what appears to be the wrong decision based on what we know of his preferences.

JS: And let's, we're just talking about the guys who are actually there. What happens when--you keep joking about Neifi Perez--what happens when Dusty--

WC: Signs Neifi instead of keeping Jeff Keppinger--

JS: --encourages Wayne Krivsky or whoever ends up the GM there to bring in some of his guys and all of a sudden you've got a bench--remember those Cubs benches that Dusty Baker put together were terrible.

WC: Yeah.

JS: There's a lot of... Dusty Baker, and one of the things I've always said about Baker is that he's not going to look good to us because the stuff that he does--choosing players, one-run stategies--the stuff that we can measure he doesn't look good at. There's clearly Leader of Men qualities there that we don't quantify, and I'm not saying that he doesn't have those--

WC: But they run out quickly.

JS: They ran out quickly as we saw in Chicago.

WC: And in San Francisco.

JS: No, he was there nine years. Nothing ran out quickly.

WC: I think that team changed in the middle. It was almost like they got a new manager.

JS: I think they went to the World Series in 2002.

WC: Yeah.

JS: So I have some trouble arguing that the end of his era was worse than the start.

WC: Yeah, I'll buy that.

JS: I just think that overall it's not a good fit. And I understand maybe Bob Castellini wants to get the name guy with success in the past.

WC: And you know the last three--

JS: It's a square peg in a round hole.

WC: Yeah, the last two or three managers have been essentially organization soldier guys. Dave Miley, Jerry Narron and then Pete Mackanin.

JS: The Reds have a history of falling in love with their interim manager, like the Orioles have, like the Blue Jays have, and you end up on a cycle where you never pick your manager from guys who aren't in the room at the time. And I will say this. Not falling in love with your interim manager--and you say Mackanin deserved an interview, I'm not saying--

WC: He deserved an interview. I'm not saying he deserved the job.

JS: Not falling in love with your interim manager is a good thing. But I don't see, this marriage just doesn't make sense to me. It's the equivalent of a team signing a free agent where it already has three guys at the position.