I hate his contract.

It’s not worth it to add someone who’ll not only push someone out, but also force you to give up key pieces in return.

This is what Rios is owed going forward:

10: $9.7M, 11:$12M, 12:$12M, 13:$12.5M, 14:$12.5M, 15:$13.5M club option ($1M buyout)

That’s a lot of loonies. Toronto won’t get anything worthwhile in return unless they pick some of that up.

Moving Bruce to left would be a waste of his arm. If anyone would play left, it’d be Rios. And he’d be blocking several players.

At least he’s a class act.

If we want Rios, it should be to put him in CF — he’s shown himself to be a very good defender there as recently as last year (albeit his sample size is fairly limited), and his bat really doesn’t play very well in a corner. We’re talking about a guy with an OPS of about .740 right now who didn’t eclipse .800 last year either. You can’t afford to take a risk on him not returning to being an .850+ OPS hitter with a contract like his. While I doubt the price in prospects would be massive if the Blue Jays were able to dump most of his contract on someone, I think somebody more productive could be had in FA after the season at half the cost, and I’m pretty much positive that adding Alex Rios does not make this a playoff team. The Blue Jays regret the $60 million or so remaining on his contract; why would the Reds want to give themselves an opportunity to regret that as well? As has already been mentioned, the Reds have loads of quality minor-league outfield depth, and if we weren’t stuck with offensive black holes at half the other spots on the diamond, I don’t think anybody would be unhappy with our LF platoon. Yes, we can improve upon it, but there are at least three other spots on the field that need to be addressed in some way before we address that one.

I’m also curious…what the hell does “for every matt cain there is a victor zambrano” mean? Matt Cain was a hotshot prospect who was drafted by the Giants organization and remains there today. Victor Zambrano got signed as an amateur FA in 1993 by the Yankees, signed again by the Rays in 1996, and was traded to the Mets in a deadline deal in 2004 for hotshot prospect Scott Kazmir. Zambrano was never particularly highly regarded and never more than an average starter with terrible control. The trade was highly criticized at the time because the Mets gave up a great prospect for a player that wasn’t going to elevate them to a higher level even in a best case scenario. Zambrano lasted about 200 innings with the Mets, and has been on 5 different teams with a total of 13 appearances since then. That was one of the worst trades of the decade (if not one of the worst trades in baseball history). I see no similarity to Matt Cain and, if anything, the mere mention of Victor Zambrano should help deter the Reds from dealing any top prospects for any middle of the road veteran types out there.

As for the other names you mentioned…well, we all know that Adam Dunn is probably the last player in the entire league the Reds would look to acquire. Michael Young has a contract that is even worse than that of Rios and has been a below average to terrible defender at SS for his entire career, and he’s been even worse this year at 3B. Furthermore, the Rangers have a loaded farm and are smack dab in the middle of the playoff race, making it unlikely that they’d move him for prospects, though they might do it just to get rid of his contract. Teahen is an average player who really wouldn’t provide anything to the Reds other than decent versatility, and Peralta is a below average defender (although better than I thought, actually) with an OPS barely above .700 this year. I actually wouldn’t mind targeting him and I think the Indians would probably move him, but he’s not a difference-maker.

I can’t find it now, but do you remember the youtube video of him and a heckler getting into it after some benefit party? He showed his “class”

but Yunel Escobar and Matt Kemp are the only players I’d trade for right now. They’re the only ones who could a) help tremendously on offense AND defense and b) help us this year AND next year without crushing our budget.

I’d make Bailey, Masset, Frazier, Stubbs, Maloney, and Thompson available for either of them, and would swap Alonso for Kemp.

Yes, I know I’m crazy.

It would a miracle for Walt to be able get the’bat’ that would make a diference.Here’s hoping that Edwin comes on like a freight train.And that Jay gets in the groove soon and that Dusty splits the time more equally between Ryan and Ramon…otherwise this season will be a rolly-coaster for us here at RR. Just when we’re ready to give up these guys climb 75% out of the grave…just enough to keep us hoping.

Unless Walt is willing to give up major prospects and take on a major contract nothing will change.