On June 5th the Reds blogosphere had our monthly meeting to discuss the current state of the Reds. As usual the discussion will be broken into fragments and posted on all the sites. With that in mind, here are the first two parts of the roundtable:
Here is the list of participants:
Red Hot Mama
Joel Luckhaupt
Blade Stevens
Shawn Weaver
I'll post links to part IV and V of the discussion when they're posted.
Here is Part III of the discussion:
shawn: Nobody else heard Marty on the radio today? Was the game on TV?
JDArney: i listened to some of it on the radio
RHM: Saw it on t.v.
JDArney: half listened though, i missed a lot
Blade: I hit refresh a bunch of times while doing other things on the computer
Joel: what did Marty have to say...all positive I bet
shawn: At the start of the game, Marty says that John Allen is in town. On the writers's spot, John Fay was on and they were speculating
RHM: Chris and George has John Allen on for an inning.
shawn: No specifics, but they were hinting that someone could get fired
RHM: He had some ominous things to say.
shawn: I expect an announcement tommorow
Joel: I read that Allen went to Denver....that's never good
JDArney: i did hear about allen being in town
shawn: What kind of things, Amanda?
JDArney: it seemed really stupid to me since the Reds come back to Cincinnati tomorrow
RHM: He said that there were lots of players who were frustrated with the state of the team. He started to list names, but stopped.
shawn: Only one reason to fly out to Denver.....to tell the manager his firing will be announced tomorrow
RHM: He identified a problem with "leadership."
shawn: Yep. The hammer will fall
Joel: sounds bad for Miley
RHM: And he used the phrase "fire sale," only to refute that that's what was going to happen. But scary to use the term at all.
JDArney: i think miley may be gone tomorrow
shawn: Who do the Reds have to "fire sale?" Aurilia and Randa. They need to trade Aurilia and Randa anyway.
JDArney: No one would take Aurilia
shawn: Who would take Milton or Griffey? They might take Aurilia, he's making 600K.
RHM: Maybe we could donate them to Goodwill and take the tax write-off.
shawn: There's an idea
Joel: Goodwill is charitable organization, why would you punish them like that
JDArney: I dont think anyone would take aurilia, even if the Reds paid his salary.
RHM: He's not that bad.
Joel: He's not worth having on a roster.
JDArney: he's really bad. I honestly couldn't see another organization wanting him. Can you guys think of a fit for rich aurilia?
RHM: Not on our roster, certainly, but someone could go there.
Joel: Perhaps the Cubs, but they are already wasting money on Neifi.
shawn: Teams that might want a veteran shortstop: Washington, the Angels
Blade: I'm sure if they cut him, someone would take him.
JDArney: the Angels are smarter than that
shawn: You never know
JDArney: the Reds signed him to a minor league deal pretty late in the offseason. It says that everyone else was passing on the guy.
Blade: Exactly
Blade: He wasn't a hot commodity last year
Joel: yeah, but for the same reason that Buddy Bell got rehired, someone would rehire Aurilia.
JDArney: I think if the Reds waived him he'd be out of baseball
RHM: On a somewhat related topic: was I the only one surprised that no one took Jimenez?
shawn: For the money, someone will take a chance
JDArney: I was surprised.
Blade: I was surprised. Jiminez has potential
Blade: And he had solid year last year
shawn: I wasn't surprised no one took Jimenez, because of the salary Nearly $2 mil still owed and a bad reputation.
Blade: Yeah, good point.
shawn: It's all about the bucks
Blade: Reds are the third team that cut bait on him
Joel: His personality does not sit well with a lot of teams, not for that money
shawn: If he had been released, someone would have taken a flyer for the minimum, just like Graves.