Cincinnati Reds Links 11/14/2015

The Boston Red Sox and the San Diego Padres executed a trade last night that sent closer Craig Kimbrel to Boston in exchange for four minor leaguers, including a couple of highly ranked prospects.  It's tempting to look at that haul and imagine those same minor leaguers in the Reds system as a potential return for Aroldis Chapman, but it's important to remember that teams don't trade players, they trade contracts.  Kimbrel is locked up through 2017 with a team option for 2018, as opposed to Chapman, who will be a free agent this time next year.  While the return for Kimbrel is somewhat instructive in that it shows what a top tier closer is worth on the trade market, it's not a great indicator for what the Reds can expect to get back for Chapman because their contract situations are so different.

You can read about the trade from a Red Sox perspective here, and you can read about it from a Padres perspective here.

What does all this mean in light of Peter Gammons' tweet last Thursday that four people were "insisting" that Chapman would be traded by the end of the weekend?  Well, on one hand, the weekend isn't over yet.  On the other hand, back in 2013, Gammons tweeted that he was hearing lots of "industry rumblings" that the Reds were about to hire Jim Riggleman as their manager, just ten days before they hired Bryan Price, so who knows.  If the sun comes up on Monday with Chapman still a member of the Reds, just remember it's a long offseason, and this probably won't be the last time one of our boys is mentioned in a rumor that ultimately comes to nothing.

In other news, Deadspin's Barry Petchesky looks ahead to the next round of CBA bargaining that will take place after next season.  Petchesky looks at the growing gulf between what the owners earn (which is growing due largely to the advent of regional sports networks) and what players earn and speculates that the players will look to increase their share of the pie.  It's unclear how they would expect to do that, because the simplest way to increase the players' share of revenue would be institute a salary floor, and there's no way the owners would agree to that unless it comes with a salary cap.  History shows us what the players would do with such a proposal.  The good news is it's unlikely that there will be a labor stoppage this time around.  Everyone's just making too much money to risk that.

A mystery is unfolding out in San Diego.  A person or persons unknown dumped 600 Chris Denorfia Padres bobbleheads on a residential street Thursday night.  Was it a prank?  A threat?  A message?  The first sign of an invasion by a race of Denorfia-loving aliens?  Sadly, the world may never know.

Finally, all of our hearts are heavy today as we watch the shocking news out of Paris.  If you find yourself wanting to do something to help, this is as good a place to start as any.