If they are buyers, what would you give up?

[CJD]

(06-29-2023, 02:00 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Reds have a lot of talent on the infield now. 

India, McLain, De La Cruz, Steer.

You got CES for a corner infield spot and Noelvi Marte for middle infield spot.
Arroyo middle infield too, but he's further out.

De La Cruz, McClain, and Steer will be here for quite a few years, and India should/could be here through 2026 while having arbitration years.
So I think it might be difficult finding opportunities for CES and especially Marte before 2027.
As such, I think it could be worthwhile trading one/both of them in order to get some pitching.

Steer has been playing in LF and seems fine at it, making a few good plays out there. They did this to allow Votto to re-join the team but I think this was done long term to give CES 1B.

Similarly, and I know people are going to cringe at this, but I still think they could move EDLC to RF if they absolutely needed to make room for Marte on the infield.

EDLC has a cannon for an arm, is lightning quick in covering ground and is extraordinarily athletic. He seems to have a good feel for tracking balls in the air as well (he had one play where he tracked from SS all the way into the foul ground in the LF corner to make a play). He could become an impact RF.

The move wouldn't be unprecedented either, as the Padres recently did the exact same thing with their star SS, Fernando Tatis Jr. We saw him cut down EDLC from RF with his rocket arm over the weekend, as well as a slew of other impact plays.

And it's not like we have a bunch of outfielders knocking down the door to enter the MLB. It is one position group that our farm system is sorely lacking.

I know that, defensively, RF is considered less important than SS, but I think McLain is our long term SS anyway. Marte is more suited to 3B than SS as well but he doesn't have the cannon or speed that EDLC does, so he would not transition to the outfield as well as EDLC.

The other, perhaps more obvious, option is to do something with India, move McLain to 2B, move Elly to SS and have Marte take over 3B with CES at 1B and Steer at LF.

In this scenario, does India become our full time DH? Could he scratch by at RF? If we moved India to RF, he'd have one of the weakest arms in the outfield in the majors (16th percentile, per statcast), so sacrifice flies would be very effective against us and we may be more susceptible to singles becoming doubles and doubles becoming triples.

Or, in this scenario, do we trade India? I'm not sure what you can get for him, but it'd be an option. The downside of that is obviously the fact that he's the team captain and trading him would risk ruining the chemistry in the dugout. But that's very hard to quantify...

I like the idea of moving Elly to the outfield because it doesn't require us to break up the team's core, but simply add to it with Marte and CES.
It also gives us a guy who could cut down sacrifice flies and stretching doubles.

A lineup of Friedl (CF), McLain (SS), India (2B), Elly (RF), Steer (LF), CES (1B), Marte (3B), Stephenson ©, Fraley/Benson/Senzel (DH and/or defensive replacements based on matchups) is an objectively incredible line up.