Sounds like we get a "big splash" acquisition from the Dodgers. Second baseman. Not super great numbers, not horrifying. Probably not as good as Big John Baseball.

Not a clue what this team is doing here. I'd guess McClain to CF and this guy to second. Dumb as hell, but it's the Reds.

We trade a 2nd baseman, and then acquire a 2nd baseman a month later haha.

The good news is it won't cost us any major league talent. I liked Mike Sirota when we drafted him last year. He has great speed and could have been a long term solution at CF.

But he doesn't even have an at bat in the minor leagues yet, so he's 100% projection at this point. We basically traded two draft picks for Lux.

Interestingly, the Dodgers originally drafted Sirota in 2021, but he chose to go to college instead. Good move by the Reds front office to identify a prospect the team they're trading with liked to get a pretty good player (especially in the 2nd half of last year) with 2 years of control left.

We'll see if this moves McLain to the OF or if they want to try Lux out there.

Lux was a top prospect, but then got hurt before moving to 2B. I like the acquisition.

(01-06-2025, 08:33 PM)CJD Wrote: We trade a 2nd baseman, and then acquire a 2nd baseman a month later haha.

The good news is it won't cost us any major league talent. I liked Mike Sirota when we drafted him last year. He has great speed and could have been a long term solution at CF.

But he doesn't even have an at bat in the minor leagues yet, so he's 100% projection at this point. We basically traded two draft picks for Lux.

Interestingly, the Dodgers originally drafted Sirota in 2021, but he chose to go to college instead. Good move by the Reds front office to identify a prospect the team they're trading with liked to get a pretty good player (especially in the 2nd half of last year) with 2 years of control left.

We'll see if this moves McLain to the OF or if they want to try Lux out there.

Reds also included their round 1 competitive balance round A pick #37.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/01/reds-finalizing-gavin-lux-trade.html

There still might be another trade in the works . . . they might be filling a hole before the next trade creates that hole.

Basically at this point, they traded Johnathon India, a draft pick from last year and a future draft pick this year for Gavin Lux and Brady Singer.

One MLB proven player and a couple of prospects for two solid MLB regulars. I'll take it.

There are a few things about this that make me uncomfortable.

First, if we have Matt McClain, who will very likely be our starting 2B, then why are we adding a 2B so similar to the one we just traded off?  Is McClain not recovering as well as we would hope?  Is there another nasty surprise on deck?  Think back to the Candelario signing.  Nobody understood why they signed an infielder while they were hurting for OFs.  Then we find out about the Marte PED suspension.  Does the team have some unpleasant news that they don't want to disclose until they have to?

Second issue for me here is the potential continuation of shifting infielders to the OF.  They did it with Steer, they tried with CES.  May still.  I think McClain took reps in center during the fall league.  If McClain is 100 percent healthy and they shift him to center to make room for Lux, then I dunno what to say about this ownership group.  It's a move that reeks of being extraordinarily cheap.  Matt might be a good OF, but why?  The payroll is a joke.  There's zero reason they couldn't afford an outfielder better than what Lux will bring to the plate without playing musical chairs with the lineup.  We wouldn't be talking Soto or Teoscar here, lol.  

Lastly, I think it cements what this organization will always be under Bob and crew: painfully cheap with no desire to win.  

The Francona  signing was an early sign that things may have changed.  When it happened, I worried that Bob brought Tito in due to his success with tiny payrolls in Cleveland.  It didn't make a lot of sense to me that Francona would give up a comfortable (and possibly much needed for health purposes) retirement without some commitment from ownership to be a bit more aggressive.  Maybe he just doesn't care and needs to be around the game.  Even so, I'd think he'd want to do it in a place with actual resources as opposed to a declining baseball once-was organization like Cincinnati.  

I guess time will tell.