Friday, July 20, 2001
Larkin or Reese will have to go
Trading Alex Ochoa doesn't balance the books for the Cincinnati Reds. It balances the roster.
If general manager Jim Bowden is under orders to cut payroll, swapping Ochoa for Colorado second baseman Todd Walker makes only a small dent in the club's debts.
“This was a baseball deal,” Bowden said Thursday evening, “not a money deal.”
It was a deal done to address other priorities: clearing room for Adam Dunn, clearing out excess outfield inventory, adding offense in the middle of the infield, facilitating future transactions.
It's neither a blockbuster nor a budget-fixer but a prelude to more interesting possibilities.
Ochoa's departure enables the Reds to promote Dunn, their most tantalizing prospect since Eric Davis. Walker's acquisition could mean Pokey Reese's shift to shortstop is permanent, or it might mean Reese will be shipped out upon Barry Larkin's return. It could mean Larkin is finished for the season or, conceivably, contemplating retirement.
Or it may be simply a means of buying time, of delaying decisions on Reese's long-term future and the Larkin exit strategy. Todd Walker won't put the Reds back in the pennant race this season, but he should provide them more flexibility up the middle. He makes management a little less dependent on Reese's balsa bat and Larkin's brittle body.
(Bowden declined to discuss the deal's implications for Larkin, but club officials continue to casually raise the possibility that the Reds might try to buy out the remaining two years of their captain's contract.)
Like most Bowden deals, Thursday's trade cannot be evaluated in a vacuum but demands to be considered in context. It's bound to look bad statistically, because Ochoa will benefit from the Coors Field factor and Walker (.355 home/.230 road) is sure to suffer in the move toward sea level.
How it looks strategically will depend on Dunn's development and the other ripples that result.
Walker's three-year contract provides for base salaries of $1 million this season, $2 million in 2002 and $3.4 million in 2003. He is entitled to a series of $75,000 bonuses for every 10 games he starts in excess of 100. Yet even if Walker starts every game between now and
the end of next season, the Reds still stand to save several hundred thousand dollars compared to their commitment to Ochoa ($1.6 million in 2001, $2.75 million in 2002).
How much more Bowden must pare his payroll depends on whom and when you ask. Bowden's stated preference is to keep his core players and trim around the edges, but that may not be sufficient to erase 2001 losses estimated between $4 million and $6million. When Ken Griffey Jr. made his appeal for roster preservation Wednesday, he was motivated at least in part by the perception that drastic cuts were being considered.
Perhaps it is only coincidence that Griffey's campaign centered on the necessity of keeping Dmitri Young and that the Reds subsequently traded a different outfielder in slightly lesser demand. Perhaps Bowden saw some political cover in Griffey's remarks and made a token budget cut instead of something deeper to see how his superiors responded.
Perhaps Carl Lindner's bottom line is more elastic than he lets on.
Presumably, Thursday's deal moves Young off the trading block and back to the negotiating table. It certainly lessens the likelihood (however remote) that first baseman Sean Casey will be traded to keep a right-handed bat behind Griffey. It may not mean the end of the Reds' latest round of belt-tightening, but it probably represents a reprieve from wholesale slashing.
What it means for sure is Adam Dunn's name on the lineup card. If the guy is half as good as the Reds believe, Alex Ochoa was just in the way.
E-mail tsullivan@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/sullivan.
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SULLIVAN: Larkin or Reese will have to go
