THE BROO VIEW with Ken Broo

We’re about where we were a week ago, same situation for the Reds, trade deadline approaching, same usual suspects on the block. Dunn, Junior, maybe Bronon Arroyo (which would send whoever is responsible for those wonderful JTM commericials into a cold sweat) and maybe, please God please, Corey Patterson. OK, who am I kidding with that one. Patterson is ours until further notice. Not a day goes back that some rumor doesn’t pop up about any of those players. The hot one today? Dunn to the Dodgers for Juan Pierre, talented young short stop Chin lun Hu. Pierre is signed through 2011, the Dodgers would throw in some money to buy down his deal. He plays center with Bruce moving to left. And Chin becomes the Reds short stop. Keppinger moves to third. Encarnacion could be dealt for more pitching. Makes a lot of sense. Which means, it’ll never happen.

Junior has been traded more than a bad stock on chat boards from here to California and now we’re hearing of teams with strong pitching coaches who might want to take on Arroyo. July 31st is coming, you’ll hear a lot more talk like this in the coming days.. Believe me, you’re sick of it now? You’ll be hurling by late July. But it seems to me, it’s not a bad time to take a look at one or two of the things that go down at this time of the year. Maybe one trade…

My son, who’s a live and die with the Reds, fan alerted me to something he saw on a web site this other. Someone had a discussion going about ‘the trade’. You know it’s a big trade when it’s referred to as ‘the trade’. Now for veteran Reds fans, ‘the trade’ apparently isn’t Frank Robinson to the Orioles for Milt Pappas and a half eaten bag of chips. It’s apparently not Paul O’Neill to the Yankees for Roberto Kelly. Apparently, it’s not the trade that brought Junior here. No, the trade is the one Wayne Krivsky pulled off with the Washington Nationals a couple of summers ago. You remember, the one where Jim Bowden supposedly fleeced him? In this discussion, the game was to evaluate whether or not Krivaky actually got fleeced or did the fleecing. Or if it was just a lose-lose. Felipe Lopez and Austin Kearns and Ryan Wagner to the Nationals. Bill Bray, Gary Majewski, Brendan Harris, Royce Clayton and Darryl Thompson to the Reds.

Remember when the Reds pulled that one off. The were actually in a pennant race. I know, tough to believe, they actually had a pulse. The bullpen was the weak link at the time. It needed help. Majewski and Bray were supposedly the answers. So Krivsky dealt two of his every day eight players to get a couple of guys who’d get them a flag. Didn’t happen, Reds bats went into a deep September freeze, St. Louis won the division and the Series. So now, here was are just about two years later. Who won? Well Kearns is on the DL…just had surgery was hitting something like ‘180’ before he got hurt. Kearns, who you remember was demoted before he was dealt, demoted to Louisville for being out of shape, Kearns is hitting ‘250’ so far in the Washington part of his career. Lopez, hitting about ‘250’. Wagner tore his shoulder up, had surgery might be back in late July, he’s won a grand total of three games for the Nationals since the trade. He’s another one of Jim Bowden’s celebrated misses with first round draft picks. If you’re sitting in our nation’s capital today, it’s hard to look at this trade and call it a win. But remember when Majewski showed up here with a bad shoulder Remember when we found out that he had a cortisone shot just days before the deal? Remember how we howled that Wayne Krivsky got fleeced? Well, we should’ve. Because of all the players the Reds got from the Nationals in that deal, Majewski was the center of the deal.

I think it’s fair to call Majewski’s life as a Cincinnati Red ineffective, at best. The mess he made on Friday night in Cleveland is pretty much what he’s done since arriving. Or when he wasn’t working out a demotion to Louisviille. Bray has been both good, bad and hurt. He was the second piece in that deal and was thought of, at one time, to be the Reds future closer. That’s not going to happen. But Bray may turn out to be a serviceable middle relief guy. Clayton, at last check is out of baseball. Bounced around after leaving here, wound up with the Red Sox last year, won a world series ring. Harris was released. Went to the Devil Rays, when they were still the Devil Rays….flirted with 300 there. He’s now the twins second baseman, hitting about ‘250’. On the surface, this would seem to be one of the least significant trades in the history of baseball. Not even a lose-lose, more of a who cares-who cares.

Except for Daryl Thompson, who again acquitted himself well on Friday night in Cleveland. Thompson has not had two solid starts, both on the road since his call up from triple-a. and Thompson only had three starts in Louisville before getting the call to come here. Thompson was a throw in, an after thought perhaps by the Nationals but someone, apparently, that Krivsky wanted. Once again, we see evidence that Krivksy may have known what he was doing and that Bowden still has no clue when it comes to evaluating pitching. Thompson was a single-a pitcher and not a very good one, statistically when the deal went down. And yet, he’s now become the central piece, the only ‘win’ in that deal, that in 2006 was the most talked about deal of that season. I think this good to keep in mind as we move closer to the trading deadline. With the Reds dead in the water and even a winning record a reach, trades are coming. It may not be the blockbuster kind. The one in 2006 wasn’t really that….and those kind of deals usually happen only in the off season. But you will see some players hit the proverbial bricks.

So be careful when you assess the work of Walt Jocketty. Be easier on him than you were on Krivsky. Surely, when and if Dunn or Junior or David Weathers or Paul Bako get the gate, surely there will be some names coming this way you won’t be all that familiar with. Or names that might look like complete busts on their way here. Remember, then the name Daryl Thompson. It can happen. It already did…..