Just back from a quick trip to the East Coast. Did New York, theatre, couple of restaurants and the obligatory diner trips. And I also caught a ballgame, the Mets against the Cardinals at Citi Field. Great new ballpark, resurrecting the style and thankfully not the smell of the old Ebbets Field. I’m not old enough to remember the Brooklyn Dodgers, but apparently Brooklyn and Ebbets Field had a smell all their own.

Anyhow, I watched the Mets smoke the Cardinals 11-0 on Wednesday night and then get trounced themselves by the Yankees on Friday night. And out there, the fans are just like you and me. Well, OK, perhaps we don’t use four letter words as verbs as much as they do. But in the sense that fans want their teams to win and want action if they don’t, we’ve got some common ground with New Yorkers.

The Mets are banged up. They want their general manager to make a deal, today, last Thursday if possible, to get another big bat in their line up. The Yankees have some pitching problems, they want another arm for the rotation, couple for the bullpen and if their GM can find someone to replace outfielder Xavier Nady, great, go get him.

Like you and me, maybe, fans out there believe there are teams and GM’s all over baseball just waiting to be fleeced. They get a star player or two for a couple of broken down veterans and minor leaguers that are more like suspects instead of prospects.

You know, like Edwin Encarnacion and Mike Lincoln in exchange for Kevin Youkilis.

So I’m sitting at this game and the guy next to me strikes up a conversation. Wants to know where I’m from. I guess I didn’t look or act like a ntative, even though I spent 17-years of my life, a long time ago, living in that area of the country. Guy says, ‘Cincinnati?’ I said ‘yeah’. And after we got by the initial jokes of Bengals arrests and Pete Rose’s gambling, he wants to know if Aaron Harang was available. Because he’d heard on a sports talk radio show out there that the Reds would be willing to deal Harang to the Mets in exchange for somebody named Argemis Reyes and a left handed pitcher in Double-A who had just blown out his elbow. You think sports talk radio is anything around here? Out there think Lance McAllister on steroids, 24-7, 365.

So anyway, I tell this guy Sal, from Bensonhurst, I said I didn’t think Harang’s available,,but after checking Harang’s pitching line the next night, I began to think it wasn’t such a bad idea.

But the truth is nobody is trading anyone right now. And yeah, every fans wants action, deals, call ups, try outs, imports from Japan. But it won’t happen, not yet anyway. Look at the standings today. 14 teams are within 6 games of the lead, or closer. Even more can still think of themselves as wild card contenders. The Reds are at ‘500’ and only 2.5 games back, and right in the thick of things in the National League Wild Card Race.

Deal now and get what, from whom? This is the time of the year when baseball resembles a contract negotiation. Neither side wants to make the first move. How much do you want? What are you offering? Who’s on first? I got it, you take it. That’s why mid season deals are done as close to the trading deadline as possible. Teams that need will offer more, teams that are out of it will take less than what they will now, a little more than a month away from deadline day.

What you get now is Norris Hopper for Corky Miller, not even a seismic blip in Louisville.

Barring a total implosion, the Reds are going to be in this race at least until the trade deadline. So you have to figure a trade for an upgrade will be coming. But the question is, at what price? Bailey? Stubbs? Arroyo? Pick a name. But make sure it’s a good one. That’s the only way you’ll get someone coming here, who’ll be good enough to help.

Every so often, the Reds have night like last night. They put up five or more runs and you think everything is going to be OK. But it’s not. They pay the price, far too often, of not addressing their glaring offensive needs in this past off season. They pay the price for letting their farm system go into atrophy in the mid-90’s to 2003. And now, if they really want to win this season, they’ll pay the price. It’s the cost of doing business.

Yeah, let's trade Adam Dunn now. Grand slam HR and 5 RBI vs the Padres today now give Dunn the HR lead in the National League with 29 and he now has 68 rbi. Please tell me how you build a championship team, a World Series contender, by chasing off a 28 year old who consistently plays 155 games a season and drives in an average of 100 rbi per season? What team, in the history of baseball has done that?

But when I get behind the microphone this Sunday morning on 700 WLW (XM channel 173 or http://www.700wlw.com/) I'm sure there will be someone who'll phone in to talk up getting rid of Dunn. Bad defense, doesn't hustle, strikes out too much, yada yada yada. Great, deal him or don't re-sign him after this season. Who are you going to get to replace him? Checked the Reds minor league system lately? Any player who's got a shot at playing in the majors is at least two years away. Outfielders? You really going to tell me Chris Dickerson is going to deliver 100 rbi? Ha!

The only 'fans' who don't want Dunn on this team fall into two categories: vintage fans who believe the true mark of a great player is someone whose feet fly around the field like Fred Flinstone's and get his uniform dirty. (Sorry, there was only one Pete Rose.) Or....fans who live in their parents' basement and bang away on a computer about sabermetrics.

There, I said it.

If Bob Castellini and his rear gunner Walt Jocketty want to trade Dunn, they'll spend the $14-15 million they'll save by doing that, trying to replace his numbers.

What say you?

As the Reds prepare to go for the sweep of the Reds alumni association, otherwise known as the Washington Nationals, who among this current group is marketable? We’re 25 days from the unofficial trading deadline. And realistically, who can the reds trade to get any value in return.

And we’ve got to be realistic here. Junior, his salary and his age and the season he’s having isn’t going to bring back all that much. The best strategy with Junior, I think, is to ride out this season, market the home run total and let him walk after this season. I still think there’s a place for him on this team past this season. But that’s in a perfect world, with no 16 million dollar option. Reality tells you that the team isn’t going to pay anything close to that, if they want him back and Junior isn’t going to take a pay cut to continue to play here. Less money in Tampa or Miami, maybe Atlanta or Seattle but not here.

We had Ken Rosenthal on this show last Sunday…Rosenthal, one of the better informed national guys in the biz. His take on Adam Dunn would be better to trade him and get some players with a professional track record than to let him walk at the end of the season. But he also said this…and it plays into what I’ve been preaching for all of this season. Better to sign Dunn, or at least attempt to. The theory? You’ll chase his stats with the money you save by not signing him. There is a dearth of power hitters in baseball to begin with, guys who can deliver in excess of 30 home runs and 100 rbi a year. There are damn few that get to free agency. Dunn is a consistent 40-100 guy who plays an average of 155-games a season.

I’ve heard it said that Adam Dunn is a luxury this team can’t afford. That the four years 60-million he’ll ask for this off season is too much. If it is too much of a luxury….and I doubt seriously that it is, then sell the team. You want to run with the big dogs, pay like the big dogs. The Reds have no one in their organization, who isn’t already at the major league level, who can pick up the slack with power numbers if Dunn leaves. My take, Rosenthal’s take.

But let’s say you want to let Dunn take a hike after this season, or trade him in the next three weeks. Who do you replace him with? What is your starting outfield in 2009? Because right now, if Dunn and Junior are gone here it is: Jay Bruce, Ryan Freel and….Norris Hopper? Lucky to be back in time for spring training. He’s due for Tommy John’s surgery Tuesday. Chris Dickerson? Appears to be the next 4-A player in the Reds system. You want to trade for a starting outfielder or a major league ready minor leaguer? Who would you trade? It would appear to me, the asking price is Ednison Volquez, since that’s what it took to get him away from Texas.

So if you want Adam Dunn off this team in 2009, then what is your solution to who plays outfield for the Reds in 2009?

Here’s who I think has trade value on this current Reds roster and it’s a short list: David Weathers, Jeremy Affeldt, Josh Fogg. What do they all have in common? Bull pen guys, even Fogg who pitched well starting last night.
Maybe David Ross, if you’re the Florida Marlins.

That’s it. You can put anyone else on this roster on the open market, and with the exception of Bruce, Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips, Aaron Harang and Volquez and the interest will be somewhere between mild to ice cold.

And why would you place any of the above on the block to begin with?

Any baseball general manager will tell you that trades are the sexy part of their business, they get the biggest headlines and the most scrutiny. But the real work, the stuff that separates contenders from pretenders is good home grown talent, players who grow up in your system, They cost less, your searching is done the day you sign them all you have to do, as an organization is help them get better. Make an occasional deal to fill in the blanks and, if you know what you’re doing, you’ve got a contender.

So the trade deadline is coming. I think the best course of action will be to hang onto Dunn and try to sign him. I think if you want to trade Fogg or Weathers or Ross, go ahead.

But I also think the best course for the Reds to take toward a potential world championship is for Bob Castellini to bring some stability to his front office. Walt Jocketty your guy, Bob? Good, give him at least five years. Because all that firing Dan O’Brien and Wayne Krivsky and Jim Bowden for that matter, all that did was create instability at all levels, from the GM’s chair right down to the lowest bird dog scout in the system.

Stability in the front office is how you find the kind of players who help you win. It creates stability on the field. You might want to consult the Atlanta Braves about that. They’ve done reasonably well since, oh the mid-90’s.

Create that kind of atmosphere…and hang onto Dunn. I think you’ll be all right if you do that.

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…..

Just hours away from July 1, you wonder how long it will be before the Reds fire sale begins. It's no secret, for the right price, you can have anyone on the roster, with the exception of Homer Bailey and Aaron Harang. Here are my odds for who goes first:

Scott Hatteberg 1-2
Jeff Conine 2-1
David Weathers 3-1
Adam Dunn 8-1
Bronson Arroyo 10-1
Ken Griffey, Jr 15-1

I think Hatteberg is the right price, is hitting as well as he's ever hit in his career and is a left hander who hits for average. The Yankees are interested, I'm hearing. Conine fits the same suit, from the right handed side of the plate.

Weathers would be a perfect set up guy for the Yankees, Mets and Phillies. Dunn's salary and the fact he can terminate his option year of $13 million in 2008 makes trading him problematic. But the Reds may so inclined to deal him, to get out from under that deal. Arroyo is throwing better than he did in May. But he appears to have a 'tired arm'. Still, I'm told at least one contending team inquired about Arroyo right around opening day this year. The Reds weren't interested in dealing him then. They would be now.

As for Griffey, Jr, I'm hearing he's close to being untouchable. The Reds are said to be less interested in dealing him, as Junior is a local guy, chasing a milestone (600 career HR's) and is a box office attraction. As the Reds aren't expected to be good in 2008, Junior can be counted on to sell tickets.

The big question in all of this, is what can the Reds legitimately expect in return for any of their players. The answer, as you'd expect at this time of the year, is not much. You normally get prospects for 'stars' in mid season. That's what the Reds got from their fire sale in 2003. Eventually, like Harang in '03, you'll get a nice payoff for a mid season sale. But it's a payday that's years away.