Lopez to All-Star team
Well, the Reds got one kid on the all-star team, because its a rule, and it was Felipe Lopez. Congrats to him, he deserves it.
The Enquirer has a good article that notes that the dumb-asses who run our team didn't even have Felipe in the lineup until Mid-May, while they made man-love to Rich Aurilia.
And note, that Lopez was a pickup from Bowden on a nice trade with the Jays. He's going to be a good one, and continues in our tradition of great shortstops.
Lonnie Wheeler has a great article on Adam Dunn in the post...the batting order thing (Narron seeing the light, is he online?), and on the future of Dunn with this organization. See below, boldface is mine.
The Reds can afford both of them, but will probably lead us to believe that they can't. Of the two, Dunn - six years Casey's junior - is more likely to fetch the kind of pitcher the Reds can no longer do without. Nobody else in O'Brien's portfolio offers the exchange value of his left fielder.
But if you trade Dunn in the midst of a youth movement - and there have been rumbles to that effect - how do you explain it to the paying customers? Short of Albert Pujols, who in the game is a more productive hitter at his age?
All of this assumes that the Yankees or Braves or some other well-heeled contender will not be tempted by Griffey's steady march toward his illustrious past. All of it assumes that the Cincinnati landscape will remain overgrown with executive complications - that Carl Lindner isn't traded for an owner who will hire a COO who won't send his general manager to the plate with his shoes tied together.
In the meantime, color Joe Randa gone but don't count on an ace in return; or even a pair of fives. Hope that Austin Kearns is not redeemed at well below market value. Ponder Wily Mo Pena.
Pena is two years younger than Dunn, with every bit the power; nobody in the business has more. He makes $440,000 but after the season will be eligible for first-time arbitration, which will be kind to him. His tools elicit drools. For those reasons, the Reds could perhaps justify retaining him instead of his left-handed counterpart - if, that is, they place no value on two specific items:
If they don't care about a player's capacity for staying in the lineup day after day.
If they don't care about how it all looks.
To trade Dunn would be to cash in whatever good faith remains in the organization; to sell out the few fans whose extraordinary patience has kept them coming to the park.
To trade Dunn would be to perpetuate a rebuilding process that never gets beyond the subfloor.
To trade Casey would be hard. To trade Pena would be hard.
To trade Dunn would be regrettable.
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