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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2008 > August > 12
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Owings coming to Reds
One of the two other players coming to the Cincinnati Reds is DEFINITELY Micah Owings.
A source very close to the situation confirmed to me today that Owings is one of the players to be identified later from Arizona in the Adam Dunn trade.
The third-round pick of the Diamondbacks in 2008 was 8-8 with a 4.30 ERA in 27 starts last season, his rookie year, but has fallen on rough times this year — 6-9 in 18 starts with a .593 ERA.
Shades of Homer Bailey.
Owings also can swing the bat and the D-Backs many times used him a pinch-hitter and he many times helped himself with base hits.
THE REDS expunged their six-game losing streak Tuesday night. OK, OK, so it was Pittsburgh, but you have to start somewhere.
Micah Owings probably doesn’t want to hear this, but when Brandon Phillips homered in the first inning, it was the first time the Reds scored any runs in a first inning since Aug. 6 against Milwaukee.
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TweetDoes Dunn want $125 million?
So Adam Dunn wanted a $125 million contract? That’s what outspoken Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo said Dunn told his teammates before he was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Wanted. That’s the key word. Wanted. Who out there will give him $125 million? Maybe somebody, but I don’t know who.
Arroyo said, “He made it clear to us in the clubhouse that his asking price was $120 million to $125 million. Do you think this franchise would pay that?”
No, I don’t. And as much as I like Adam Dunn, I don’t think he’ll get it. Maybe the Cincinnati Reds should have talked to him, see what it would have taken to sign him long-term.
What he said in the clubhouse and what he might accept could be mightily different. We’ll never know because Reds GM Walt Jocketty won’t talk contract during the season. It really would have been nice to see what Dunn would have taken to stay in Cincinnati.
I believe it is less than $125 million.
Earlier this year, Arroyo said that if the Reds traded him, they were giving up, throwing in the towel, not really wanting to win. Arroyo remains, but Ken Griffey Jr., Dunn and David Ross are gone.
Now how does Arroyo feel?
“The same. If they keep the pitchers they have now we’ll be all right,” Arroyo said. “I think they’ll go out and sign some hitters. If we didn’t have Dusty Baker as manager I might be concerned. But I’m not.”
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TweetDunn cared and Dunn worked
It was Sunday, long after the Cincinnati Reds lost their sixth straight game, long after they lost for the 14th time in 16 games.
Most of the players were dressed and gone, fleeing the scene of the carnage.
There were, though, five players gathered in a corner discussing the mess the team made this year, the embarrassment of losing, what it would take to improve the stifling situation.
The players were: Paul Bako, Jerry Hairston, Josh Fogg, Jolbert Cabrera and …
And … Adam Dunn.
Yes, Adam Dunn. So many fans misread Dunn. They thought him lazy. Have you ever tried moving 6-foot-7 and 275 pounds of muscle and bone? Ain’t easy, pal.
We know he was a defensive liability. We know he struck out too much. But to label him as a guy who didn’t care was unfair just because of his easy-going demeanor.
Nobody was more embarrassed than Dunn when he botched or bungled a play. Nobody was more embarrassed than Dunn when he struck out with two on and two out in a one-run game.
He said it, admitted it. He told the media he was awful at times. In 36 years of covering the Reds, I never met a more honest or self-deprecating guy. He never made excuses. He took the blame, sometimes blame he didn’t deserve.
So it wasn’t surprising that Dunn was one of the players holding a post-game koffee klatch to discuss the many woes of the team.
And the next day Dunn was gone. Traded to become the biggest snake in Arizona.
My take? Big mistake. He won’t be replaced. Ever. To me, his home runs, his RBIs, his on-base percentage, his walks and his fearsome presence overrode his defensive deficiencies and his strikeouts.
And I’m weary of hearing people say, “They never won with him and Griffey in the eight years they were here.” No, they didn’t. And they didn’t win with anybody else, either. Blaming Dunn and Griffey is absurd. Blame management for not surrounding two superb players with quality pitching and quality defense.
Now they’re gone, the team moves on. Question? Does it move up or does it move down? It appears it will be down before it’s up and it is going to take years to start the upward trend.
Said manager Dusty Baker, who had two superstars when he took the Reds job and now has none (maybe a couple in the making), tries to put the positive spin on it by saying, “This is our new beginning and there is always a period of adjustment. Trades like that change the dynamics of the team and it takes a while.”
A long, long, long, long while at the pace the Reds move.
Jay Bruce knows that more than anybody. Dunn and Griffey were his two best friends on the team.
When he arrived in the visiting clubhouse in Pittsburgh’s PNC Park Tuesday and walked to his locker, he was unaware that he was using the locker Dunn used during his Pittsburgh visits.
“Really? All right. Didn’t know that,” said Bruce. “Pure coincidence.” But there was a stack of color actions photos of Dunn on Bruce’s shelf and that was no coincidence.
“He gave ‘em to me and I just decided to bring ‘em,” said Bruce. “I’m absolutely going to miss Dunn, even more so than Griffey. We had a relationship before I got to the big leagues — working out together in Texas during the offseason.”
Working out? With Dunn? Fans thought Dunn, the big oaf, never worked out, never worked hard. “He worked his tail off,” said Bruce.
“We’re still going to be friends, but this place is a lot different now,” Bruce added. He could have added, “A lot, lot, lot, lot, lot different.”
“We’re moving forward and we have to accept it for what it is and the way it is,” Bruce said. “You can’t give up just because people are gone. You have to move forward. Nothing stops for anyone in this game. The show must go on.”
Did he mean sideshow?
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