Wow! First trade made!

July 13, 2006

Jim Bowden pulled the trigger on the first trade before the deadline, picking up some of his former draft picks and dumping Royce Clayton in the Reds’ laps. Unfortunately, the Nationals also lost relief pitchers Gary Majewski and Bill Bray. Dang, I really liked Majewski! And I always assumed Bray was one of those young arms we’d keep into the future. Still it seems like a really good deal, if confusing considering the returns are starters, not farm hands. Nationals get Austin Kearns (OF) and Felipe Lopez (SS) (wow, they already show up as being Nationals) and say they will be in the game *tomorrow* against the Pirates. Austin Kearns! Wow! And a fresh new sparkly face at short. Cool. It’ll be interesting to see what Daedalus’s take on this is, being a fan of both teams.

I’m kinda doing a snoopy dance about getting a new short stop. Not that Royce was terrible – he actually exceeded my expectations. Ya know, come to think of it, he was always the first with the upbeat optimistic quotes. I hope Lopez fills those optimistic clubhouse shoes well and lasts a while. I guess because I always viewed Clayton as a stopgap filler until Guzman returned (who I would have loved to see replaced, but for that multimillion dollar contract), so it seems like Guzman is now perma-replaced, and thus the Snoopy dance. But wait a minute, what about that Guzman contract??

Losing Majewski and Bray is harder to swallow. I think my Snoopy dancing over the shortstop position is minimizing that pain, though. And we just got yet another outfielder. Austin Kearns!! Does that mean we’re going to lose Guillen soon? I’m not even going to speculate about the future relationship between Soriano and the Nationals at this point. Guillen being traded is likely a sure thing, though.

I tried my best to listen to and watch the Reds news conference, although they seemed to be experiencing technical difficulties. I couldn’t hear the first bit and after a while it completely cut out. Krivsky seems well aware of the plague of bad pitching across the league and did his best to remedy that for his team when he had a shot at it despite losing two starters in the field. Here are some nuggets (btw, I think this deal was far better for our Nats than for the Reds, and it appears the press there is well aware of that fact):

Q: Did you have to gulp to make this deal?

A: Yeah, I gulped a lot. Two quality regular players and you just try to fit the pieces together. We gave up two quality guys and got two quality guys in the bullpen. It’s tough to get quality pitching.

Q: Was this deal initiated by you or Washington?

A: It evolved – one for one, two for two, three for three. I can’t remember who made the first call. I’d have to check my notes. I think it mighta been Jim. I can’t remember to be honest with you. We went back and forth all over the place and this is what we settled on.

Ok, back when I was a private investigator and had to give depositions on the claimants I had video taped to the judge, if I was ever unsure of how to answer a question or felt it would tip something negatively, I was well trained to respond, “I don’t recall”. That’s exactly how his response sounded!

Q: Did one guy tip the balance, Wayne?

A: No, it was the total package. It had to make sense. Everybody we got, we’re very happy with.

Q: (Regarding shifting foundation to the bullpen, but answer veered to discussing Clayton)

A: All the players outside of Clayton are young. He has a young body, he’s well-conditioned. As far as the bullpen, these guys will be around for the long-term and are young. [...] Royce Clayton will play short cuz we’re trading Felipe Lopez.

Q: Do you see this as sending a msg to the fans that you’re building on what you did the first half?

A: I’m not much into messages – I’m into making the team better. I”m sure this will be a controversial trade. I’m sure there will be some leaving nasty messages on my voicemail. We did what we needed to address. WAS’s offense has been lacking and Jim did what he felt he needed to do. Cincinnatti leads that nations in polls – there’s probably something on the crawler now. Is it good or bad? Now vote. The 9 and 20 stretch here the last month was a concern.

Haha! Point me to thee polls – I’m curious too!

I look forward to getting my first glimpse of these new guys tomorrow. Former toolsy Reds or not, I guess the trade should re-ignite some interest in the team (whether it’s morbid curiosity or a sense of freshness, who cares?). Oh yeah, there were some minor leaguers on each side and it sounds like the pitcher we got in return, Ryan Wagner, could be in our pen soon enough with some work on his mechanics by the all-powerful Randy St. Claire. Reds got Brendan Harris and pitcher Daryl Thompson.

Posted in Front Office, Players, Washington Nationals