Cincinnati Reds sports columnist Paul Daugherty reported yesterday that he’d heard the Reds turned down a straight-up offer of Phillies CF/OF Shane Victorino for relief pitcher Logan Ondrusek.
One Reds insider said a straight-up Ondrusek-for-Victorino deal was nixed by The Club. Would you have done that? Me, too. In less than a heartbeat. You have a chance to win something, you win it. Victorino is having a down year, but he’s a good player who could bat either first or second. Maybe a scenery change would ignite him. He’s also a decent outfielder.
This item was way at the bottom of a long post Daugherty filed from Cooperstown covering Barry Larkin’s ceremony. It wasn’t even the start of a paragraph in the piece.
John Fay discussed it briefly with Marty on the radio broadcast last night and both agreed the trade would have made sense for the Reds. Fay expressed doubt that the trade was offered that way, because he thought the Reds would have accepted it. He speculated that maybe another prospect might have been involved.
On the substance of the trade, Fay also pointed out that JJ Hoover and Nick Masset are credible alternatives to Ondrusek. I’d add that Sam LeCure and Alfredo Simon have also been solid from the right side. Set-up relievers are not dime-a-dozen, but they aren’t exactly scarce, either.
On the other hand, Victorino would be a two month rental (plus playoffs) and Ondrusek is under team control through 2016. And Dusty Baker seems to love Ondrusek, so if he has any influence over the internal discussions, he might have been against it.
What say you Nation, should the Reds have accepted this trade if it was offered?