Can We Please Give Krivsky Due Credit?

Remember Josh Hamilton?  Remember how much people in this city loved him?  Remember how the Reds got him for basically nothing? 

After picking up Hamilton from the Rule 5 draft, this city fell in love with the guy, and rightly so. 

So in the offseason, when Krivsky traded Hamilton for a Texas pitcher that none of you had heard of, the cries from disgruntled fans could be heard all the way to Louisville...

But what did Krivsky get? Edinson Volquez.

Well, after 4 starts Mr. Volquez is 3-0 with a 1.21 ERA.  He has 23 Ks in 22.1 IP.  He has not given up more than 1 run in any of his four starts and opponents are hitting under .200 against him...

He is a potential ace. 

In this ballpark, free agent ptichers are hard to come by, so the GM must be creative when forming a rotation.

What Krivsky did was steal a talented outfielder for less than $100K.  He then made the unpopular trade to Texas to acquire a GREAT young arm to add to an improving rotation.

For all the flack that Krivsky takes, he deserves a huge round of applaus for making a very tough trade that improved this team.

That trade jsut got him fired!!!

Would it be that or snagging Brandon Phillips? Then you have to think about the revolving door of flops that the roster has been for the last few years....Rheal Cormier, Joe Mays, Gary Majewski, Mike Gosling, Rick White, Chad Moeller, Kirk Saarloos, Eric Milton. Which brings us to the fire sale that was Kearns, Lopez, Wagner for Bill Bray and dirt. Lopez was one of the hottest hitting SS in the league at the time. There is no reasonable excuse for why Wayne traded him and Cincy's favorite son (Kearns) for a pocketful of hope. Had to be because he got swindled by the dirtiest GM in the game, Jim Bowden.

Wayne relied to heavily on his contact still in Minnesota, apparent by all the Twins retreads. Thanks for the memories and BP/Volquez and even Bronson (JTM commercials and all)

He's a good dude and didn't do a bad job at all! I just hope this new guy does better or everyones gonna be writing crap about him in a couple years!

GO Reds!!!

CK-

We've had more heated debates on this subject than Obama and Clinton....

I would have celibrated this move any time in the last 2 years, however I'm only moderately pleased now....and it may be more because of other people in the Reds organization I'm (on a relative scale) happier with Krivsky's performance this year...Volquez for Hamilton was a wise move. The Reds did NOT trade Votto, Bruce and Bailey for pitching...I thought (maybe incorrectly) that Dusty Baker was an improvement. Cordero definately was. He made some good decisions....

However, Krivsky going along with Dusty to hire every unemployed ex-Cub available, when there were other (redundant) equal or better options already in camp is more typical of the bone-head philosophy Krivsky used in signing Stanton and Weathers to 2 year deals, extending Coffey's contract in the midst of a 8.00 ERA year, resigning Juan Castro, signing a 3rd catcher twice in his 3 years here, and releasing his only righty platoon 1st baseman for a class-A  pitcher with a 7.00 ERA.  I didn't even mention the Nat's trade, or duplicating that bafoonery with signing blown armed Eddie Guardado, or repeating the lesson he should have learned, but didn't, in signing 40 year olds Conine and Mercker this year. Not signing Adam Dunn yet in his walk year may be another Krivsky mistake.

The bottom line is, the guy made MORE mistakes than most GM's make in the short amount of time he was here. Maybe that should have been expected by a rookie GM, and that may be Castellini's fault for hiring him- or keeping him as long as he did- that is no reason NOT to eat his mistake (like Castellini has been contractually eating so many of Krivsky's released mistakes lately) and fire him now.

Walt Jocketty is NOT just a buddy of Bob's....he's one of the best baseball exec's in MLB. To be honest, the best deal Krivsky made may be one he DIDN'T make- for pitching that would have given up our best prospects, might have been prevented by Jocketty overseeing (or nixing) the deals Krivsky was working. Many of us would rather see Joey Votto and Jay Bruce playing here than Joe Blanton pitching here....

See ya Krivsky...take Dusty with you, ok, pal ?

CKFresh,

I thought, or hoped you had gone away with Krivsky, since you've done nothing but praise this bumbly idiot.  True, he had some good moves; but for every good move, he had an equally or greater stupid move.  Get over him already!!!  Jocketty coming to Cincy is the best thing in a long, long time.  Oh, and if you want proof that Krivsky didn't know what he was doing, just look at their record the last two years.  And I'm not one to be satisfied with improvement if you're still losing.  You can polish a turd, but it's still a turd.  All you're doing is polishing Krivsky.

Actually Milton wasn't signed by Krivsky-and Casey wasn't traded by Krivsky, allthough they were both very Krivsky like deals.

Krivsky did sign some good players-

Brandon Phillips was found by Tim Nehring, signed by Krivsky (Krivsky later fired Nehring and replaced him with an old friend that was an ametuer scout, and was promoted to Reds Farm Director last fall)

Jerry Narron- actually his brother, knew Josh Hamilton from his hometown in SC, and recommended he be traded for as a rule 5 pick because he knew his value was cheap...Krivsky signed Hamilton, took the credit for his crystal ball rule 5 waiver gem, fired Narron and his brother, and traded Hamilton for Volquez this off season. A fair trade so far....however, Krivsky must have though there was gold in all the garbage (rule 5) and signed 6 others....Jered Burton is the only one (other than Hamilton) that lasted longer than a month....it did cost several legitimate MLB players their jobs with the Reds- among the Krivsky cuts- Brendon Harris and Jorge Cantu. He made up for those by signing Mark Bellhorn and Juan Castro. Krivsky's most famous cut was a fat guy in Minnesota named David Ortiz....he was signed by Boston and changed his name to Big Papi...so much for Krivsky's talent assessment.

Bronson Arroyo was a Krivsky trade for Wily Mo Pena. You decide.

My biggest frustration with Krivsky was his lack of value assessment - lack of return trade value, total mishandling of Dunn's extension that gave him no-trade clause rights 2 years before he had to-making him untradable fdor value, and then NOT signing him long term....the multitude of over the hill pitchers signed-Cormier,Stanton, Guardado, Weathers, Mercker, and all those rule 5 waivers- Ellison, Coates, Sergio Valenzuela....and the redundantly useless players the Reds didn't need at all, but put contract pressure on the roster and forced MORE bad decisions- 3rd catcher Chad Moehler, utility players Bellhorn, Castro, Conine, etc...signing Alex Gonzalez, Corey Patterson, Paul Bako, Corey Patterson, Josh Fogg and