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Reds score 'slam dunk' with Griffey
Posted: Thursday February 10, 2000 04:42 PM
Sports Illustrated baseball writer Tom Verducci chatted with CNN/Sports Illustrated anchor Paul Crane about the impact of the Ken Griffey Jr. trade: Paul Crane: Tom, not only does Ken Griffey Jr. get the trade he requested, but to the one and only team he would agree to go to. What does this say about baseball today? Tom Verducci: Well, I think we now have a better idea of who is running the game. Look at what happened to Roger Clemens a couple of years ago - he basically called his shot where he wanted to go. Now we've seen Ken Griffey do the same. We've seen players like Shawn Green cash in big after only two real big seasons in the big leagues. There's no question that the star players in the game now pretty much dictate where they want to go, when they want to go and for how much money. Crane: Speaking of money, Griffey and his agent, Brian Goldberg, have said that Griffey would agree to play in Cincinnati for less than market value. That sounds like great news for the Reds, so how would they be able to pull this off? Verducci: It is great news for the Reds. Ken Griffey lost a lot of leverage in terms of salary when he said he only wanted to play for the Reds. We're only going to find out the true value of a player financially when he's on the open market. When Griffey said he would only play in Cincinnati, there was no market. He basically had to come to terms with the Reds on a below-market deal because what was he then going to do, say, "You're not paying me enough money Cincinnati, I want to go back to Seattle." Of course not, that wasn't going to happen. He's going to take fewer dollars to go to Cincinnati than he would on the open market or even to stay in Seattle. I believe this is going to have no impact on other players like Derek Jeter, Juan Gonzalez and Alex Rodriguez. This is a very special circumstance. Ken Griffey Jr. wanted to go to Cincinnati all along and he gets his wish. Crane: Well, regardless of what the numbers are, he'll undoubtedly have more money than he could spend in this or any other lifetime. How would you assess the trade, baseball-wise, for both the Reds and Mariners beyond the obvious box office impact? Verducci: This is a slam dunk for the Cincinnati Reds. Usually when you trade for a player of this magnitude, you have to break apart the core of your team. This happened to the Astros a couple of years ago when they wanted to get Roger Clemens but the cost was prohibitive. They would have had Roger Clemens on a lesser team. The Reds were able to keep Pokey Reese and Sean Casey, the two cornerstones of the future for that team - obviously Barry Larkin, players like that are still there, too - and now they get to add Ken Griffey Jr. without losing really important parts of their team. I think it's a major coup for Jim Bowden and the Reds. They played this thing to the hilt all along; they knew Junior wanted to come to Cincinnati, they stuck to their guns, they held onto Pokey Reese and Sean Casey. This is a very good team now and this will be a very good team in the future. Crane: And what about free-agent-to-be Alex Rodriguez? Verducci: I'm sure the Mariners are now talking about making another pitch for this guy. In fact, they do want to talk to Rodriguez again once he arrives at spring training. They've already talked to him about an eight-year deal. He had no interest in that. Their plan now is to come back to A-Rod and talk about a four-year deal, which would allow him to hit the free-agent market again before he's 30 years old. But you know what: A-Rod is not going to fall for this. His strategy is the same as Bernie Williams' with the Yankees: he is not going to sign a deal before he gets out on the market. A-Rod and his agent Scott Boras want to find out what his true value is. Again, that's not going to happen unless you have other teams bidding. He could wind up staying in Seattle; it's more attractive now with Griffey gone because A-Rod was not going to stay in Seattle with Junior there. Seattle has a chance - a chance - to keep A-Rod but they're going to have to get into a furious bidding war. That won't happen now, though; it'll happen in November.
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