Ken Rosenthal reports that the Reds have fired GM Dan O’Brien. It’s about time.
O’Brien was hired at the end of October in 2003. Now, O’Brien is an easy target for a lot of baseball fans. I think it’d only be fair to dedicate this post to the things he did right.
Hmmm. The Kent Mercker signing? He posted a 3.65 ERA in 61 innings for the Reds so far. Could’ve been worse.
You gotta respect the Sean Casey for Dave Williams swap. That was solid. Of the logjam created by Griffey, Kearns, Pena, Dunn, and Casey, Casey was the least desirable.
How about O’Brien’s pickup of Javier Valentin as a free agent? Valentin hit .281/.362/.520 for less than half a million bucks for the Reds.
And letting Danny Graves go was a good thing. Also, he got Joe Randa out of the way and let Edwin Encarnacion learn on the job; seems wise. Though he was the one who signed Randa.
Anybody else have a positive move from the O’Brien Era?
