Will Griffey Be Dealt?

To hear Reds GM Wayne Krivsky tell it, "There's a lot of misinformation out there."  We'll try not to contribute to that.  But here's the latest on Ken Griffey Jr.

Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News believes Junior will only go to Chicago or Atlanta; apparently the Mariners aren't interested right now.  Griffey would have to be interested too, given his trade veto power.  When McCoy says Chicago, I assume he means the Cubs.  The White Sox seem unlikely, but you never know.

The chatter was reignited on Tuesday, when Peter Gammons quoted Griffey talking about how it made sense for the Reds to trade him now.  Griffey's agent, Brian Goldberg, seemed to indicate that the quote from Griffey may have been taken slightly out of context.

Goldberg also mentions in that article that the Reds called Griffey to shoot down a rumor that had him going to the Brewers.  That one was new to me, but it sounds like there's nothing to it.

Griffey would certainly be a helpful addition in right field at Wrigley.  However, as Greg Couch writes, the team's direction with player acquisitions and contracts is an open question right now.  Ken Rosenthal, back on June 24th, said the Cubs were not involved in a trade for Griffey.  Jayson Stark debunked the Atlanta rumor a few days before that. 

Another major wrinkle for any Griffey trade is that he's knocking on the door of 600 home runs and could pass Sammy Sosa this year for fifth all-time.  The Reds would hate to miss out on that good publicity.

Comments

[Chipper]

Atlanta would be sweet. But it won't happen because he's to expensive, and the Braves wouldn't give up any prospects to get him.

[JerseyMetFan]

Another guy I wish Omar would go after. I'm sure the asking price would be too high (Pelfrey, Milledge, etc.), but Alou can't be relied on and Gomez is out for a while (the year?). Milledge is being called up for tonight's game, thank god, but an OF of Griffey, Beltran, Milledge/Green would really help this offense.

Reyes
Wright
Beltran
Griffey
Delgado
Lo Duca
Milledge
Valentin

[historicalanomalies]

Roto, what would the Cubs have to do to take on payroll? If they could find someone to dump Jacque to, will ownership see the benefit of taking on an attraction such as Griffey?

[beauhoopman]

Someone might take Jacque, but the Cubs will be paying his salary.

[Dave]

The problem with Griffey is that he has atleast 2 more years on his contract, and deferred money from the first part of his contract. The final obligation stretching past this year will probably inhibit the Cubs from being able to acquire him without reworking his contract, which is highly unlikely. He'd be a great fit, especially given his injury history, as a Cub.

As a Cub fan I think the team you see currently, and unfortunately, is the team you're going to see for the rest of the season.

I also think they only way we're going to see Jacque not around is if they can 'get him hurt' and put him on the DL to free up his roster spot. If they were going to pay his salary I think they would have done it already, I don't think the previous Florida/Minnesota rumors were 'market gauging.'

But anyway, Griffey to the Cubs, a longshot at best. Griffey in Cincinatti for the next few years, a better bet.

[Tim Dierkes]

Junior's contract runs through '08, but with two caveats:

1. He might want the $16.5MM option for '09 exercised to approve a trade.

2. If the option is not exercised it's a sizeable $4MM buyout.

[ArodSucksAtLife]

This deal is another reason the Nationals should fire Bowden before he can straddle them with one.

It is terribly drawn up, at AAV Griffey isn't expensive at all. He's about 9.3million a year. But 1/2 his contracts, 57million is deferred from `09 for 15 freaking years. The Reds should be asking for little to nothing back if someone were just to take on his salary. I'm not sure how restructuring of deferred money works, I know it got complicated as hell with the A-rod trade talks, but it would be have to be reworked for any type of trade to work out.

[darkstar1661]

Yeah, like ARod said his contract is spread so far out that the immediate cost is next to nothing for teams if they were to get him

I think it actually breaks down to something like:
2007 ~ 3m left to pay
2008 ~ 6m on the books
2009 ~ 4m (buyout)
+
2022 ~ 4m
2023 ~ 7m
2024 ~ 7m

Yeah, you read that right ~ 2022-2024 he will make 18m. But what will that 18m mean in terms of dollar value at the time? 18m means a lot less today then it did in 1990 afterall…

There is really no point for the Reds to trade him unless they just want to makr roster move. You don’t find many hitter under 6m like that, so what really is the point as far as what they could be thinking?

Side note:
Wasn’t he also ok going to the Indians though? Maybe not, but I could have sworn he said that he liked that as a possibility…

[Thundersticks]

He would be a nice fit for the Braves in LF. They would probably take a couple of decent prospects (SP & OF) that are only a year or two away from the bigs. The problem is the deferred money. I believe the Braves would take on the current portion of the contract if the Reds would simply take care of the deferred. Junior has said before that he would love to play for the Braves.

Of course, the issue with Junior over the past few years has been his health. When healthy he's the difference between a pretty good lineup and an awsome lineup.

[ArodSucksAtLife]

" I believe the Braves would take on the current portion of the contract if the Reds would simply take care of the deferred."

Really? do you think? A MLB team would take Griffey and his almost 600 home runs, if the Reds paid his 57 freaking million dollars in deferred money?

He's being paid less than Juan Pierre.