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.
