Love Shack Gone as Reds, Devil Rays Trade
By
KC2HMZ
Posted at 7:12 pm
The Reds have acquired IF Jorge Cantu, OF Shaun Cumberland, and cash from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in exchange for P Brian Shackelford, P Calvin Medlock, and future considerations.
The key to the deal for the Reds would be Cantu, who is 25 years old and has played mostly 2B and 3B in the majors, with a handful of appearances at 1B and one at SS. In 2005, his best season with the Devil Rays, he put up .286/.311/.497 BA/OBP/SLG with a 112 OPS, hitting 40 doubles, 28 HRs, and collecting 117 RBI. The writers in Tampa voted him the D-Rays' MVP that year.
The following year was an injury-plagued letdown, and although he hit a respectable .255 this spring he was beaten out by B.J. Upton and ended up being one of the final cuts in spring training, reportedly due in part to being defensively suspect. He was not happy and let it known that he wished to be traded. He did get called up several weeks later, but mostly sat on the bench, and a week ago Thursday was sent to Class-AAA Durham. He again asked to be traded, telling reporters in St. Petersberg, “I'm not a minor league player. I think a change of scenery would be best” and “I don't have anything to prove down there. I guess I have to go.”
His agent is Steve Canter, who has compared Cantu's situation to Milton Bradley and Shea Hillebrand and characterized Cantu as “an experienced second baseman with a power bat.”
The Reds, of course, already have one of those in Brandon Phillips, so it remains to be seen what the future holds for Cantu with the Reds' organization. He's on the 40-man roster but will be assigned to Louisville.
I would be remiss in my duties as Crack Hard Facts Staff if I were to fail to report that Cantu also has, or had, his own blog. Although there hasn't been a new entry since August 23, 2006, you can get a glimpse of Cantu up close and personal by visiting Jose Cantu's World:
http://jorgecantu.mlblogs.com/
Shaun Cumberland is 22 years old with no major league experience. He'll be assigned to Chattanooga. He was playing at Class-AA Montgomery, where he was hitting .246 with half a dozen dingers and 34 ribbies. Last season he was at Class-A Vidalia California League), where he hit .258 with 16 homers and a hundred ribbies and swiped 28 bases, but struck out 133 times in 530 at-bats.
[quote]His agent is Steve Canter, who has compared Cantu’s situation to Milton Bradley and Shea Hillebrand[/quote]
You gotta be kidding. Why would an agent compare his client to those two clubhouse cancers?
And now Lohse is gone, too.
No word on who’s taking his spot yet.
Yep…and that bang you just heard was the other shoe I mentioned a couple days ago, hitting the floor. This leaves 11 pitchers and 24 players total on the 25-man.
Somebody’s gonna be handed a plane ticket to Washington real soon.
And the lucky recipients of the predicted plane tickets to Washington are:
[i]Elizardo Ramirez[/i] got called up to take Kyle Lohse’s roster slot.
[i]Mark Bellhorn[/i] had his contract selected from the Bats. Chad Moeller was outrighted to Louisville.
And finally – for this post, anyway – despite the callup of Ramirez, late Tuesday night, the Reds also officially let the cat out of the bag about [i]Phil Dumatrait[/i], who will be coming up for his big league debut on Thursday against Washington.
Sorry if these moves have already been posted elsewhere and I missed ’em. Oh, and just for the record, my reaction when I saw that Ramirez was called up instead of Dumatrait was, “WTF?” and my reaction when I learned that Dumatrait was nevertheless going to start on Thursday, instead of Ramirez, was “WTF?” so don’t ask me why they did it this way!
I can say with 100% certainty that there are 25 men now on the active roster, so when Dumatrait comes up for his start on Thursday, somebody has to go bye-bye.
Idle speculation: Maybe Ramirez was called up as an insurance policy in case one of the guys starting Tuesday or Wednesday had his foot run over by the team bus and couldn’t pitch, and will return to the Bats when Dumatrait comes up. If that’s the case, I expect he’ll be sent packing again when they activate Dumatrait to pitch on Thursday.
And the lucky recipients of the predicted plane tickets to Washington are:
[i]Elizardo Ramirez[/i] got called up to take Kyle Lohse’s roster slot.
[i]Mark Bellhorn[/i] had his contract selected from the Bats. Chad Moeller was outrighted to Louisville.
And finally – for this post, anyway – despite the callup of Ramirez, late Tuesday night, the Reds also officially let the cat out of the bag about [i]Phil Dumatrait[/i], who will be coming up for his big league debut on Thursday against Washington.
Sorry if these moves have already been posted elsewhere and I missed ’em. Oh, and just for the record, my reaction when I saw that Ramirez was called up instead of Dumatrait was, “WTF?” and my reaction when I learned that Dumatrait was nevertheless going to start on Thursday, instead of Ramirez, was “WTF?” so don’t ask me why they did it this way!
I can say with 100% certainty that there are 25 men now on the active roster, so when Dumatrait comes up for his start on Thursday, somebody has to go bye-bye.
Idle speculation: Maybe Ramirez was called up as an insurance policy in case one of the guys starting Tuesday or Wednesday had his foot run over by the team bus and couldn’t pitch. If that’s the case, I expect he’ll be sent packing again when they activate Dumatrait to pitch on Thursday.
What do they mean, Bellhorn had his contract [i]selected[/i]? Don’t they usually say they purchased the contract, or something like that?
I wonder if they’re going to send Todd Coffey on his way…
It means basically the same thing as “contract purchased” – guy not on the 40-man is being added to the 40-man. Supposedly there’s a nominal fee that goes to the minor league club.
Maybe the Reds are cheapskates and routinely rook the Bats out of that nominal fee, because they seem to like to use the alternative terminology “contract selected” for some reason. For example, they also used that terminology earlier this year when they “selected the contract” of old CHFS favorite DeWayne Wise.
I don’t know if Ramirez being called up means the end for Coffey or if he was just an insurance policy as I speculated in another thread, but as it turns out, Arroyo had his ass handed to him tonight and lasted just 1-2/3 innings, so Ramirez ended up pitching two innings in relief.
Congratulations to Brandon Phillips, the Reds’ first 20-20 man at second base since Joe Morgan in 1977!
HMZ
UPDATE: Looks like I guessed right about the insurance policy bit.
Mark Sheldon on the official site quoted Pete Mackanin as saying just that, in fact. “It was just a matter of we needed some insurance in the bullpen, somebody with a little length. Ramirez was in a position of giving us a little length. If (Tuesday starter Bobby) Livingston had gotten knocked out early, I was concerned. Worst case scenario, I don’t want to go deep in the bullpen last night and then we’ve got (Matt) belisle (on Friday).”
Which leads me to the following two thoughts:
1. I thought the idea behind calling up Santos was to have a guy who could give them some length.
2. Now that Ramirez, who took Lohse’s roster slot, pitched tonight, [i]who’s going to pitch on Saturday[/i]??? Since Harang missed his last start (sore lower back), I suppose he might pitch Saturday if he’s ready. If not…
HMZ
Ramirez was sent down to Louisville after tonight’s game, so maybe they’ll be calling up another arm for Saturday?
Guy gets called up, pitches two scoreless innings, then gets sent back down. :confused:
If Harang doesn’t start on Saturday…The only starter left on the 40-man who isn’t already up here is Homer Bailey, and he’s on the DL in Louisville. Gosling pitched in relief tonight. Maybe we could be looking at Santos, a former starter in Pittsburgh, getting his first start as a Red. He last pitched on Sunday against the Cubs.
HMZ
I think the feeling is that Ramirez isn’t quite 100% yet. They called him up to be an emergency long man out of the pen, but don’t want to use him regularly as either a reliever or a starter yet.
He’s pitched well in Louisville, as a starter, and I think the Reds are very happy with him. They just don’t think he’s entirely healthy yet, and they’re being very careful.
Turns out Santos [i]would[/i] have been the guy on Saturday if he hadn’t been needed in relief on Thursday or Friday.
Those plans went out the window when Dumatrait made his big-league debut on Thursday. His first pitch went to the backstop, his second pitch went for a base hit, and after 82 pitches he was headed for the showers, having worked only 3-1/3 innings. Santos ended up pitching the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings and it’s back to the old drawing board on coming up with a starter for Saturday.
At least they’re on the road. Pete won’t have GABP fans screaming at him when he has to leave a faltering starter out there to get hammered. That could be on the horizon, because the bullpen worked almost 15 innings in the three games against the Nats.
Tom Shearn was supposed to pitch tonight for the Bats. He was scratched, and Daniel Guerrero from Dayton is starting instead.
When asked why Shearn was scratched, Rick Sweet said, “No comment.”
I thought that meant Shearn would be starting tomorrow, but Trent says Belisle Saturday, Arroyo Sunday. So maybe Shearn’s the new long man out of the pen, in case of Belisle meltdown.
Arrgh. Trent said [i]Livingston[/i] Saturday, Arroyo Sunday. Belisle is pitching tonight, of course. For some reason I always confuse those two.