I guess that's it then...

In seperate interviews today with Jocketty and Castellini both said that the shopping for the offseason is over, with at least one big hole left to be filled. The payroll is at the budget limit, and unless Obama can miraculously revive this economy before baseball season and the Reds sell out their stadium with season tickets, that budget ain't changing. With no other major free agent signings, and this budget supposedly in place since the fall, it makes me wonder if they really had any intentions of going after that left fielder at all? They did take on a little salary in Hernandez, but I don't think that was more than what they were expecting to take on for the catcher they wanted (and let me reiterate that I still think that was a bad trade: we picked up an overpaid mediocre catcher. I reserve the right to take back my comment should he have a career year and be that hitter we were looking for all along). Taveras also cost a little money, but again, they knew they were going to have to spend that money all along, and should have been planning on that as well.

    As of right now the highest earner on the team is the closer, Cordero. To me that seems a little extravagant for a team that as of right now doesn't look like it be in a lot of closing situations this year. Not to mention the fact that he was not the "shut the door in their face" closer that we expected him to be when signing him. The next highest paid players are Harang and Arroyo, which seems to be in line to me. Alex Gonzalez is 5th highest on the team (behind Hernandez) and from they way the execs are talking, they're not planning on him starting the year at SS because of the injury. We'll see if he's up to his style of play from when we signed him and if he is actually worth that money.

 All that said to say this: it will take a few years to get out of some bad contracts and for Jocketty to really take over with "his" ballclub, which I think has a chance to be a winning ballclub. I'm not saying that former GMs were terrible, but I (and Castellini obviously) have a lot of respect for Jocketty and what he can do with a modest payroll given a few years. Wake me up when the 2010 season starts....