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Thursday, January 26, 2006

Rumor Mill: Griffey to Atlanta?



Once again the rumor of Ken Griffey Jr. coming to Atlanta has been rekindled. I wouldn't look too much into this. In fact, the only reason why this came up is probably due to the fact that new management is in place at Cinncinatti. Honestly, these teams could get a trade done, but money would be the major issue. The Reds have shown interest in Braves pitchers in the past. On personal note, I would love to see Griffey with the Braves. He's been one of my favorite players growing up. He's still a productive hitter, lost a step in the OF, and needs another solid year to prove he's clean from the injury bug. So, here's my trade proposal:

Atlanta sends Thomson/Ramirez/Davies, K.J./Langerhans, pitching prospect (Lerew) to the Reds for Griffey. Cinncinatti would have to pickup 50-60% of his remaining salary. Griffey's salary is kinda complicated because all of the interest and deferred dollars written in. Let's take a look:

Griffey's monster paycheck
2000-2009
9 years/116.5M plus 16.5M 2009 club option/$4M buyout

$57.5M of the salary is deffered at 4% interest and paid out from 2009-2024
This moves 6.5M of his salary in 2001- 2008 and 5.5M of his 2000 salary to those years above.

With three years remaining on his contract, Griffey makes between 9.2M and 9.3 M equaling to $27.9M plus the buyout or option, which I'm pretty sure will be a buyout. We finnally come to $31.9M. Say the Reds pickup 50%, that would come out to 15.95M (buyout included) over three years for each team to pay. So having Griffey for the next three years for around $5.3M/ year isn't too bad. Whew! That's too much math for me. What probably causes this rumor to reoccur is the clause in Griffey's contract that states, he will only accept trades to Atlanta, Houston, L.A., and St. Louis. Once again, the idea of this actually happening is unlikely.

I spent many hours back in the day playing this, in fact I still own it:

posted by Adam at 12:19 PM

5 Comments:

  • Griffey should go back to the AL. He'll be a DH 4 Life. Did you ever play the sequel on SNES called Winning RUn?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:51 PM  

  • I don't think Grif would be happy playing left field and I'd be scared to death of his being so prone to injury (especially with the money involved).

    He's a great player but I just don't see it happening or being helpful for the Braves.

    By Blogger Steven, at 4:00 PM  

  • I think you are willing to give up a heck of a lot more for Griffey than I would be - assuming Cincinnati would cherrypick some of the youngsters you mentioned and not some of the veterans (Davies, Kelly Johnson, and Lerew would be a steep price, mostly because I like Davies than anything else though).

    By Blogger XXX, at 11:49 PM  

  • Wya too much. The Reds should be thrilled with Davies and Johnson. Given the state of Reds pitching, they would be more likely to want Davies and Thomson.

    Griffey is something of a financial albatross.

    By Blogger IMHO, at 5:59 AM  

  • Thanks for the posts. I guess I was thinking moreso of the Reds needs than the Braves. In the past, Cinncy has asked alot in return for it's best players.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 7:55 AM  

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