Dye-Bailey

I’m not that good at handicapping trades right after they happened — I’m really more of a hindsight guy — but my sense of this is that the Reds may have gotten the better end of the Homer Bailey for Jermaine Dye deal.

This may sound surprising in that, generally speaking, trading a 22 year-old pitching prospect for an aging corner guy with a dreadful glove usually constitutes malpractice. I’ve seen a lot of Homer Bailey, however, and my gut is that he’s about to fall into the abyss. He’s a putative power pitcher whose fastball has slowed down, who hasn’t made any adjustments or developed a credible third pitch, and who, based on his reaction to being sent down the past couple of years, seems to have some attitude problems. Could he turn it around with the change of scenery and turn into Curt Schilling or something? Sure, I suppose anything is possible and, hey, the guy is only 22. But I’m just kind of going with my gut on this one, and my gut tells me that he’s going to bop around for the next four or five years, disappointing wherever he goes, and making people scratch their heads and wonder why in the hell he never took off.

Dye? Not exactly someone who the Reds are going to build around, but he’s a useful bat at the very least, and if he can tear it up in the first half, he could be a useful trade chit for the Reds to send to a playoff contender desperate for an extra bat.

UPDATE: Now a bunch of people are saying that the deal isn’t going down after all.

Man, I hate the Winter Meetings.