Even more about Casey

According to this morning's PG article about the Casey deal the Reds may be swinging us $2 million of his salary. That would be a very very good thing because as you may have noticed, the fact that he's a really nice guy and from Pittsburgh hasn't completely sold me that this is a good trade. It is enough for apparently about 90% of Pirates fans, however, which is a scary thing to me, mainly because it means that Charlie could be right in that the trade was made entirely to placate local fans and put more people in the seats to make the team money, but it won't make us good enough to justify spending this much money again, thus the team makes a big profit. It's also true that Casey may be a nice guy and he may be from Pittsburgh, but that doesn't make him WANT to play baseball here. Just look at this quote from Casey in the above linked article upon hearing he was traded to the Pirates:

That stinks. I want to play for the Cincinnati Reds. I don't want to go anywhere else. I love Cincinnati and the team and the fans and the charitable work I do there. But if I have to go -- and I don't want to -- Pittsburgh's definitely the best place because it's where I was born and raised.

I'm sure they caught him off guard right after he found out he was traded and his tune will change once he gets here, but the initial reaction is telling. Man, they traded me to the PIRATES? That sucks. No one wants to play there.

We'll see what Littlefield does with the rest of that $15 million, but I'm becoming less and less convinced that he's off to a good start.