MLB History

While the Reds have made plenty of bad trades over the years, historically they haven't gotten torched for signing the wrong free agents. But that doesn't mean there isn't five worthy candidates. Most of these players were around in the 2000s—which is also the time frame of nine straight losing seasons.

The following players have sucked money out of the Reds wallets like a vacuum while giving the team next to nothing on the field. High robbery indeed.

Baseball Hall of Famer Goose Gossage claimed this past weekend that New York Yankees icon Mariano Rivera is not the best relief pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB).

There are five tools to baseball:

Hitting for average, hitting for power, speed, arm strength, and fielding ability.

In the history of baseball there has only been one man to posses all five tools at an elite level.

His name was Willie Mays.

How many baseball players can you name with 12 gold gloves, 660 career home runs, a .303 career batting average, 338 steals, 3,283 career hits, and 24 All-Star selections?

If you can find me another man with accolades greater than that, I will sell you my soul.

Geoff Britches remembers when his St. Louis Cardinals acquired the services of Roger Maris prior to the 1967 season.

He responds to a recent article whose position is that the New York Yankees should not traded Roger.

Roger Maris Would Not Play for the Yankees

Roger Maris would not have returned to the New York Yankees after the 1966 season.

If Seattle had a sports-themed amusement park, the roller coaster ride would probably be called the “Moose-a-lini”, “Marinator”, or “M’s-Sir-Mount-able”.

For some, a roller coaster is a frightening event.

Ryan Braun is good.

While that is hardly breaking news to hardcore, or even casual, baseball fans, what may surprise most people is just how good Braun is.

The 26-year-old Braun is already historically good. He is all-time great good. With the power stats he's posted in his first three seasons in the majors, his name easily sits next to others like Pujols, Mathews, Kiner, and DiMaggio.

Unlike football or basketball, baseball’s annual player draft is not designed to change the team that year.

They hold the draft in the middle of the season (June) instead of during the off-season because the teams do not expect any player they draft to have an immediate impact. In fact teams usually have to wait years before they see what type of players their draft picks turn out to be.

Dave Paderson is a die-hard New York Mets' fan. In 1966, Dave was attending New York University's graduate school.

One December night that year, on his way back to his home in Flushing, Dave received a wonderful present from New York's other team.

The Arizona Diamondbacks entered their first full decade as a team with the fifth highest payroll in the league. In 2001, just their fourth year in existence, they won one of the most emotional world series in the history of the game.

But after ten years of entertaining baseball fans everywhere, the D'Backs could not be a more different franchise from the one that came back and beat the Yankees in seven games.

From the fifth highest payroll in 2000 to the twentieth in 2009. From Jerry Colangelo to Ken Kendrick. From Joe Garagiola to Josh Byrnes. From Bob Brenly to A.J. Hinch.

After losing the 1964 World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Yankees fired manager Yogi Berra and hired the manager who had beaten them in that World Series, Johnny Keane.

World Champions Again?

Keane, like so many others, failed to realize that the key Yankees' players were mere shells of themselves. He never got to know them, and they never knew the real Johnny Keane.