Thursday, August 9th, 2007 by Adam Wagner
On Krivsky and Ankiel
The NL Central has been the scene of two of the more interesting stories in baseball (excluding that one about that guy in San Francisco) over the past few days. The two stories have involved two of the teams that the Pirates should be most interested in, if not only because they have been linked to the Cardinals’ Walt Jocketty (no matter how preposterous that rumor is) and because Wayne Krivsky, the Reds’ GM, has done everything wrong in a manner similar to Dave Littlefield.
Two days ago, Reds’ president and chief executive officer Bob Castellini gave Krivsky, who has traded young hitting such as Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez for rag-armed relievers, the dreaded vote of confidence. Castellini stated that Krivsky’s job is not in jeopardy and that the GM, like all other members of the team, is putting a ton of effort into improving the Reds’ product on the field. The only issue is that Krivsky has not looked particularly good at his job, with the only noteworthy positive move being picking Josh Hamilton in the Rule 5 draft. Yes, Castellini stated that Krivsky’s job is safe, but if he shows any more incompetence it would not be at all surprising to see him be fired.
The manner in which this impacts the Pirates, outside of the Reds being a team very similar to the Pirates in many ways (bad trading history, bad GM, two aces at the top of the rotation, etc.) is that the fate of Krivsky may have something to do with the fate of Dave Littlefield, who looks just as incompetent and has his team performing even worse than the Reds. There are not two GMs in baseball who deserve to be fired more than these two and both could be gone very soon.
On a more positive note, Rick Ankiel was recalled yesterday when Scott Spiezio went on the restricted list due to potential issues related to substance abuse. The situation with Spiezio is a little bit creepy considering what happened to Spiezio’s late teammate Josh Hancock earlier this season. Ankiel’s return to the majors, however, is a fantastic story.
As many know, the outfielder went from being a prospect of Prior-like proportions to imploding in the playoffs, leading many to believe that his baseball career was over. Ankiel has remade himself as a player, however, morphing into a power-hitting outfielder (32 HRs and 89 RBIs for the Cardinals’ AAA Memphis club). The story seemed to be made even more fairy tale-esque when Ankiel hit a three-run home run in the seventh inning Thursday night, leading to a standing ovation and subsequent curtain call. This story is, simply enough, one of the best in baseball this season. Anytime a player fails to the extent that Ankiel did in the limelight that he did, it takes a ton of effort and fortitude to overcome the criticism and self-doubt. Ankiel has, however, battled through all of that and turned himself into at least a major league player again. Congratulations, Rick.
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