Homer Bailey is one season from free agency and looking at a huge payday, leading to speculation that the Reds might shop him this offseason.
Yesterday general manager Walt Jocketty addressed those rumors--and specifically one regarding the Yankees calling him about Bailey--telling Mark Sheldon of MLB.com:
Bailey is a tricky case in terms of handing him a massive long-term contract, because while he obviously has dominant raw stuff and is still just 27 years old he also has just two seasons with an ERA under 4.00. Of course, they’re the most recent two seasons, during which time Bailey has logged 417 total innings with a 3.58 ERA, although his strikeout rate of 7.9 per nine innings is hardly elite and prior to 2012 he’d never thrown more than 132 innings in a season.
He’ll almost surely be asking for more than $100 million and perhaps a whole lot more, but Sheldon writes that “the Reds do not feel compelled to deal Bailey for players” because they could always get draft pick compensation for him departing as a free agent.