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Walt Jocketty set out this offseason to find a right-handed bat to replace some of the pop lost when Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey Jr. were traded last year and to offset the left-handed core of the lineup formed by Jay Bruce and Joey Votto. He very nearly traded for Jermaine Dye and has showed interest in Pat Burrell and Rocco Baldelli. And now, according to Hal McCoy at the Dayton Daily news, he's signed Willy Taveras. The article quotes Jocketty as being excited by the "speed at defense" that Taveras adds to the club. Taveras does add speed, as shown by his 68 stolen bases last year. Defense? Maybe not. Ultimate Zone Rating, or UZR (which is now published at FanGraphs) shows pretty significant negatives for Taveras in center field in his last two years in Colorado, though David Pinto's Probabalistic Model of Range shows Taveras as above average.
Of course, the main reason this is a terrible move is that Taveras is just an awful offensive player. Last year, in Colorado, he hit .251/.308/.296, good for a mind bogglingly bad OPS+ of 56. So he's 27, he's got no offensive ability, and his defensive value is nebulous, but he's fast as hell. I'm sure that means Dusty Baker will bat him leadoff every night. If that happens and Taveras fails to find the form that lead him to a .367 OBP in 2007 you can probably cross the Reds off the list of your NL playoff sleepers next year.
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