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Delivery Time! Bubba Brings the X (as in Ginter X)!

I've been blogging here at Nachos Grande on Blogger's platform since 2008.  In that time, I've written thousands of posts (over 5300 and counting) and had over 800,000 visitors come through mi casa.  As a side effect of all that traffic, I've completed trades with hundreds of different people (and usually more than one trade) - so it means a lot when I say I have another favorite blog trading partner to add to my list of great traders...  Matt from Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits.

Matt and I completed our first trade February of this year...but we didn't stop there.  From February 2015 until now we've actually sent a total of nine packages back and forth!  That's pretty impressive for such a short time.

Even better (for both of us), we each like to collect Allen & Ginter and so most of our trades have somehow involved our favorite brand of cards.

The latest envelope to show up in my mailbox certainly carried on with that theme as Matt sent me eight cards, all from Allen & Ginter X.

If you haven't heard of that set, it's basically the regular Allen & Ginter set except all the base cards have a black background rather than white.  And you could only buy it online.

So yeah, I didn't bother with the set but luckily for me, Matt did.  And even luckier, he decided to send a big stack of the Reds my way!

A fun game to play with those eight cards:

How many will be Reds at the start of the 2016 baseball season?

We can safely rule out Marlon Byrd because he was actually shipped off mid-season.  Starting at the top, I'd say there is 20% chance they trade away Cozart and a 0% chance of trading Mesoraco (he is trying to come back from injury, they'd be selling super low).  In the middle row, we already discussed Byrd but I'd say that a trade of Phillips has a 50% chance of occurring.  I don't think anyone wants Hamilton and nearly non-existent OPS so I'll say 0% chance there.  In the bottom row, I think Chapman is likely to be traded, let's say 85% while Bruce has a better than 50/50 shot of landing on a new team (60% I'd say).  That leaves us with Votto - arguably the Reds' best player and, perhaps, best trade chip (if a team can convince their owner/fans/etc that Votto's long-term contract won't be an albatross around their collective necks).  Personally, I think super long contracts are stupid...and in this case that will mean Votto will stay put (5% of being traded).

So there you have it, my predictions for the Reds' off season.  I also predict that the Reds will be terrible in 2017 - you can carve that one in stone unfortunately.

Thanks for the cards Matt (especially since they were all new Ginter cards for my collection)!  The black backgrounds definitely make the images pop!  As for anyone else, if you'd like to trade be sure to check out my want list and then make an offer.

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