Orioles trade Hernandez for Freel; Wieters to benefit

A busy day at the winter meetings with hardly anything getting done. One trade to comment on from Tuesday with the Orioles sending catcher Ramon Hernandez to the Reds for utilityman Ryan Freel and two minor leaguers. The Reds get their quality starting catcher while the Orioles will use Freel in center field or wherever they see fit.

Freel had mixed emotions about the trade.

"It's hard to say right now," he said on a conference call. "A piece of me feels excitement and a piece of me is upset about the relationship I've had with Cincinnati. It's tough. One thing in life is you can't look in the past. You have to look in the future. I'm torn."

Freel said he had already spoken with MacPhail, but they didn't go into specifics about what Freel's role would be next season. MacPhail said Freel would play some in center field.

"They're excited to have me," Freel said. "I'm looking forward to a healthy upcoming season."

Freel's role as a heavily-used part-time player probably won't change much, and Hernandez should continue to be an above-average offensive catcher, even if he hit just .257 in 2008.

The most intriguing aspect of this deal is Matt Wieters, the Orioles likely replacement for Hernandez.

"This trade was more about Matt Wieters, frankly," MacPhail said. "It had been our goal to make sure we could introduce Matt into the major league scene somewhere over the course of the '09 season, not necessarily to start right away, but we thought he could handle it eventually after a little time in Triple-A possibly under his belt. We knew that would create a situation where we were going to have to split some playing time with him and Ramon, and we knew Ramon wouldn't be happy about that."

Wieters looks like the real deal. He's 6'5, 230, bats both, and hit .355 with 27 homers between Class A and Double-A. He's going to be coveted on fantasy draftboards as a potential breakthrough player in 2009.