There are quite a few Brad Lidge trade rumors going around right now.

Check out this post at Astros Daily where they ask people to guess the blockbuster trade the Astros will make this offseason - it's pretty fun. Most of them are involve us trading Lidge + prospects for either Miggy, Manny, Abreu, or Adam Dunn.

First of all: do I think we will trade Brad Lidge? Actually, I think it's fairly likely. The organization has proven in the past that we don't mind trading away closers (see Wagner, Dotel) in order to bring in prospects (Astacio, Bucholz in the Wagner deal) or superstars (Beltran in the Dotel deal). This is a great mindset to have, since closers pitch around 80 innings a year at most and are simply not as valuable as a starting pitcher or everyday player.

Of those four possibilites, I'd be most interested in trading for (drum roll) Adam Dunn. Tejada fills a bigger hole for us, Manny is a Top 5 offensive player in MLB, and Abreu would be a sweet homecoming, but they're all freakin' expensive and on the wrong side of 30. Dunn, on the other hand, is only moderately expensive (4.6 mil last year, will probably want a raise to around 7/8/9 million this year), is from Houston, and (best of all) just turned 26. Oh, and he has a career line of .248 / .383 / .518. And did I mention he's 26 years old?

The Reds, as always, need pitching - I would do something like Backe + Lidge or Astacio + Lidge or Nieve + Lidge in a heartbeat.

Oh, and just in case you were interested, Adam Dunn's two most similar players through age 25? Darryl Strawberry and Reggie Jackson.

Brad Lidge's? Ken Tatum and Mariano Rivera. Ok, Rivera is pretty good.

You might not know Lidge is about to turn 29, and he still has some injury concerns. Dunn has no such concerns, and actually has an above-average Range Factor in LF. I admit that I have a bit of a baseball crush on Adam Dunn, but, one more time:

Age: 26
Career line: .248 / .383 / .518, 158 HR

Ignore the .248 and focus on the 901 career OPS. Yum.