Red Alert

YEAR	PLAYER	HRS	TEAM'S HRS	% OF TEAM'S HRS
1992	Paul O'Neill	14	99	14.1%
1993	Chris Sabo	21	137	15.3%
1994	Kevin Mitchell	30	124	24.2%
1995	Ron Gant	29	161	18.0%
1996	Barry Larkin	33	191	17.3%
1997	Willie Greene	26	142	18.3%
1998	Bret Boone	24	138	17.4%

What in the world is an expensive power hitter such as Greg Vaughn doing in the camp of the Cincinnati Reds , a low-budget operation that used to ferry its players around on commercial flights instead of charters? Vaughn , who arrived at the opening of Reds spring training in Sarasota , Fla. , in a white stretch limo, is helping the Reds take a swipe at the baseball maxim that only the biggest-spending clubs can dream of October. His presence in a Cincinnati uniform is a signal that the Reds are doing something radical for a team at the lower end of baseball's class structure: actually trying to win.

Last season Cincinnati took the downmarket approach: Conceding defeat before the first pitch was thrown, they pared their payroll so far (from $38.2 million in 1997 to $21 million) that the team made money for the first time in at least five years. The Reds also lost 85 games—only the second time since the expansion era began in 1961 that Cincinnati endured three consecutive seasons without a winning record.

The acquisition of Vaughn in a five-player trade with the San Diego Padres on Feb. 2 clinched the Reds' return to the financial middle ground that most clubs find untenable. (Indeed, it took Cincinnati 's board of directors five days of hand-wringing to sign off on the $2.2 million in added salary that the Vaughn deal entailed.) With a $30 million payroll, goes the theory, the 1999 Reds will spend too much money to guarantee a profit and too little to guarantee a contender. No team made the playoffs last year without spending at least $47 million. None had a winning record without spending at least $38 million.

"I'd love to someday have an $80 million payroll and be able to go out and get a player when I need one," says Jim Bowden , Cincinnati 's general manager. "Maybe someday, in a new ballpark, that will happen. Can you win with a $30 million payroll these days? I think you can, but you have to be a little more creative."

Bowden is one of the game's strongest advocates for correcting the competitive imbalance in baseball. He has flooded commissioner Bud Selig 's office with correspondence endorsing realignment based on revenues: divisions of haves and have-nots. At the same time he is trying to prove that a team with a low payroll can win. If he succeeds, won't he blast a hole in his own argument for realignment? No, he says, because he believes the imbalance will only worsen over time.

Trying to win on a shoestring has inspired Bowden to hand out more second chances than a booking agent in the Catskills . When you can't compete for big-ticket free agents and you work for Marge Schott—the penurious outgoing owner who'd rather pamper her Saint Bernards than her ballplayers—you are always on the lookout for the next Shecky Greene to add to your B-list bargains.

In his seven years as Cincinnati G.M., Bowden has signed three outfielders who had been out of baseball for a year ( Eric Davis , Ron Gant and Deion Sanders ), a clinically depressed pitcher (righthander Pete Harnisch ), a manager in exile blackballed for his highballs ( Davey Johnson ) and an outfielder who seemingly spent as much time on the disabled list as off ( Kevin Mitchell ). When Jerry Springer appeared with a glove at the Reds' spring training camp last month, you didn't know whether it was a publicity stunt or the result of another of Bowden 's wild scavenger hunts for talent—at least until the schlockmeister (and former Cincinnati mayor) swung some lumber. "Can't hit, can't run, can't field," Bowden reported.

This season, emboldened by a four-year contract extension, the imminent removal of Schott and the lack of a powerhouse team in the National League Central , Bowden has shifted gears and reached out for top-shelf talent. Two months before becoming the first general manager in history to trade for Vaughn , a hitter coming off a 50-home-run season, Bowden snagged a former 20-game winner, Denny Neagle , from the Atlanta Braves in a four-player trade that added $4.75 million to the Cincy payroll. "The key is having assets," Bowden says. "We've got them now." Translation: Cincinnati has bought itself four months of hope and high ticket sales. (That's four months more than are possessed by cash-strapped teams such as the Kansas City Royals , the Minnesota Twins and the Montreal Expos , which have already waved the white flag.) Come the July 31 trading deadline, the Reds will be either a low-payroll contender defying conventional wisdom or an auction house offering Neagle and Vaughn '-to bidders with younger (read: cheaper) players. Imagine a team that comes with an exchange policy. That's Cincinnati .

"There is no risk here," Bowden says. "I believe a player has the most [trade] value in July."

"I just hope he doesn't pull a Jerry Reinsdorf and say we have no chance if we're 3� games out," Neagle says, referring to the Chicago White Sox owner's midseason surrender and fire sale in 1997. "I'm signed for next year, so he can always trade me after the season. But Vaughn 's a different case. He can be a free agent, so it will be more urgent to trade him."