"My Poor Reds"

i know that most of you dont give a dang about the reds, or maybe even baseball in general, but i do. and yes i know that the world series just ended and pitchers and catchers dont report for another 3 months or so, this is what baseball purists like to call the "hot stove" season. this is the time of year when teams are trying to get better, dump salary, or stay ahead of the market. this is also the time of year when fans can start hoping for a better year and getting hopes high for the following season...
what boggles my mind is how and why the reds choose to spend their money- which we dont have much to spend to begin with, and the fact that we are trying to dump our 4 highest paid players (brandon phillips, bronson arroyo, aaron harang, and francisco cordero) and ill be honest only one of those makes sense- cordero. with closers being- 1st plentiful, and 2nd- seem to come from nowhere every year, why would a small/medium market team pay so highly for an so called "elite" closer? granted he did have a pretty good year last year, but who knows what the next will bring- and we arent a big market team so we need to be careful on who and what we spend our money on. but just bear with me and ill show you why we should keep the others. first of all the dodgers, phillies, and cardinals all seem like locks to repeat and get to the playoffs. but who will win the wild card? marlins? mets? braves? cubs? giants? nobody knows and any of those teams could make a stong case for it, but so can we. our lineup could be something like this.
1st base- joey votto- a great young slugger who hit .322 last year with 84rbis and 25 hrs- despite missing 30+ games. could move to left to fill that hole and help make room for another young gun yonder alonzo
2nd base- brandon phillips- one of our highest paid players and rightfully so. easily one of the top 3-5 second basemen in baseball (utley, kinsler, pedrioa and who else? you think robinson cano puts up numbers when he is the only bat in the lineup- yeah right.) ps he is a continual 30/30 threat and last year knocked in almost 100 rbis and that was with the horrawful start he had and missing a month due to injuries
short stop- this is where things could get tricky...cause we dont have one. and all good teams have a good SS. last year jerry hairiston, alex gonzalez, and paul janish combined to hit .317 or something like that. internet rumors seem to think that we are going to try and sign orlando cabrera, which he would be alright- and he has had some postseason success!
3rd base- and this is where things get stupid for the reds. scott rolen- at 11 mil a year. granted we did play better down the stretch, and he gives us a veteran, but we traded edwin encarnacion- a young and upcoming (error and injury prone 3b) for someone on the way out. but we are going to pay so much for his service it doesnt make sense...
Out Field- (who it should be) well jay bruce is our new slugger (strike out or homer) gets our RF, drew stubbs- our top pick a few years ago and played really really well in his call up should play CF and since johnny gomes lance nix seem to be the same player coupled with wladimir balentien and maybe yonder alonzo/joey votto. id say this- chris heisey- a red hot rookie to be, yonder alonzo (if hes ready) or johnny gomes. ok so LF may be a little up in the air, and to be honest we have some guys that im not even sure are still with the reds (chris dickerson anybody? darnell mcdonald?)
OutField- (who it will be) RF- jay bruce, CF- willy taveras- a highly overpaid (3 million) and underproducing player- something the reds cant have. and LF- yeah i dont know. but itll be some scrub for sure because dusty baker is a moron.
Catcher- another interesting spot for the reds- we need to resign ramon hernandez. period. corky miller, craig tatum and ryan hanigan suck.
Pitching- (and if you think that pitching doesnt matter- youre dumb. its why teams win. yankees- great pitching, phils- same things, braves of the 90's check. why the dodgers havent won in the playoff- no starting pitching, tigers and chisox of a few years ago, angles- good pitching. i mean really i could go on and on) but this could be our starting 5
1. Edinson Volquez- has the best stuff, but might not be back in time.
2. Johnny Cueto- another young live arm that keeps improving
3. Bronson Arroyo- a 15 game winner that eats innings and 3.84 era last year
4. Aaron Harang- no longer the top of the line starter we once thought, but he also eats innings and has a tremendous strike out to walk ratio. (however something doesnt happen when he pitches- the reds dont win....)
5. Homer Bailey- the former minor league sensation has finally arrived and was arguably the best pitcher in the national league, maybe even the majors the last month of the season 6-1 with a 1.70 era in his last seven starts. its true. go look it up.
and waiting in the wings in case of suckiness or injury is micah owings and darryl thompson (a 4A player ie- dominates triple A, but not ready for the bigs- and did win his first career start ever- at yankee stadium!
Bullpen- mike lincoln, danny rea herrera, jared "chops" burton, and arthur rhodes could/should/and have done a decent job in getting the ball to the closer (whom i say we need to rid ourselves of) and promote nick masset to that spot. but who knows. our problem last year was too many crappy players (janish, mcdonald, dickerson, taveras) playing too much. votto, bruce, and bphil missing at least a month each with injuries- ps you take the three best bats out of the lineup of any team and they would stuggle much less a team with as little talent as the reds. and a lack of starting pitching (volquez missing most of it, harang the last 8 weeks, homer bailey not getting to the bigs until late aug, micah owings not being ready)
and to think that we finished 6 games below .500 and 13 games out of first, despite not winning a game for 28 days (seriously) maybe next year will finally be the return of the big red machine...

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