Archive for November, 2011

I remember this trade. Thanks to Chris Jaffe for reminding me.

The 2012 Dayton Dragons have yet to take shape but the leadership that will guide them in the coming season has been formally announced. Delino DeShields Sr. again will manage the Dragons.  Delino brings his 13 year Major League experience to the field.  Managerially he led the Dragons to the best record in the MidWest League in 2011 and proved his ability in the clubhouse by guiding the improvement of Billy Hamilton, a player quite similar in abilities to those DeShields displayed at 20 years of age.  I expect to see Billy spend a short amount of time in Advanced [...]

A shopping list for Walt when he attends the Winter Meetings.

The holiday season takes a beeline for Christmas shortly after that last helping of turkey is served on Thanksgiving night and while that almost always means frequent shopping trips for some or numerous online orders for others, what it most likely means to a majority of the country is that it is the season of giving. Being the most charitable nation in the world requires willing and eager participants to come up with an almost overflowing stream of donations. While the overwhelming majority of monetary donations come from individuals, a non-trivial amount does come from corporations, foundations and funds. One [...]

  Several months ago, as the trade deadline approached, I suggested on June 9th the Reds should make the move and trade to Ramon Hernandez to someone who needed a catcher.  I even suggested a couple of good fits in Pittsburgh and San Fransisco; after Ryan Doumit received a mid season injury, damaging the surprisingly competitive Pirates and Buster Posey fell to the wayside for the reigning WS champs with a season ending injury these teams needed help and had commodities the Reds could, and should, have traded for.

Yonder Alonso is sure attracting a lot of attention.

A few intriguing posts about the Reds from the past week.

Think the Reds front office has a busy “offseason”? Think again.

Where do I start with Aroldis Chapman?

There was little chance of escaping this week without reading an article related to sports that tied in with the upcoming holiday of Thanksgiving, so hopefully the worn out idea doesn’t already have you clicking for another website. Think of me as that weird uncle at Thanksgiving dinner; you’re stuck here so you might as well stick around and see if I can do something to entertain you. I promise though, there will be no weird smells or noises emanating from the page while you’re here. The engineers haven’t quite worked that in to HTML5 yet. When it comes time [...]

Not like we were going to see a frenzy of activity, but it just seems too darn quiet in these parts, doesn’t it? There’s hardly any chatter except for all that racket about Joey Votto which touched a nerve to use John’s words. As was popular a couple of decades ago…”Where’s the beef?” Last week, Reds general manager Walt Jocketty told John Fay that during the GM meetings, he met with a few clubs. “We’ve met with quite a few clubs,” Jocketty said. “We’re still in phase where clubs are checking to see what everyone is trying to do. We’re [...]

MLB.com Reds beat writer Mark Sheldon posted an article about the off season for Aroldis Chapman that reminded me of question I asked myself at the end of the season.  Why was Chapman being used in the Fall League regardless of his status as a reliever or the intent to convert him to a starting pitcher?  Now after pitching with mixed results but unable to get through two innings they have decided to shut Chapman down from pitching till spring training while having him work on strength training to prepare him for a full season grind.