Apr 22nd 2008 4:00PM by Will Brinson
When Dusty Baker announced his impending reign of terror, he did so with great authority. He mandated that Joey Votto stop looking at so many pitches (even if they were bad) and he immediately sent top prospect and future of the organization Jay Bruce back down to Triple-A. Understandable, certainly, because Dusty had Corey Patterson on his roster.

Yes, by “understandable”, I do in fact mean “certifiably and irrationally stupid”. Bruce was the consensus number one prospect in all of baseball in 2007 and seemed nearly assured of the starting centerfield job in Cincy. Anyway, I hate to be overtly optimistic, much less to trust the mad (cow disease ridden?) brain of Mr. Baker, but I think there’s a pretty good chance we see Bruce back in a Reds uniform within the next few weeks.

Why? Because Corey Patterson stinks, that’s why. Yes, he started off hot, but as my good friend Mr. Greber pointed out in a new series of articles today, so did Chris Shelton. Now, he’s batting .183 and not clogging up the bases to the tune of a .254 OBP. Congratulations, everyone. (The insane thing is that he has four home runs. Just weird.)

Bruce, meanwhile, is putting up numbers (.333/.348/.561) with three home runs and four stolen bases in just 16 games at Louisville. The best part, Dusty? Only two walks. That’s right. You don’t even have to tell him to swing more! Look, the point of all this Dusty-dogging and Patterson-bashing isn’t to point out how silly the Reds organization was for signing him to coach the team (not entirely anyway).

The point is to tell you, the fantasy owner, what a steal you could be getting on Jay Bruce right now. The kid is a masher, he’s ready for the majors and sooner or later, Dusty is going to have to cave and let him on the field at the major league level. You either need to a) pick him up and stash him now or b) make a play for him from another owner before it’s too late. Bruce is the future, and if there’s anything the Reds should learn from the way Votto, Johnny Cueto and Edison Volquez are currently playing, it’s that the future is now.