Dec 1st 2008 11:00AM by Pat Lackey (author feed)
There have been several stories lately about how slow the offseason has been. It’s very true and that becomes obvious when throw-away comments by general managers suddenly become full-fledged rumors.

When asked about his interest in Jermaine Dye, Walt Jocketty told the , “I’m not going to comment. But we have talked to the White Sox about some players. Nothing is close,” and that was all. And that’s probably the most interesting thing to happen in the NL Central in a month.

It’s interesting because Dye would be a good fit for the Reds, adding some real pop to a lineup that could use some, especially with Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey Jr. now departed. He would create a nice veteran presence on a young team and would be very useful to the Reds if they’ve decided that 2009 is the year to arm up and make a run at the top of the NL Central.

On the flip side, he’d be awfully costly to pry out of Chicago. Some of the best years in Dye’s career have come in Chicago and I don’t know how quickly they’d be willing to deal him, even with his hefty $11.5 million price tag. I’d guess the Reds would have to part with at least Homer Bailey and probably more to bring Dye to Cincy. Would giving up on Bailey be worth picking up a soon-to-be 35-year-old outfielder?

Nov 14th 2008 3:20PM by Pat Lackey (author feed)
How many teams in baseball can match a young core of Jay Bruce, Joey Votto, Edinson Volquez, and Johnny Cueto? The Reds have four young players to build around right now that would make every other team in the league jealous. The problem they currently have is that none of the older guys around those young players, namely Brandon Phillips, Aaron Harang, Edwin Encarnacion, and Bronson Arroyo, have performed up to expectations recently.

The question that Cincy now must answer is when their team is going to be ready to contend. They weren’t last year, and Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey Jr. were shipped off as a result. They’re still a ways away right now, though if players like Cueto and Bruce can take steps forward this year, they might be closer to contending then people realize. So should they try to arm up for a run to the top of the Central this year? Or should they sit back and wait.
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Nov 11th 2008 11:15AM by Matt Snyder (author feed)
The Rookie of the Year voting yesterday went as it should have, if you only look at the winners of the awards. It’s hard to congratulate the crusty old members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, though, in light of the fact that those two choices were awfully clear-cut.

If you dive further into the results, however, you will be left scratching your head. Kosuke Fukudome netted a third place vote … oh, and a second place vote. That voter put Geovany Soto first and Fukudome second. So Fukudome had a better season than Joey Votto? Really?

This was not even close to the biggest mistake, though. Edinson Volquez of the Reds was not a rookie, yet received some votes. Not even just one. Three idiots voted for him to finish second. I have no idea why these ballots were even counted, as they voted for an ineligible player. Rules are rules, and yet we’re going to look at the voting results for the 2008 NL Rookie of the Year voting in twenty years on BBReference and see Volquez in fourth place.Continue Reading

Nov 11th 2008 7:37PM by B (author feed)
Neither of those guys on the right should’ve been voted National League Rookie of the Year! The one on the left because he is secretly a hybrid goat-man out to ruin the team from the inside, and the one on the right because… because… well because I don’t think he should, that’s why! I’m a blogger! Nyah!

Your REAL NL ROY is Reds firsty Joey Votto, and if you don’t believe me, allow me to back up my conjecture with cold, hard, scientific fact: homeboy got one first place vote. 31 people went another, unanimous way. I wonder where that #1 came from?

Tonight’s Dugout is after the jump.Continue Reading

Oct 13th 2008 1:01PM by Pat Lackey (author feed)
While most other major league managers were golfing or watching football or just enjoying their down-time this past weekend, Dusty Baker was managing. But he wasn’t managing a big league team; he was doing an interim gig as the manager for his son Darren’s under-10 traveling team while their regular coach was out of town. Deadspin’s Rick Chandler was on the scene.
“This is a lot of fun, and something I never thought I’d be able to do until Darren was older,” said Baker, who may have disappointed many fans by not wearing wristbands for the gig. Instead he rocked the track suit and the Nike Air Maxs. “My dad coached me in Riverside when I was 15, so it’s great to be able to do this with Darren. I’m enjoying it; being back in the San Francisco area and all that. The kids are great.”Look, I’m going to make a joke about pitch counts. It’s going to happen. But before I do, I just want to note that it’s incredibly cool that Dusty did this. If you read the Deadspin post, you can tell that the other kids on the team were pretty excited to have a real big league manager on the bench. It’s something that none of them will forget any time soon. And best of all, it appears that he didn’t make any 10-year-old throw 130 pitches in six innings. Somewhere, Mark Prior is incredibly jealous.

Sep 25th 2008 11:53AM by Tom Fornelli (author feed)
When Dusty Baker was still managing the Chicago Cubs, he did a lot of things that Cubs fans just didn’t quite understand. One of the things Baker did that drove most of the Cubs fans I know crazy was his seemingly undying devotion to Corey Patterson. Patterson was touted as a five-tool superstar in the making as a Cub, but he never developed into one, and instead spent most of his time striking out on forehead high fastballs or flying out harmlessly.

It was enough to make some people wonder if Corey had some kind of dirt on Dusty, and was blackmailing him for playing time. Then when Baker went to Cincinnati to manage the Reds, guess who he brought with him? That’s right, Corey Patterson. Now after Reds fans were forced to watch Patterson play all season and hit .206 (not to mention the sparkling .241 OBP), they’ve come up with their own ideas for why Corey is sticking around. Rumors Dusty felt the need to refute publicly.There’s been a persistent rumor floating around the Reds that Baker’s 28-year-old daughter, Natosha, is dating and/or engaged to outfielder Corey Patterson.

Baker finally had enough when players on the Astros asked him about it.Continue Reading

Sep 18th 2008 9:00AM by Pat Lackey (author feed)

Unless you’re a Red Sox fan, the best story in baseball this year is the Tampa Bay Rays. By now, everyone likely knows the story but let’s recap. In 1998, the Rays came into existence. In every season between 1998 and 2007, they won between 61 and 69 games, except for in 2004. They won 70 that year.

This year, though, is a different story. With last night’s win over the Red Sox, they’ve got 90 wins and a two-game lead in the AL East, a division that seemed to be locked in a deep stranglehold that the Yankees and Red Sox would never let up. The amazing part is that everyone saw this coming in some form. GM Andrew Friedman has rebuilt Chuck LaMar’s mistake from the ground up and the Rays are winning because they’re good, not because they’re lucky.

Baseball is cyclical and every couple of years, a young team bursts on the scene and surprises everyone. Who among baseball’s long suffering franchises is next? There are seven franchises that haven’t made the playoffs since the turn of the century; the Pirates, Nationals, Royals, Brewers, Blue Jays, Reds, Orioles, and Rangers (sorry Mariners and Giants fans, you’ve been good this century and that disqualifies you from this exercise), so let’s take a look at them and see if we can’t figure out who might be in line for the next turnaround.Continue Reading

Sep 14th 2008 10:00AM by Mullet (author feed)

When is a home game not a home game? Well, when Hurricane Ike (and Bud Selig) force you to go to a domed stadium located conveniently in Milwaukee for a Houston Astros home game against the Chicago Cubs, who reside about 90 minutes away from Miller Park and will no doubt be represented well in the crowd for games there tonight and tomorrow afternoon. And it’s not like Brewers fans are going to show up in droves to support the Astros, who are 2.5 games behind them in the wild card. If anything, Brewers fans will show up and they’ll root for the Cubs too. Too bad the Packers aren’t playing the Sunday night game … then maybe Brewers fans would all have their portable TV’s handy to watch the Pack and cheer at completely random times during the baseball game and confuse everyone involved.

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Sep 12th 2008 4:45PM by Mullet (author feed)
In April, this guy was their best pitcher their best hitter. But in September, the Diamondbacks have made him the player named later in the Adam Dunn trade.

It was a poorly kept secret, so the actual announcement is a bit anti-climactic. But Micah Owings has moved on to the Cincinnati Reds after an injury initially kept him from being moved as part of the Dunn trade. He went 4-0 to start the season with a 2.42 ERA. But since then, he’s gone 2-9 with an ERA of 7.09 before going down with a shoulder injury. Now that he’s healthy, Dusty Baker gets to put him in the rotation (Dusty should be very familiar with pitchers who have had shoulder issues.)

Owings is going to the perfect division, where three teams have batted their pitcher eighth. With five career home runs in a season and a half and a career .895 OPS, Owings could raise the bar for NL Central pitchers and bat sixth.

Sep 10th 2008 12:54PM by Pat Lackey (author feed)
The Reds have reveled in their role as NL Central spoiler in the past couple weeks, doing solid work beating up both the Brewers and Cubs. Last night, they pulled out a thriller against the Brewers, holding off a late Milwaukee rally to beat the Brewers in the eleventh. The game winning hit came from Brandon Phillips. Immediately after he finished enjoying the high of the walk off, Phillips got bad news; he broke his finger early in the at-bat that produced the game-winning hit and is done for the year.

When it’s all said and done, I think Phillips probably has to be happy with the results. Walk off hits are always a rush, and doing it with broken finger leaves Phillips with one awesome story to tell people. He’s out for the rest of the year, but only because the rest of the year is about 20 games . With the Reds out of contention, it’s not like he’s missing much.

Of course, the most interesting thing about Phillips’ gutsy hit is that it shrinks the Brewers wild-card lead to just three games over the Phillies, with the Cardinals and Astros right on their tails. According to the BP Playoff Odds Report, the Brewers have gone from a 93% playoff certainty to 73% in just seven days. Today CC Sabathia starts against the Reds, who have won four of their last five against the Cubs and Brewers. Think Ned Yost wishes he spent less time worrying about that no-hitter now?