Saturday, April 4, Frazier, one of the top Cincinnati Reds prospects, will be somewhere on the field as the Reds play a Futures team made up of Frazier and all the rest of the premier prospects in their system. Friday, the teams will play an exhibition game in Zebulon, N.C., home of the Reds' new Class AA affiliate there. The teams will fly to Cincinnati after that game, then bus to Dayton on Saturday morning.

Game time at Fifth Third Field is 3:05 p.m. Most of the Futures team will consist of former Dragons, as will about a third of the Reds, including first baseman Joey Votto and right fielder Jay Bruce.

Although Frazier is on a fast track to make the Reds, he called from spring training this week as a member of the Class AA Carolina Mudcats, where he is expected to start the season next week after spending a good portion of time in the Reds' major-league camp.

"Moving up is great," said Frazier, "but when you move up, you don't always get that atmosphere we had in Dayton. It doesn't take away from the promotion, but it takes getting used to (playing in front of fewer fans)."

Frazier, a supplemental firstround free agent draft pick in 2007, started his career with rookie Billings, Mont., and was moved to Dayton for the final week of 2007, where he hit .318 with two homers and five RBIs in six games.

Last year, he started with the Dragons and had them in first place when he was promoted after 30 games, hitting .321 with seven homers and 20 RBIs. The Dragons quickly faded to last place.

The Dragons open their season April 9 with a new pitching coach, Tony Fossas, who was promoted from the rookie Gulf Coast League team when Dragons pitching coach Rigo Beltran was moved to Carolina to take the place of Tom Browning, arrested for alleged nonpayment of child support.