If Krivsky can wait until Monday, so as not to disturb the team chemistry on the flight home, he can re-sign one of his
favorites. Of course, if he waits until Monday, it might be too late. I'm sure the market is just busting for aging middle infielders who can't hit or field.

That key signing, and a promotion for Chad Moeller surely will right all the wrongs in the universe.

Coffey shouldn't have been in the game, but not because he's horrible. He had no business being out there after pitching the previous two nights. Even though he looked great last night against the Brewers, only throwing 7 pitches, he threw 26 on Monday night. He'd also been in nine of the first 14 games (before tonight), which brings us to the bigger point.

Even though he has seven relievers, Narron has blown out virtually the entire bullpen in two weeks and three days. Just take a look at the stats through 14 games (Tuesday's win over Milwaukee):

Saarloos 9 appearances
Coffey 9 appearances
Stanton 8 appearances
Santos 7 appearances
Weathers 7 appearances
Cormier 5 appearances
Coutlangus 5 appearances

After tonight, it's 10 appearances in 15 games for Coffey and 8 for Santos.

This shit just can't go on. Coffey is on pace for 108 appearances, Saarloos 97, Stanton and Santos 86 each, and Weathers 76. There is no way on earth that any of these guys can sustain this kind of workload through May, much less the end of September. Hell, they're already starting to show signs of being tired.

None of this is Krivsky's fault. Sure, he should never have signed Cormier or traded for Saarloos, but what Narron is doing to the relievers' arms is beyond ridiculous.

OK. I couldn't resist. I started thinking about Dick Pole ("You said 'Dick.'" "Heh heh, well you said 'Pole.'") being pitching coach, walking out to the mound to have a conversation with Jon Coutlangus, and my mind went to all sorts of sordid directions, like hoping one would get uniform number six and the other number nine, a la that picture of Bob Uecker in Catcher In The Wry.

So I of course wondered who among the broadcast team was going to snicker the first time he had to say, "Dick Pole going down, I mean, out to the mound to have a word with Coutlangus."

With all the whining that's gone on the past week on the Reds blogosphere, on the call-in shows, and in the newspapers, you'd think that if the Reds could just get rid of Adam Dunn, they'd be sailing into the World Series.

Sure Dunn hasn't been very productive the last month, but I suspect he's got some sort of a minor injury. His throwing arm, which even though not particularly strong, normally is accurate, however lately his throws have been far, sometimes extremely far, offline. He's also not getting good swings at the ball, and an injury to his right shoulder or elbow could explain his poor throws and his sometimes anemic swings.

But enough about Dunn. Even with a .240 batting average, he's still getting on base regularly, which means he's still helping the team.

(more below ...)

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From his Insider page on the Lohse trade:

"This is a sensible need-for-need deal: The Reds needed more pitching, and the Twins needed to get rid of Kyle Lohse in the worst way.

Lohse had been out of favor in Minnesota for some time, due in no small part to his awful performance as a starter at the beginning of this season, but he's pitched effectively out of the bullpen for the past two months and could fill a similar role for the Reds. He does have four average or better pitches, with a plus cutter. And if his command improves -- perhaps the switch to the weaker league will help -- he could even give the Reds some help in their rotation. One caveat is that he's another flyball pitcher coming to the Great American Home Run Park.

The Twins get a good return for a player they didn't want. Zach Ward, the Reds' third-round pick from 2005, has a very good arm, with a sinking fastball up to 94 mph, a solid-average slider, and a funky delivery that creates good deception but that he finds hard to repeat, leading to command problems. He's pitched well, but not extremely so, for low-A Dayton this year. As a college product he should probably be challenged with high-A competition immediately."

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It looks like Arroyo will have some competition for the next Reds fundraiser.

I really have no idea how old this picture is. I'm guessing maybe late 1990s. Either way, we all now know just exactly what
Aaron Harang did in the offseason to make a little extra money while he was toiling away in the minor leagues.

My heart just bleeds for Tony W.

Geez. Officially he lasted 10 more games with the Cubs than he did with the Reds.

So where does he go from here? I'd say maybe the Royals need a second baseman, but even Mark Gruzdielanek (.702) has a higher OPS than Tony F. Womack (.695). The Pirates? Nope. Jose Castillo is at .795.

Hopefully, the world has seen the last of Tony Womack in a big league uniform.

Krivsky and Narron both get extended. I think it's a good move. - JD

I'm so sad.

Krivsky gets a thumbs up vote from me so far, but I don't like Narron's unwillingness to rely on young players. He wouldn't have played Encarnacion at third at all this year had EdE not hit 42 home runs in spring training.

A big part of me was hoping the Reds would tank this year, which would have been blamed on O'Brien, and then Castellini could have brought back Lou Piniella.

I know Piniella would never have managed a team like the Reds, but hey -- it's my fantasy, I can have it however I like.

Since Zach Day got DFA'd by the Rockies today the big question for tonight is how many times in 9 innings will Chris Welsh and George Grande lobby for the Reds to pick him up?

I know he's from Cincinnati, and he must be a likeable guy for everybody to gush over him like a schoolgirl, but he's 27 and has gotten run out of Washington and Colorado in short order.

Day's Pitching Wins total for 2005, according to the ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, was -1.0, and his career total is -0.5. Maybe you'd consider taking a chance on him if he weren't 27, but he is, and that's that. For the record, Dave Williams had -0.4 Pitching Wins last year, and he's left-handed and we all know how he's turned out.

From mlb.com's piece on the Arroyo/Wily Mo trade:

"After a breakout season in 2004 in which he belted 26 homers in just 336 at-bats, Pena was squeezed in and out of the lineup throughout 2005 due to the Reds' crowded outfield that also included Ken Griffey, Jr., Austin Kearns and Ryan Freel."

A friend of mine just said that Dunn must be the most underrated player in the game, and after reading that paragraph, I'd have to agree. How do you leave out the guy who's hit 40 or more homers each of the last two years and who appeared in the most games in the outfield of anybody the Reds had last year???

It is my thought that, contrary to established beliefs, the Reds are not actually all that far away from being viable playoff contenders. Seeing how it's too late for the new guy to make any significant signings before the start of the season, it's not likely to happen this year, but if he can keep the offense together, there should be real hope for 2007.

If the Reds can continue to score runs at their 2005 clip, then all Krivsky would have to do would be to put together just a marginal, run-of-the-mill, simply average pitching staff, and the Reds would be in the thick of things.

Last year the Reds led the league with 820 runs, 13 more than Philadelphia and 15 more than St. Louis (the only other NL teams to score more than 800). It's no secret that the pitching staff did them in, allowing a league high 889 runs. Throw those numbers into the Pythagorean Theorem and you get a record of 74-88, which is only one game better than the club's actual mark of 73-89 (actually, if you round up a couple of times you get a 75-87 record). That means, of course, that the Reds performed basically as they should have in 2005, given the staggering amount of runs their pitchers gave up.

The average runs allowed in the NL in 2005 was 732. The mean was 726, a number shared by the teams tied for eighth in the league, the Padres and Cubs. That means if the Reds just had an average pitching staff last year, like the Cubs or Padres, they would have had the second best record in the league (behind St. Louis), and been in the postseason as the Wild Card winner. Using the arithmetic average (732) in the PT gives the Reds a record of 90-72, one game ahead of Houston; the mean (726) gives a record of 91-71, a two-game cushion over the Astronomicals.

Knowing this, I suggest that Krivsky forget trying to put together the big bucks to lure a Dontrelle Willis or Pedro Martinez or Roger Clemens to town. Keep the offense together and get us more guys like Horacio Ramierz or Brad Halsey or Victor Santos!

On second thought, maybe a 2006 run isn't completely out of the question. Harang and Claussen were above average last year. Dave Williams was right about average (4.41 ERA). If somehow Eric Milton can only revert to his old, mediocre self, the Reds'd need only one more humdrum starter to make a serious run, and maybe Luke Hudson or Paul Wilson could be just banal enough to get the job done!!!

I don't suppose this is very good news for the die-hards:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2005/11/28/story1.html

I know a couple of St. Louis Cardinals fans who are extrordinarily bent out of shape at the Cards leaving KMOX, and I'm sure the backlash in Central Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana would be enormous. That's not going to stop the new guy from taking the quick buck, however.

I'm not a big fan of Clear Channel, I can't stand the right wing garbage that's on WLW during the day, and I don't ever listen to the station except when the Reds are on, but ... It's bad enough that the Reds aren't on free tv, and to take away free access to the radio broadcasts to a potentially huge part of the fan base could, in the worst case scenario, be a death blow to the franchise as we know it.