Random Reds Rumblings

[CincyRedsFan30]

Salmon comes in and has a 1-2-3 inning with a strikeout.

No wonder he doesn't pitch in late-game situations with the team trying to hold a lead.

[CincyRedsFan30]

Well, it appears the team is well on its way to ANOTHER loss after ANOTHER Castro, Moeller and Hopper filled lineup.

Yet reading Castellini's comments to Lonnie Wheeler a couple days ago, he thinks Jerry is a brilliant baseball guy and seems to think he and Krivsky have done a brilliant job with the roster this year.

Status quo!

Where have we seen that before?

The more burning desire to win, the more things stay the same.

[redsrbetter]

How can he possibly say they have done a brilliant job? Unless he loves not getting positive results, he is a crackhead.

No wonder nothing has been done to fixthis team lately. Everything is going so "brilliantly."

[CincyRedsFan30]

A little spending might have averted this mess

Column by The Post's Lonnie Wheeler

There may come a time when the Reds can lie low in the winter, allowing the next crop of prospects to season a bit on the farms. But that time hasn't arrived quite yet. If it had, Homer Bailey would have been in the starting rotation from Opening Day, with Jay Bruce chasing flies and talent backed up to Billings.

In the meantime, the roster must be sustained some other way. And that's where Bob Castellini has made his mistake.

First, to the owner's credit, he has bumped up the player payroll for 2007 by about $8 million, placing Cincinnati 20th out of 30 major-league teams, just behind Milwaukee and ahead of Cleveland. The caveat is that around 40 percent of those dollars end up in the hands of just three players - Adam Dunn, Eric Milton and Ken Griffey Jr.

Last year, Castellini's first running the franchise, there was no increase in Cincinnati's budget, which might merely have been a product of the new administration's late start but might also have been a distressing signal that we should have picked up on. Actually, a lot of people did, but held off on the objecting because of all the fresh air that the new boss was circulating.

What he said, the day he was introduced at Great American Ball Park, was that money would not stand in the way of the Reds winning. What he said, more specifically, was that the payroll was going to stay put for the time being, but would be raised "if the occasion calls for it. For instance, if we're into the middle of July and we're a contender, we're going to have to go with it and bite the bullet.

"Are we going to try that early on? No, we're going to stick to our budget. (But) if we put a contender on the field, our top number's going to go up. We have to put a contender on the field. That's our primary focus."

And that's their primary dilemma. Because, as much as "we didn't get involved with the Reds to wallow in mediocrity," that's precisely what's happening. As much as Castellini assured his constituency that "we will bring championship baseball to Cincinnati," his statements - the sincerity of which are not being questioned here - simply didn't add up.

They didn't add up because the Reds weren't there yet. They didn't have either the stuff of champions or the depth to trade for it in mid-summer.

And until the processes of player development could make pennant contenders of the promising athletes drafted under Dan O'Brien (and subsequently Wayne Krivsky), there was only one way to acquire that sort of wherewithal. That was to do what Castellini said he wouldn't: spend first and contend subsequently.

It's pretty obvious now, after the latest wallow on the West Coast, that $69 million isn't going to get it done. Not yet. Not until.

More payroll, on the other hand, might have bought the '07 Reds a better bullpen and a right-handed bat for the middle of the order. It might have kept them out of last place, right now, in baseball's worst division.

The extra bucks - seed money, so to speak - would have represented a short-term, team-improvement loan. In retrospect, it's hard to say whom, exactly, the club might have invested in. It's even harder to say how that lack of assertiveness may now be surmounted. Assuming it can.

Aside from the usual shuttling of role players between the big leagues and the smaller ones, there does appear to be a few uneasy options. The first would be suffering further. Let's go on to the next three.

The traditional reaction, of course, is to fire the manager. That seems to be what the public wants, as well.

While the couch critics decry Jerry Narron's handling of pitchers and lineups, the man has reasons for what he does, and they're generally good enough. His seemingly passive tolerance of the way the Reds play - admittedly, the press is not around to see how he really responds - is another matter, however. Perhaps Narron is living proof of what Leo Durocher said about nice guys.

So that's one possibility; except it isn't. Not according to Castellini, as he described it Thursday on his cell phone, driving along Columbia Parkway after returning from baseball meetings in New York.

"Right now, Jerry Narron is the one whose hide people are going after," said the CEO. "But I'm 100 percent behind him. And it's not just because I like Jerry. It's because he's a winner. There's never been one thought in my mind that we had a problem with the manager or general manager or coaching staff. I still don't feel that way, and I don't anticipate feeling that way.

"There isn't anybody more frustrated than I am. But I have 100 percent confidence in our manager and general manager. I feel much better about this team than I did at this time last year. Our results are putrid. But it's too soon to think this team is not what we thought it was a month ago. It's not time to be calling for radical surgery here."

Less radical would be Bailey's promotion, which we'd be shouting for right now if he hadn't been placed on Louisville's disabled list with a groin strain. The kid has turned 21, and it's time he was carded. He has pitched ferociously at every level of the minor leagues. The Reds are short a starter. They're short a difference-maker. They're short a Bailey.

So that's another possibility, and the least controversial. Then there's trading, which would be the most controversial. Especially if it involved Adam Dunn.

And perhaps it should. And no, the Reds would not be giving away their best source of power. They would be swapping it.

It's because Dunn is a formidable figure that he's the most tradable player on the Cincinnati roster. He would return value - a first-rate pitcher, presumably, or a consistent right-handed hitter - that is more along the lines of what the ballclub really requires as it reshapes itself according to the Krivsky model.

Trading Dunn would fundamentally change the Reds' makeup and karma, which is precisely what needs to be dunn. And management knows that.

"I would absolutely tell you that all options are open," Castellini said on the team's desperately needed day off. He had not been asked about trading Dunn, specifically. He had been asked about spending more money.

"Read that any way you want."

[CincyRedsFan30]

Reds down 5-3 with runners on 1st and 2nd and 1 out in the 8th (5 outs left) and Narron has Freel and Hopper try a double steal.

Freel thrown out stealing at 3B. Hopper at 2B with 2 outs.

Laughable time for a steal.

[redsrbetter]

Narron came out and argued the call and got thrownout of the game. I believe he really wasn't so pissed there. I don't buy it. I think Narron came out and argued the first close call of the game.

But I will give it to him. Even if he really wasn't mad about it, he finally showed some emotion. Same with Freel. Freel was fired up for real.

Either way, we need more of that. Get pissed!

[CincyRedsFan30]

It continues to amaze me that Narron REFUSES to let the young pitchers with talent pitch much at all in games where we're trying to hold ON to the lead.

[redsrbetter]

I am worried about Harang right now. He came out of the game early. I am wondering if we will be hearing something on a potential injury soon.

[missionhockey21]

Sorry about the style problems gang, we're doing a bit of updating and somehow a few things were changed in the mix so I am on the case and hopefully fixing it.

[ghettochild]

i thought i was the only one phew. i noticed lag and such and i was like god damn computer!

[missionhockey21]

Phone connections: Ken Griffey Jr. frequently downloads dialogue or songs from movies to be the ringtone for his cell phone. Now, Griffey is trying to take it to another level. He is working to get actor Samuel L. Jackson to personally record an outgoing voicemail message using dialogue from his career-making movie, "Pulp Fiction."

The Official Site of The Cincinnati Reds: News: Cincinnati Reds News

I love reading about the non-baseball things Griffey is into as I can't help but to smirk when seeing them... they are just so defining of his personality and how he is still a kid at heart (a kid with a very large allowance.)

[missionhockey21]

Anyone going to the game tonight? I might be going with a friend but I really don't know if I want to deal with Friday afternoon traffic going from Dayton to Cincy.

[CincyRedsFan30]

I'll come.

[missionhockey21]

Obviously I held off when I remember The Taste of Cincinnati festival, ha.

[mntwinsfan]

Nice to see Griffey Jr. finally pass Killerbrew in the homerun department. Will he get tp 600 career homers?

Looks like the strike3fourms has become a Reds and Brewers board.