If you didn’t see, the 2011 Prospect Guide is now in stock and for sale. Go buy a copy!
The Reds signed Brian Barton to a minor league deal. I like the signing. He has always gotten on base well and has Major League experience. If nothing else, he provides good depth in AAA. At best, he could be a 4th/5th outfielder who helps out the bench quite a bit.
John Sickels has up his Reds preliminary prospect list/discussion topic. John does good work even though we disagree on several guys, but go check that out. His Top 30-40 guys should be available in the next few days.
The article is a few days old at this point, but with the weekend and other planned articles it got pushed back. Mark Sheldon has an article up on Reds.com about Todd Frazier looking toward the 2011 season.
“The first two months was something I had never been through before,” Frazier said. “At first, I really didn’t know what to do. You get to talking with some people and picking some brains about the situation and how to get through it, and it gets a lot better.”
Frazier did hit better as the season went along, though he still wasn’t quite where he has been in the past. Hopefully he can turn it around in 2011 and help out the Reds at some point during the season.
Speaking of things that got pushed aside a little bit…. How do you guys feel about the Zack Greinke trade? I keep hearing that it makes the Brewers contenders, but I just don’t buy it yet. Yes, Greinke is very good and I really like him as a pitcher. But the Brewers also lost two every day starters and look like they will be replacing them with downgrades, both of which seem to be absolutely automatic outs at the plate (Yuniesky Betancourt and Carlos Gomez both have sub .300 OBP’s in their careers). So while its absolutely true that their rotation is very good, their offense took a step or two backwards. They have studs in the middle of the line up, but they also look like they are going to have three automatic outs every time through the line up (pitcher as well as the two previously mentioned players) unless they make more moves.