Thursday news and notes

John Sickels has up his Reds Top 20 Prospects. A few disagreements between his list and mine, but the only major one is Yorman Rodriguez. I think he is really selling him short here as he rated him 10th on the list and gave him a C+ grade. Tough to figure out how a tool shed who hit .340 as a 17 year old is a C+ prospect in my opinion.

Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Reds are interested in Scott Podsednik. I said yesterday that I would look at Dave Sappelt in spring training for that “lead off guy who can also play left field” role, but I would welcome Scott Podsednik to the team to platoon with Gomes and lead off 5 times a week.  What do you guys think?

Over at Red Reporter, nycredsfan looks at some of the Reds teenager prospects. The article starts off with a questionable premise:

A lot of attention has been given this offseason to the Reds’ more developed minor league talent.  Yonder Alonso, Juan Francisco, Todd Frazier, Devin Mesoraco, Aroldis Chapman, Zack Cozart, Chris Valaika, Kris Negron, Dave Sappelt, and Donnie Joseph could all contribute something to the Reds in 2011.  The downside to all of this near-MLB ready talent is that very few of these guys have the upside to be stars, and many not even the upside to be starters.

The last sentence there is what gets me…. I think upside wise, all can be starters and Alonso, Francisco, Mesoraco and Chapman all have the upside to be stars. But the article focuses more on the teenage prospects that the Reds have in the low minors and is worth checking out if for nothing else to really get a grasp on the young teenage talent that we have down at the lower levels.

Here is an update on the guys playing Winter League Ball