It is incumbent upon me, though, to comment on Jason LaRue’s departure.  LaRue for a PTBNL.  And we pay half his salary.  That is an ignominious end to LaRue’s tenure in Cincinnati, but his sub .700 OPS necessitated it–especially with the fat $4.3M salary given to LaRue by Krivsky’s predecessors.

I always kinda liked LaRue–even when he led the league in passed balls, which was maddening.  But this was an excellent business decision–even when paying half his salary–to save the other half and free up the roster spot.

(Now if only the Reds had saved that spot for something more than Chad Moeller) . . . .

Others sum it up: It really is a major league deal, which is just disgusting. Moeller had a 568 OPS in 317 at-bats in 2004, a 624 OPS in 199 at-bats in 1995 and a 506 OPS in 98 at-bats before the Brewers finally got fed up with him last season. There are better catchers littering Triple-A rosters.

Not to mention–the Reds ALREADY HAVE TWO CATCHERS on the major league roster.  So–why sign Moeller, and worse, why sign him to a major league deal instead of a minor league deal?

Having said that, while the money isn’t as important as the roster spot, neither will probably make much difference to the Reds in 2007 or beyond.  It is just another indication of a foolish roster move, though, and both the money and roster spot could be put to better use, even if just to give all of the Reds secretarial staff a raise.

I generally dislike deals for 39 going on 40 year old players.  But in the short-term, an old one-out lefty-type guy like Stanton is not a terrible signing, it just seems a bit uninspired.  Chris Hammond was tried and flamed out last year, but that has not stopped the Reds from trying.  Add Stanton to Bill Bray and overpriced Rheal Cormier and you see a decent (although not superior) lefty stable.  Now it is a matter of finding some right-handers to go with Todd Coffey–hopefully, something creative can be done here that doesn’t involve any other geriatrics.

Checking in with new shortstop Alex Gonzalez.  Here is the thing–which one of these is Alex G’s hitting stats:

Player A:

2002 .296 OBP, .620 OPS

2003 .313 OBP, .756 OPS

2004 .270 OBP, .689 OPS

2005 .319 OBP, .686 OPS

2006 .299 OBP, .695 OPS

or Player B:

2002 .278 OBP, .607 OPS

2003 .290 OBP, .678 OPS

2004 .277 OBP, .655 OPS

2005 .279 OBP, .665 OPS

2006 .281 OBP, .632 OPS

Well–both sets of hitting stats are pretty putrid.  Player A is Gonzalez at $14M/3 years.  Player B is Juan Castro at $2M/2 years.  One *has* to believe that Gonzalez is a far superior defensive player, because the extra $12M for a year cannot possibly be for his anemic bat. 

But that is false too–according to the good scouting methodology at Baseball Info Solutions, the difference is negligible.  Gonzalez has a stronger arm and is a little better going to his right; Castro is a little better going to his left and back on fly balls.  DP balls–it is a wash.  Castro is a little more dependable, but both have soft hands. 

So while the deal is not terrible in a vacuum (in this year’s market) when superimposed on the Reds team needs, what is that extra $12M actually buying for the Reds that Castro is not already providing? 

It just begs the question of the opportunity cost—where else could that money have gone?  It also brings up the sad truth about the Reds offense that will now have Gonzalez and not Felipe Lopez.  Is Gonzalez – Lopez in the field worth more than Lopez – Gonzalez at the plate?  I don’t think so.  Does Lopez cost more?  We shall see, since Lopez is arbitration-eligible.  If Lopez does not cost more this year, then Wayne Krivsky’s trade with the Nationals is a compounding blunder.

It is hard to believe that it has been two and a half years since Cory Lidle starter the Reds opener in 2004.  I followed before that–when he was with the Mets, and then Tampa, and then Oakland–because he was that unsung kind of guy that I love the most.  Ryan Freel is that kind of guy.  Chris Stynes was that kind of guy when he played.  Kevin Millar is another one of those guys–you know the type–more like an average joe than the glitz and glamor type.

It just reminds us how fragile life is and how quickly two and a half years can go by.

The fact that we are still reading boxscores and hoping against hope that the Cardinals and Astros both go 0-3 while the Reds go 3-0 going into the last series of the season in Pittsburgh makes this season a success, in my book.  Sure, the Reds have only the tiniest sliver of a chance to make it at this writing, but no one in their right mind would have put the Reds in this position before the season, or even believe it until a nice stretch just after the All-Star break made folks sit up and take notice.

There is a lot of woulda, shoulda, coulda–which is natural, since only a couple games separate the Reds from the playoffs.  Jerry Narron has been getting the brunt of that blame.  But the fact is, the Reds squeezed more out of the talent they had available than anyone has a right to expect.  Sure, it is maddening that Narron refuses to put his best lineup out there on a daily basis, but perhaps there is some importance to keeping some of the older players, or those at more challenging defensive positions, fresh.  For my part, I think that refusing to play Edwin Encarnacion for so long in the middle of the season was a huge mistake that cost the team some runs.  I think that playing Royce Clayton was not helpful.  I think that trading away two productive players in Kearns and Lopez made the Reds empty its rich bench of Aurilia, Hatteberg and Freel and stole away late game wins, while adding little to the pitching side of the equation.  I think that it is a shame that Adam Dunn has scuffled so badly down the stretch.

Having said that, it is unfair to have expected this array of talent to make the playoffs.  On paper, it is a sub-.500 team, and it is not even close.  So we should celebrate the great games and the max effort that we got from our over-achieving players this season rather than drag individuals through the mud–I know that I will.

Looking to the offseason, the Reds have a lot of issues.  The biggest appears to be pitching–both starting and relief–but I see glaring holes at SS and RF that have not been adequately plugged, and CF is a major concern as well.  1B and C can be expected to produce less in 2007, and if anyone thinks that Bronson Arroyo can repeat his 2006 season, forget it.  Arroyo was the MVP of this season, and he played far far over his head–we who count ourselves Reds fans should all be very grateful that he did.

Wayne Krivsky has a lot of work to do.  Let’s see what he can accomplish.

Mike Cameron came back around to knock the Reds into 2007 today.  The Reds really needed to sweep to stay in contention, and instead lost 2 of 3.

Looking ahead to 2007, it isn’t pretty.  A sub .500 team (as the Reds are) needs to have improvement at its positions and in its pitching.  Who really expects improvement on 2006 from Bronson Arroyo, David Ross, Scott Hatteberg, Rich Aurilia, Ken Griffey or Ryan Freel?   Can Adam Dunn improve?

On the bright side, perhaps Edwin Encarnacion can get a full 500+ at-bats under his belt in 2007 (Narron willing) and Brandon Phillips can continue to grow.  Harang and Arroyo do give the Reds two solid starters–now they just need 3 more.  Bill Bray should improve the left side in set-up, but there are an awful lot of holes to fill in that bullpen still.

On the farm, Homer Bailey continued to excel through the end of the AA season and could become a top call-up in 2007.  Jay Bruce lit up stadiums at every stop.  The Reds need to continue to find arms and position players who the team can afford, without having the whole lineup go AWOL as it did here at the end in late August and September.  The Reds will probably take a step back in 2007 before taking any steps forward unless something drastic is done this winter to shore up the pitching and the every day lineup except at 3B, 2B and LF.  That is a lot of work that needs to be done–let’s hope that Wayne Krivsky is up to that challenge.  Otherwise, there are going to be a lot of folks calling for his head this time next year.

On August 24, the Reds were 67-61, tied for first in the NL Central and 1.5 games ahead of San Diego, 2.5 over Philadelphia, 5 over San Francisco, and 6 over Florida.  Now the Reds are behind all of those teams after a 2-8 road trip and heartbreaking home loss to the Giants again on Labor Day.

It was asking too much to expect this team with its talent-level to win enough to take the Central.  It was asking too much to expect it to win the wild card.  But was it too much to ask to go 5-5 on the road trip and still remain in the thick of it as of today?

The Reds remaining schedule is not a daunting one, but it is an urgent one.  The Reds must take the next two from the Giants, wipe out the Padres and then take care of business against the Marlins later on.  The Reds also must beat the teams that they are supposed to beat–Cubs and Pirates–to have even a sliver of a chance.  The Reds essentially need to go around 12-8 to be in the hunt the last week of the season, and even then they would have to win out, most likely, since someone (like the Marlins) will be better than .500 to close out the month.

Possible, yes, probably–no way.  It is a shame, as it mutes what has been a tremendous season and shows that there is a future upswing on the way.  While the Kearns/Lopez trade has been a complete and utter debacle, there is a lot of good that has come from Wayne Krivsky’s hard work to turn up Brandon Phillips, Bronson Arroyo, David Ross and for a fleeting moment, Eddie Guardado.  Hopefully it will remain interesting to see what the Reds do over the next two weeks, but it should be even more interesting to see what the Reds do once the games for this season are at an end to address some of the deficiencies.

The 1-3 put up in San Francisco is now 1-4 after a tough loss to LA.  Two more with LA and three with San Diego–realistically, the Reds need 3 of those 5 to come home still kicking in the wild card.  While the Reds have been falling down, so have the Padres and Phillies, letting quite a number of teams back into the race–including the Astros and Marlins, and of course the Giants.  As I see it, there are 7 teams still with a legitimate shot at the wild card and the Reds are just one of those.  These next 5 games are crucial to survival–the Reds cannot get swept in LA and San Diego.

Here is a plea to stay the course.  I know he has an electric arm and that he is the best Reds pitching prospect, probably since Tom Browning.  But he has exceeded expectations this year, he has thrown a lot of innings and will throw even more by the end of Chattanooga’s season, and does not need the added stress of either starting games in the middle of a pennant race or trying to pitch out of the bullpen when he has been starting all year.  There may be some merit to calling him up just to hang around the clubhouse and get the feel for what it is like, but I think Jerry Narron will be too tempted to use him, and so I don’t even like that idea.  I think we congratulate him on a great season, make sure that he is in Baseball America’s 2007 top ten prospects, and then start again in spring training.  If the Reds miss the playoffs by one game, it might well be true that Bailey could have been the difference.  But if Bailey tries to do too much and fails at a critical juncture, it would probably be a developmental setback at a time where he is probably not quite ready for prime time anyway.