John Fay Has A Pretty Sweet Job

It's crystal clear Aurilia wont be back, maybe Mr. Fay feels an obligation to the Bad Man.  I'm surprised RA isnt signed yet, especially in this wild economic market.  

Newspapers lost their competitive advantage with the growth of cable television, and later the internet.  It used to be an incredible luxury to have the day's news delivered to one's driveway, especially the sports results from across most of the country.  Not so much anymore, considering anyone can GAMECAST live online free of charge....or join a game thread for interactive feedback.

 

Very rare for a writer to write his own headline these days. I can't go so far as to say it never happens, but it is very rare.

Everybody loves to beat up on media these days (in many cases correctly so) without knowing many of the specifics of how each type operates. For instance, the critique of the LaRue headline is valid in that it is bad, but layout often dictates headline length, thus the "Reds trade  LaRue" headline (equally boring) would not work because it is too short or the column layout would have to be changed. The discussion about old -vs- new media could go on for days, but the problem is that everyone is quick to gripe about reporters who are often forced to operate within the confines of their particular medium. Yes, John Fay sucks. But he knows that a story like this is one of the few left to him because anyone that really cares about this stuff already has breaking news in "real time." He is left  with the scaps from the internet's table.

The Reds coverage in the Post and Enquirer is horrible.  What I hate about it is, it's mainly 90% speculation and it's not informed speculation either.  John Fay is no different that anyone on this board except he has the cell phone numbers of a few agents and players, but he doesn't use that resource wisely at all.

This is how I assume Reds beat writers come up w/ a story.

1. Make an assumption (i.e. the Reds payroll will be $70M) don't bother making a lot of effort to find this out, preferably make no effort.  Sure you could call Castellini or one of his friends or whoever and make an attempt to get some information but why get the story all clogged up w/ facts?
2. Make an assumption (i.e. the Reds have no interest in signing Jason Schmidt) rely on the first assumption to back up this assumption.  DO NOT under any circumstances phone Schmidt or his agent to find this out.
3.  End your story w/ something like "despite everything I just wrote, it could be all wrong, Castellini might want to spend a ton of money and sign a huge name.  You never know."
4.  Submit the story and be very proud of a job well done.

GREATER CINCINNATI (OH) --- One hundred forty three players have filed for free agency.  Simple math would estimate each team would sign roughly five free agents this offseason.  The Reds have to be considered very proactive in this current economic environment, as they have signed OF Bubba Crosby, SS Alex Gonzalez, and C Chad Moeller.  Wayne Krivsky is known to burn the midnight oil, and is working the phones prior to the General Manager's meeting next month.  I wanted to pin Krivsky down on what remaining free agents the Reds had interest in acquiring.  I was unsuccessful, as I am only pretending to write a newspaper article and no one of consequence with the Reds would take my phone calls or answer my email.  Even John Allen is avoiding contact.  

Common sense would dictate the Reds would try to acquire young-ish ballplayers with the potential to improve("RISKS") or grizzled, veteran ballplayers with presence and declining statistics("BASEBALL GUYS").  Some RISKS include P Vicente Padilla, P Ted Lilly, and P Tony Armas.  Just about everyone else who filed for free agency is a BASEBALL GUY.

It has been stated that some areas of the scouting inner circle has privately expoused the need for submariners and knuckleballers.  This is an intriguing option, as most major league hitters rarely face either a submariner or a knuckleballer.  The scouts believe the influx of SUB/KNUX will greatly reduce the home run percentage of the opposition at GABP.  

I could be wrong, however, and the Reds could make no moves.  Then again they could sign three name BASEBALL GUYS by mid-December, if Krivsky and Castellini have anything to do with it.  

Hi all.  Long time reader, just never took time to sign up.  Don't want to beat a dead horse, but just curious why, as the reds seem to have so little respect for Juan Castro, we ever re-signed him to begin with?  I think Alex G can't be much better with the glove than ol' "golden hands"...and Juan seems to have improved at the plate recently.  Even if I'm wrong on that last point, I bet over the course of a season he can hit the same 250 Gonzalez brings.  I hope I ultimately end up loooving Gonzalez, but it just strikes me as money that could have been spent elsewhere.  Any thoughts here???

What's he got to write about this time of the year since our team is not a big spender like the Yankees and Red Sox? Signing .230 hitters before the first of the year is not very exciting. I imagine it's about the same in most baseball towns except the big media markets until we get the first whiff of spring training.

The Enquirer has always sucked.  The NY Times is the only paper that is worth reading.