...the esteemed Louisville Courier-Journal has an article about Andy Phillips.

Louisville Bats infielder Andy Phillips bolted the New York Yankees’ organization in December, in part because they designated him for the minor leagues.

Yet after being one of the Cincinnati Reds’ final roster cuts out of spring training, Phillips finds himself back in Triple-A. It’s perplexing, especially since the Reds are in sore need of right-handed hitters.

Not that perplexing. There’s no room for Andy Phillips, because they have three left-handed first baseman. Or is it three catchers? (Yeah, I know, LLM is a switch-hitter. But he might was well be a lefty.)

I would be okay with DFAing Valentin and calling up Bruce. Let Bruce play CF. He’s been playing it in Louisville, why not in Cincinnati?

And maybe consider trading Hatteberg and calling up Andy Phillips or Jolbert Cabrera.

C – Bako, Ross, Valentin
1B – Votto, Hatteberg, Valentin
2B – BP, Freel, Cherry
3B – EdE, Freel, Cherry(?)
SS – Cherry, Janish
OF – Dunn, Griffey, Patterson, Cherry, Freel

You gotta dump LLM. He’s third on the depth chart a 2 positions. He never players – yesterday was his first start in over a month. You might be able to trade him for a PTBNL.

The “problem” is they are not going to bring up Bruce unless he plays every day. That means CF or RF needs to open up. Dusty thinks the CF needs to be a speedster that leads off. And RF just isn’t going anywhere at $12.5 million unless he’s hurt or traded. It sucks that they aren’t putting the best team on the field that they could, but that’s just the way it is.

The problem with fixing the roster via trade is likely that other GM’s see the Reds roster crunch just as well as we do and are probably lowballing us on any offers for Hat or anyone else. Heck, there has got to be a half dozen teams that could use Hattteberg at 1b though.

Lessee…
Hatteberg would likely be an upgrade at 1b for Baltimore, SF, the Mets (Delgado looks done), The Mariners (ditto Sexson), He’d make a good platoon partner for Garko in Cleveland, And Toronto is desperate for a DH.

But i’m willing to bet all of these teams are lowballing us if Walt is actually shopping Hat.

1. Calling up Bruce and putting him in CF may only be a sideways step. However, if there was a way to get him into RF, that would certainly help (though he still sports an ugly 34/9 k/bb ratio).

2. LLM needs to go. This cannot be said often enough.

3. Hatteberg may be struggling because he needs to play every day, which means moving him might benefit everyone. However, he also may be struggling because he’s 38. The problem with moving him, and getting rid of Valentin, is that it leaves the bench with no LH hitters.

Question: What happens if they just bench Jr? Really. He’s killing the team right now both offensively and defensively. I know the PR would be bad in the short term, but if Bruce came up and started playing the way we all believe he will, I think people would forget quickly. If I’m Jockety, I’m burning up the phones to move Jr (accepting either some financial relief or an A-level prospect), and telling Jr to either accept the trade or be benched.

Is there a reason why Bruce couldn’t bat leadoff? He does have 8 SB/1 CS in AAA…

Neither serves a purpose on this team. Votto is the present at first base and Hatteberg isn’t useful as a pinch hitter or even a once-every-two-weeks starter. Javy isn’t useful period.

Patterson gets on base about once every three games. Honestly, the only guy on the team who is a worse leadoff hitter than him is probably Valentin. His base-stealing prowess has made essentially no contribution to Reds victories this year. His defense is good, but Bruce is 21, athletic, strong-armed, and has a good defensive reputation. I find it difficult to believe he wouldn’t be just fine in CF. And he will hit. He will hit fantastically. I simply find it difficult to worry that much about Bruce’s K/BB rates when he’s hitting .360 with a 1.060 OPS in a league that he’s still young for, especially when he has never not completely raked a league, regardless of his K/BB rates. He’s a superstar level talent and he will adjust. He obviously is not a player who belongs in AAA, and should be in the majors.

Who bats leadoff when he comes up and starts in center? Who cares. Bruce can hit there, Phillips can hit there, Hairston can hit there, Janish can hit there, Griffey can further bruise his ego and Freel can hit there. It really doesn’t matter to me, because they aren’t going to be worse than Patterson. If this team is serious about winning this year, there are zero excuses for Jay Bruce to not be up already.

and it sort of came back to the arbitration clock thing again. Is that what is holding Bruce up right now? I’d say so because clearly as everyone has pointed out this situation makes little to no sense if you don’t look at that. But if the current trend continues of teams attempting to lock up their young players early see Hamily Rameriz or Longoria that would render the arb clock reason void. This bull shit better stop soon….............