Joey Votto autographed my ticket stubs from the Sarasota Reds game last Thursday. Not only is he a great ballplayer and a handsome fella, but he's a humanitarian too. They should make a TV show about him.

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Ahhh, it's good to be back in the Reposter chair.  Thanks be to Slyde for keeping it warm for me and not spilling Diet Rite all over it.  I've been on vacation for the last week, laying on the beach, meeting Joey Votto, and not doing much else.  Unfortunately, the Reds havent being doing much either.  I've got a lot of pent-up frustration with this team, so let's dispense with the pleasantries (I'll spare you the pics of my sand castle) and get down to the biz...

• Best News of the Day
  Joey Votto played a few minor league games over the weekend to get his sea legs back under him, and now he says he's ready to join the big league club. "They (the Reds) know what I’ve been going through. They would be able to say, ‘Are you ready to go?’ My answer would be yes."

• Hall o' Famer Hal posed this question to Dusty yesterday
  (Check out nycredsfan's FanPost all about this)  "When Joey Votto comes back, what happens to Ryan Hanigan?" Baker's response was, "bench." Hal asked Dusty if perhaps Ramon Hernandez could slide over and try his hand at 3rd base to keep Hanigan's bat in the lineup, you know, since he leads all non-Joey Votto Reds in OBP with a shimmering .411 mark.
  
  Now, I havent really been keen on the idea of Hernandez at 3B. His defense at 1B hasnt been great and I'm afraid he would be a total disaster at 3B.  But then I realized something: everyone who has played 3B for the Reds so far this year has been an abject disastrous failure. keeping Hanigan in the lineup is worth waaaay more than the theoretical marginal loss in defense we get from playing Hernandez over Rosales or Hairston.
  
  But it's not the defense that's worrying Baker, oh no. It's Hanigan's batting line with RISP(!!). Hanigan is hitting .174 with RISP. He has a total of 30 PAs (6 walks) with RISP so far this season and Dusty is siting that as a reason to keep a .411 OBPing catcher on the bench. Exasperation, thy name is Charlie Scrabbles.

• Free Willy, as in cut his butt loose - Beyond the Box Score
  BtB asks the question that Red Reporters have been asking for a month now.  This guy is a Cardinals fan too, so you just know this smug little jerk with his complicated hair cut and expensive shoes is just giggling merrily the whole time.  This one really cooked my biscuits.

• Mark Sheldon has this quote from Baker
  With the Reds scoring only 1 run for a good pitching performance, the Reds lost another game they could have won if only they could hit the damn baseball. Here's Dusty: "That's been a repetitive story. We're trying to find a way to get some hits when they count and drive in some runs. Aaron pitched well enough to win today. I've gone over this many times. We have to produce some runs."

• Edwin Encarnacion started a rehab assignment in AAA this weekend
  going 0-2 with a walk on Sunday. "This is like going back to the beginning," Baker said. "In Spring Training, you're hitting live most days. And the pitchers weren't two and a half months into sharpness like they are now." Looks like they want to give EdE a good while to work himself back into game shape. I hope he can do it quickly.

• Bob Castellini called the Civil Rights Game a "forerunner of our All-Star Game"
  He said he wants the All-Star Game in Cincinnati for 2013. Here's what Commish Selig had to say about it: "They deserve an All-Star Game. The problem we have these days - back in the 90s you had to beg cities to host - now we're jammed. Every time we build a new ballpark - like in Florida, Minnesota and the Mets - they want one. So I've got to work my way through this. They deserve an All-Star Game, and I'm going to do my very best to get them one." Well, we built our new ballpark first! So there!

• SBNation Launched a new MLB Rumors site called MLB Daily Dish
  Check it out and add it to your news feed reader if you like it!

• Moneyball the Movie is no more
  Brad Pitt and Steven Soderbergh are now rumored to be discussing making a shot-for-shot remake of John Goodman's "The Babe". 

• Wanna see something you've probably never seen before?
  Click that link.

• BtB runs down the meaning of WAR
  If you've ever been looking for an explanation of what goes into Wins Above Replacement (WAR), here's a pretty good primer. Also, check out the pitcher's WAR explanation too.

• Baseball Prospectus (subscription req'd) looks the NL drafts
  and uses the the phrase "neither an especially impressive nor disappointing group" to describe the Reds.

• It's Monday and THT has their weekly rankings up
  The Reds have slipped to #18.