Break time
It's now the All-Star break, which means no Reds baseball until Friday. I can assure you though, I will check my fantasy teams every morning anyway because of habit. When they return from the break, the Reds get three games at home with the Pirates before heading out to San Francisco for four. One of those will be the make-up for the July 4 washout. They'll play a double-header next Tuesday with the Reds serving as the home team for one of the games. Baseball is neat.
Derrick Robinson is impressing his teammates
There are some encouraging quotes here from Shin-Soo Choo, Joey Votto, and Brandon Phillips. He does provide great defense in LF, but his offensive game has tailed off a bit recently. He's slashing .256/.336/.331 and has stolen only two bases. With Chris Heisey finally back from the disabled list, I'm assuming we'll see less and less of Robinson. But I think he is better suited to a back-up role as a LIDR and pinch-runner than as a regular platooner.
The Reds have set the rotation coming out of the break
Basically, everyone is staying on the same schedule except for Homer and Bronson, who are flip-flopped. By the way, this is a good rotation, in case you hadn't noticed.
Bill Lack at Redleg Nation takes a look at the lack (haHA!) of talent in the Reds' system
It's not a pretty picture. Basically, the only good hitting prospects the Reds have right now are Billy Hamilton (who is struggling, as was mentioned above), Jesse Winker (who is all the way down in low-A Dayton), and Philip Ervin (who was just drafted last month). He breaks down all the team leaders through the system and it's like chicken bones down there. Fortunately, the big league team is stacked with quality position players who will be around for a while, so it's not nearly as bad as it could be. But dang.
Billy Quicks talkin' smart
This from a nice profile on MLB.com: "You can steal bases, you can be fast, but people don't realize, I stole 155 bags last year, but they don't give me credit for getting on base to steal those 155 bags," Hamilton said. "Baseball is not just about speed. You've got to get on base."
Hamilton got on base at a robust .410 clip last season, getting us all sugared up with visions of the perfect lead-off man. But he has struggled at the plate so far this season, hitting only .243/.300/.331. Hopefully he can bounce back in the second half. I'm still pretty bullish on this kid, as his raw tools are just too super-heroic to ignore.
Chris Sabo's Goggles is giving away a copy of the 1975 World Series DVDs
He's running a whole contest over there, so check it out.
Jay Bruce walloped a wango yesterday afternoon
and Julio Teheran got all Sylvia Plath about it.
via C. Trent at cincinnati.com
Dave Cameron at FanGraphs weighs in on the Reds' lineup conversation
Basically, he concludes, just like everyone else, that Zack Cozart just ain't right in the #2 spot. Cameron suggests hitting Todd Frazier there, which seems about as good an option as anything else. The left fielder (Chris Heisey and Derrick Robinson) has been hitting second the past few days, so maybe the change has been made.
BubbaFan dropped this link over the weekend
Former Red David Ross talks about head injuries and his old friend, Ryan Freel. He and Freel played together as kids on a Junior Olympics team, as well as in Cincinnati. Ross is on the 60-day DL right now after suffering a concussion. With everything that happened with Freel, Ross can't help but reflect a bit.
"I don't think (my concussion) was as bad," Ross said. "I don't think (Freel) ever got really truly diagnosed and it wasn't as big of a deal then. It definitely crept into my head: I don't want any lingering effects. I had one where I lost my memory for a day (in 2007). My helmet came off, I got ran over at the plate by Mike Cameron. My head hit home plate. I still don't have the memory. I've heard the stories and watched the video, but I don't remember from about breakfast that day until about 9 o'clock that night."