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We are through 3 days of camp and 4 of the 8 teams have a 2-3 record.  Unfortunately, one of those team is the Toyota Recalls - my team.  After losing our first game on Sunday, we went 1-1 on Monday and split another double-header on Tuesday.  The two losses on Monday and Tuesday were fairly disgusting - Tuesday we lost the morning game by 2 touchdowns.

The big win came Tuesday afternoon when we beat the previously unbeaten team managed by Bill Hatcher and Ted Power.  To say that Hatcher was pissed would be an understatement.  Even as a coach at Fantasy Camp, he sure doesn't like losing.  He was cursing up a storm and bitching and moaning for a good hour after the game.  But the fact was, he was owned by our pitcher - a 47-year old banker from Houston - who threw a complete game, striking out 6 and inducing 8 ground balls back to the pitcher.  It was probably the most boring game to play the field, well, ever.  It was still a beautiful win.

The morning game on Tuesday started out well.  My brother Tim was the starting pitcher and we jumped out to a 4-1 lead.  Our opponents - managed by Pete Harnisch and Joe Price - battled back and took a 7-4 lead.  Then we got to the 6th inning and the wheels fell off. A hit batsman, a walk, and a string of hits - including an inside the park home run - turned a tight game into a major blowout.  It got so bad that one of our coaches, Joe Oliver, had to finish off the inning, and even he surrendered a run.  We took our lumps, but that happens sometimes.  The shame of the whole thing was that it was the only win so far by Harnisch's team.

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"Mr. Joseph, you have 21." "I'll stay."

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After another close vote, Donnie Joseph is your #21 prospect for 2010, edging Logan Ondrusek by only 3 votes.  Today, we add the final 4 players to the ballot, 2 pitchers and 2 hitters.  If there's anyone else you want to vote for in the final four spots that isn't currently on there, let us know in the comments.  nyc and myself are pretty confident that we got everybody, but we're not perfect.

Vote now.  Only 4 spots to go!

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To most Reds fans, today was the day we shed our greatest problem from last year.  I like to describe Taveras's disastrous 2009 season as "Corey Patterson, but without the power."  Come to think of it, given Junior's disastrous career in Cincinnati, you have to start worrying about curses on our center fielders....  The Reds haven't done will by their CF in a while...  

The question is, however, whether Miles is any kind of improvement over Taveras.  Let's break down the deal, starting with what we got: Aaron Miles and his $2.7 M salary, plus a player to be named later.

SHB INF Aaron Miles Offense (thanks to FanGraphs)

Prior to last season, Miles had been somewhere between a replacement player and a decent reserve guy over the previous several years.  He peaked in 2008 with a season that was within striking distance of being league average.  Offensively, he actually reminds me a lot of a poor man's Orlando Cabrera: decent contact, very low walk rate, and not much power.  He lacks Cabrera's speed, though.

Obviously, he was a complete disaster last year.  I think it's interesting to see how the different projections treat that The Fans are the most optimistic that he will bounce back with modestly respectable performance...but then Fans tend to be an optimistic lot.  CHONE seems to pay a lot of attention to his apparent 2009 downturn season, whereas Marcel is more or less in the middle.  Overall, I'll just go with the average of the Marcel and Fans projections (though I'll use the Fans' PT estimates) and put him at roughly 9 runs below average in 303 PA's.

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More photos » Kathy Willens - AP

Yup. Yup. Mm-hmm. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

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Some interesting clips from Aaron Miles's Wikipedia page:

• He finished fourth in the 2004 Rookie of the Year voting.  Willy Taveras was second in the 2005 vote.
• He almost made the roster for the 2004 Olympics - for Greece.
• He has pitched a shutout inning of relief in the Majors.  Suck it, Paul Janish!
• In 2000, gunmen held him capitve in his hotel room during spring training.  Miles was able to wrestle and subdue his captor.  Police arrived shortly thereafter and shot the man while Miles held him against the ground.

This trade is fantastic.

Phil Castellini is either highly confident or was in the middle of making an important point while talking to fans during the Caravan. via ramsey.mlblogs.com

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• Reds sign Orlando Cabrera
  As we've discussed, it's a one-year, 3M deal with a 1M buyout on 2011 (no word yet if it's a team or player option).  Let's hope last year's defensive numbers were a fluke.  Otherwise, we'll all be screaming for Dusty to start what's-his-name.  No word yet on who will be removed from the 40-man roster.  
  During the Caravan, which preceded the signing, Cabrera was a hot topic of conversation.  Dusty backed the incumbent and essentially gave a no comment on the Cabrera rumors.

• Rob Neyer: Reds looking like contenders?
  Opinion on the Orlando Cabrera signing is divided between those who want to go for it this year and those who'd rather see if Janish can be a credible shortstop on a contending team in 2011.  I've leaned toward the latter pov, but Neyer believes that the Reds have a serious shot at the WC this year:   I do believe that the Reds have thetalent on their roster for a solid season. Whether the luck and the management line up behind the talent ... well, that's your proverbial "known unknown."

• Projectprospect.com has posted their top 25 prospects list.                                               Two Reds made the cut, but you might be surprised who they are, and where they landed.  There's also a good chat about the list.  Here's the best part:   "So does this insinuate that, looking back on last year’s draft, you’d go with Mike Leake at 3rd overall? What do you think of Leake compared with top players like Tyler Matzek, Jacob Turner, Shelby Miller, Aaron Crow, and Jiovanni Mier?"  Yep, I would have strongly considered Leake with the 3rd overall pick. He’s a good ground-ball pitcher who can locate five pitches for strikes. Leake picked apart Dom Brown when they matched up at the AFL. I felt bad for Brown…it wasn’t fair.  It would be one thing if Leake wasn’t just as good as Strasburg in college. And if he didn’t have some promising starts at the AFL. But he was and he did. SOOO underrated...I'll say it again, but I think there's more than a 25% chance that Leake will have a better career than Stephen Strasburg--could last a lot longer.

• Reds tattoo man video
  Slyde already posted the pics.  Here's the video.  He predicts the Reds will win the WS - and that was before we signed Cabrera.  What a fan!
• Yonder Alonso interview
  Yonder Alonso talks about his offseason and artfully dodges a question about the future of 1B for the Reds. When asked further he admits to working out in LF and RF.
• mlb.com talks about Chris Heisey
  MLB.com takes a look at the Reds 2009 Minor League Player of the Year, outfielder Chris Heisey.  The mlb.com reporter, Lisa Winston, raves about Heisey's makeup and well-rounded skill set and thinks LF is between him and Dickerson.
• Highlights from Joe Morgan's '75 World Series heroics
  Maybe the worst highlight music I've ever heard.   Given the era they were highlighting, the music should've been much swankier.
• Scott Rolen Caravan interview
  Courtesy of Jamie Ramsey, the Reds assistant director of media relations. BK tweeted that Rolen looks like Roy from The Office, and I have to agree.  Let's just hope he avoids Dwight's pepper spray this season.  The linked page is the main menu for a number of videos taken at the Caravan.  

Or does he have the eye of the tiger?

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Juan Duran Duran wins the #20 prospect ranking for 2010.  This kid is still really young, and has perhaps the highest ceiling in the organization, but also has an excellent chance of never making it past AA.  Let's hope he can take some positive steps this season.

For #21 you get no new candidates, but there are still 8 intriguing guys still on the board, so vote!

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My locker

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We jumped right into the action today at Reds Fantasy Camp.  After a tasty, complimentary hot breakfast at the hotel, we headed over to the park in Goodyear, Arizona.  First impression: BEAUTIFUL!  Seriously, the fields are pristine, the facilities are first class all the way.  They don't appear to have cut any corners anywhere in this place.  It truly is an first class facility.  And we haven't even seen the park yet.

When we got to the camp, we went to get dressed in our lockers...our fully stocked lockers. Two jerseys, two undershirts, a pair of pants, a warm up jacket, a hat, and socks. It's really is a thrill to see your name on a jersey in your very own locker.

Unfortunately, that's the only picture I have from the day because we forgot to bring cameras to the park and I didn't take my phone out to the workout or game.

We started with some batting practice, a little stretching and throwing, and then we cycled through various workouts. Our group went to hitting practice first. I was satisfied with my effort. Nothing special, but I had a couple of solid rips.

Next, we went to outfield drills.  And that's where Herm Winningham got in my head. To say I had some issues on the flyballs would be an understatement.  I caught the first ball, but used my bare hand to keep it from flying out of the glove. That's when Herm started giving me the business, "You're gonna break your hand!"  Next ball went off my glove as I was so focused on not bringing my bare hand into it.  After that, I was misreading and stumbling left and right.  I had no confidence on fly balls the rest of the day.

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While Slyde's out living the dream, we here at Red Reporter have serious issues to contend with.

Word 'round the campfire is that Orlando Cabrera is very close to signing a deal with the Reds.  Let's take a look at his recent numbers and some projections, courtesy of FanGraphs:

Offense

Cabrera's most recent season as a league-average hitter came in 2007 on a fine Angels team.  That offseason, however, he was traded for Jon Garland, and he hasn't really produced offensively since.  He's a good contact guy, but he's never had a ton of power nor much inclination to take a walk (career walk rate = 6.5%, career OBP = 0.322).  He has occasionally flashed modest power for a middle-infielder, but the last time he topped 10 HR was 2004, and the last time he topped 0.400 SLG was 2006 despite the relatively high batting average.  His speed game might be starting to slow as well: he averaged 21 SB & 4 CS per season from 2001-2008, but was just 13-4 last year.  

The three projections I'm listing here put him right about a +10 RAR offensive player next season.  That's largely based on durability--Cabrera hasn't posted less than 600 PA since 2005!  Fans project him at 88% playing time, which is very impressive.  If he starts to lose playing time due to ineffectiveness, however, he starts to fall down into the +5 RAR area offensively...

Fielding

Of course, his calling card has never been his offense: Cabrera has made his money by being adequate with the stick while flashing a fine glove.  He just turned 35, however, and is at a point when players often do slip defensively.  His projection isn't that bad: Zimmerman's UZR projections put him at +1 runs, TotalZone puts him at -15 runs (more on that in a sec), and the Fans Scouting Report put him at -5 runs.  Averaging all three, as I did with Tejada, puts him at -6 runs per season next year.

As ken pointed out with Tejada, this might be a conservative way of making a fielding projection for an older player.  You should never focus too much on a single year of fielding data, but Cabrera posted a career low -14 UZR last season and a career-worst -17 runs by TotalZone.  TZ seems to factor this more recent year in more heavily in its projection.  And the Fans Scouting Report, which, despite my infatuation with it, does tend to give aging, former plus-defenders a pass for too long...even they rated him as a -5 run per season defender.  I think the reasonable thing to do is project him as somewhere between a -5 to -10 run fielder at SS per season (at 88% playing time, that makes him down to a 4-9 run fielder).

Below the jump, we arrive at a projected value for Cabrera and compare him to Paul Janish.

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I know I haven't been around much lately, but I thought I should let you know that I'm leaving for vacation this morning. That's right, suckas, it's time for Reds Fantasy Camp! By the time most of you are rolling out of bed at 2pm this afternoon, I'll be in mostly sunny Phoenix, Arizona!

Tonight is mainly preliminary stuff.  We have a little get together, maybe a few drinks, get our schedule, meet the other campers, and then it's lights out, mister!  I probably won't have much of an update tonight, but I expect to be able to give you updates every day for the rest of the week. 

My prediction for the week comes from America's Sweetheart, Clubber Lang, "Prediction?...Pain."  My one goal for this week is to not run into a serious injury.  If I can avoid that, it will be a success.

And to be honest, that's probably the most realistic goal I can set because if you'd seen me in the batting cage, you'd know that I'm a mix of the worst parts of Quinton McCracken and Wily Mo Pena.  My best hope is that I hit it to guys that can't field it very well.

Hopefully I'll have some pictures and video for you tomorrow, or at least some time this week.  Enjoy the week while I'm away.  I won't be thinking of you!

(Check out the classic Seinfeld clip after the jump.  Enjoy the cold!)

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A year ago today, my mother passed away from Leukemia.  At the time, on this site, I had encouraged all of you to give blood at your local blood bank as it was the donations of so many that helped keep my mom alive while she took chemotherapy and other treatments.  We also talked about putting together a Red Reporter sponsored blood drive some time during the year.  I dropped the ball on that one, but I'm hoping to make up for lost time starting today.

Starting today, and for over the next 13 weeks we will be having a blood drive here at Red Reporter.  Why 13 weeks? Well, that just so happens to be how long until Wire to Wire: Sweet Lou, Nasty Boys, and the Wild Run to a World Championship by John Erardi and Joel Luckhaupt comes out, and three lucky blood donors are going to receive their very own copy of the book...for free!  Also, 13 weeks gives those that have recently donated another chance to donate in order to be eligible for the contest.

So, how does one become eligible for the contest? Simply go to your local blood bank or neighborhood/office blood drive and donate. Not sure where you can donate? Check out RedCrossBlood.org to find a blood drive or donation bank in your area.  After you've donated, fill out the form below and just like that, you will be entered to win.  It's just that easy.

I know that some of you, because of one reason or another, won't be able to donate blood. Don't worry, we'll have other opportunities for you to win a copy of Wire to Wire.  I also know that some of you have no interest in the book, please don't let that deter you from giving blood. 

If you've never given blood before, I encourage you to give it at least one try.  I went for years without giving blood until my wife finally drug me along with her. It wasn't nearly as bad as I imagined it to be. There is a little bit of a sting, but it's not much more than when you get a shot at the doctor's office. You might be a little sore afterward, but usually it's not all that painful. Those of you who are regular donors, speak up in the comments and give us your stories!

If you happen to donate more than once before April 30th, feel free to log your name more than once.  It will increase your chances of winning, though you can only win one copy of the book. This would be an especially good reason to donate platelets, since generally a person can donate platelets every two weeks.

All I ask is that you are honest about your blood giving.  Like I said, there will be other chances for you to win the book in the future. So, if you are going to cheat, please cheat on one of those chances. Donating blood is important, and I'd really like to know that the readers of RR are legitimately making a difference.

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