Reds sign OF Jay Bruce to a contract extension

There's little question that two guaranteed years for a 36-year old utility man with a .267/.317/.361 career slash line is excessive. But it's also almost complete harmless. The Cairo signing is not Willy Taveras, Part Deux. Cairo will be getting $2M, spread over two seasons, to play off the bench - a role he filled admirably last year.

The Rule 5 draft is on this morning, and the Reds should hold serve by not doing much of anything.  They could look to add a lefty specialist to hedge against Arthur Rhodes signing elsewhere, but...

For the Reds blogger or news junkie, these are hard times. With baseball's Winter Meetings upon us, I expected the "nothing is happening"/"probably nothing will happen" theme to abate, if only momentarily. But just this morning, John Fay dropped a blogpost entitled Jocketty doesn't expect to do much at Winter Meeings.

Stop by the "Spray Dusty Baker" with Brut booth today from noon-2pm. It's for charity. The charity is the Left Fielder who At Least Has Decent Platoon Splits Against Righties Fund.

Troy Tulowitzki is now a mega-zillionaire. Would you sign Joey Votto to the same contract?

Position: Relief Pitcher 2010 Innings breakdown: Nick Masset - 16%                                             Francisco Cordero - 15% Â...

Position: Starting Pitcher 2010 Innings breakdown: Bronson Arroyo - 22%                                             Johnny Cueto - 19% Â...

Position: Right Field 2010 Innings breakdown: Jay Bruce - 83%                                             Chris Heisey - 13% Â...

Position: Center Field 2010 Innings breakdown: Drew Stubbs - 85%                                             Chris Heisey - 10% Â...