-- A few days ago I put up a poll asking for opinions on the daily minor league updates, and only received three votes which kind of told me alot. The reason I asked was because the daily updates take up quite a bit of screen real estate, and since they're daily they tend to push ongoing conversations further down (or off) the page, effectively killing them. I thought about going to a weekly update on the minor leagues, and I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep doing the daily updates too however, but I'll just keep them entirely within the "click here to read more" page. So you'll see the header "Minor League Roundup for x/xx and then if you're interested you'll have to click to read the entry. That way the updates won't take up much room, and those who couldn't care less about the minor league updates can just skip over them. It'll also provide a better overview of how Reds prospects are doing, since it can be tough to tell simply looking at them on a day to day basis.
-- Brian Erts, who many of you might know as WOY over at RedsZone, has started posting at Redleg Nation, and he's been churning out some seriously great stuff. This is his latest piece and it deals with lineup construction, a hot topic these days for the Reds, what with the struggling Joe Randa hitting fourth and the leadoff spot so up in the air. Make sure to check it out.
-- Here's a terrific article by Moneyball author Michael Lewis entitled "Absolutely, Power Corrupts". Just about everything Lewis writes is worth reading, and this is no exception.
-- Rich Aurilia watch: Aurilia has improved a bit at the plate in the past week, but he's still only getting on base at a .250 clip which is absolutely atrocious. Felipe Lopez's line stands at .273/.333/.455. This'll never happen since the Reds have Aurilia and Lopez, but I have to wonder why Cincinnati never even entertained the idea of moving D'Angelo Jimenez to shortstop. The move would have allowed Ryan Freel to bat leadoff every day, and the offense would have been strengthened. It's even more puzzling when you remember that we're talking about the same organization that wanted to move Austin Kearns to third.