Hot Stove Hot Air Monitor

This feature - if it be worthy of the name "feature" - is an attempt to keep track of the trade targets and free agents the Reds have been attached to in the press. We'll attempt to subjectively rank the players by intensity and reliability of the rumors to get a sense of who the buzz says the Reds are most likely to add to their team. We'll put a premium on anything the front office itself confirms, though with the knowledge they are both wary of "tampering" and can sometimes engage in misdirection.

The Reds don't appear to be going anywhere near free agent starters like Hiroki Kuroda or Mark Buehrle, while it looks like the Padres just acquired Huston Street. That one sticks in my craw as I'd really hoped to deploy the headline "Reds Occupy Huston Street."

So where does this leave the Reds? The chart below is my best attempt, amidst all the hot air, to list the players with the strongest readings on both level of interest from the Reds and credibility/plausibility of rumors.

WARNING: The soup gets very thin toward the end of this list.