We'll get into some early speculation regarding which names have been tossed around for the currently vacant managerial position with the Cincinnati Reds, but before we do that, we have BREAKING NEWS! That's right friends, amigas, people who hate us, and life forms who have no emotional attachment to us, the Reds are going to try to go deep into the playoffs next year! Exciting, isn't it? I know, I know, the best laid plans of mice and men often leave you high and dry and crying in the corner in nothing but a tube-top and mismatched jellies, but I seriously get the feeling the Reds may be on to something in 2014. Stars aligning, bury a time capsule type things. We'll find out in a painstakingly long time, of course, but we here at Red Reporter aim to make that wait more painful...errrm...painless. Right! That's the ticket!
Oh, brother. It's going to be a long offseason, isn't it?
John Fay shrugged off the Reds' early postseason exit and kept right on truckin' through work, this time with a breakdown of Bryan Price as the potential Reds' manager. I'll go on record as being fully on board the HARRBRY campaign assuming, of course, that Joe Girardi is as likely a candidate as we all think he is (meaning: he's not one). I feel like Price provides the perfect level of continuity and progressive thought to bridge the successful last few seasons with the rest of the prime years of this team's core players. I base that on hunches, hot air, and unfounded speculation, by the way, so you can be certain it's true.
Baseball America is working on their Top 20 lists for each Minor League right now, and the Reds are, well, kind of in a pickle. There is a solid core of talent represented in the lower levels with the likes of Robert Stephenson, Jesse Winker, Phil Ervin, and Yorman Rodriguez making the lists, and while the AAA levels have yet to be released, I'd be pretty surprised to see much more than those guys in the rankings. Unless your favorite franchise has signed a deal with the devil, these things are cyclical, so it's not terribly surprising to see this, but it still makes you want to loosen your collar a tad. H/T to Doug Gray for tweeting this to my attention.
The Arizona Fall League kicks off today in, you guessed it, Arizona! While it appears that quite a large portion of MLB's Top 100 prospects will be in attendance, the Reds aren't sending any of their highest ranked players, it seems. Yorman Rodriguez and Michael Lorenzen are probably the highest rated Reds' farmhands in attendance, and they'll be joined on the Glendale Desert Dogs by Tucker Barnhart, Travis Mattair, Ryan LaMarre, Jamie Walczak, Chad Rogers, and Drew Hayes. If there's one thing that Red Reporter knows and knows well, it's Glendale, AZ, and I look forward to the Reds' contingent maturing emotionally and eating tongue tacos from strip malls while there. Stay tuned, too, as the Red Reporter Farmers Only Bureau will have detailed breakdowns and statistical analysis of these folks as they get in some extra PT this fall. They might, at least. Maybe? They probably won't. But they might...