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The big news, of course, is the three-team deal that sent Ryan Hanigan to the Rays and brought back 22-year-old lefty Dave Holmberg. From a baseball perspective, it's dealing from a surplus to fill a need, which is nice. But I think it's safe to say that we're all going to miss Mr. Hanigan something fierce and that we're all very excited to see what Mesoraco can do in 400-500 at-bats. We've got the story from cincinnati.com, minorleagueball, and Redleg Nation. I don't have any editorializing to do that riverfront hasn't already, but I will say that Mesoraco certainly looked capable defensively last year, and the pitching staff didn't skip a beat when the Golem was back there. Unfortunately, that selfsame beat was skipped by our hearts instead.
But it's no secret that the Reds need improvement out of the offense, and Mesoraco certainly has the greater offensive potential. It's a bit of a roll of the dice, but those are necessary to get the Reds out of One-Game Playoff-land. And in case you want to know how ridiculous we look, good ol' Grant doesn't even mention the Reds when he goes over the deals of yesterday.
Looking backwards, the Reds are going to honor Ron Oester, Dave Parker, Ken Griffey Jr. and 19th-century 1B Jake Beckley to the Reds HoF. Good stuff.
The Reds announced their promo sched for 2014. The Homer Bailey no-no-no-no Bobblehead is the head biller, but I'm hoping that there's a Latos bobblehead for the game against the Giants and a Votto one against the Jays. I'm also super-pumped for September 5-6-7, which is Irish, German, and Hispanic Heritage Days all in a row. Lutz better be a September call-up by then and I hope you all party ethnically-appropriately that weekend.
The Reds also have a new-look coaching staff. Freddy Benavides comes back to a Reds jersey, which is neat. I really don't know who Steve Smith is.
Because you all like sports and if I get page-views I might get invited back one day, I wrote about soccer and neighborhood-ness and gentrification in Sports Illustrated. Please read it, if you have the time.
And because this is all about me, I finally watched The Ambassador this evening. "Danish journalist makes documentary about bribery in Africa by trying to smuggle diamonds out of Africa while dressed up like Dr. Livingstone in a laudanum dream" is basically Cy-bait, and I loved it and you should too. Since I have Netflix, but no friends, please tell me what else I should be watching on Netflix Instant. Any suggestions?