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The 2014 MLB Draft was just over a month ago, but an important part of the 2015 Draft will play out tomorrow as the Competitive Balance Lottery will provide a few select franchises with additional early picks for next June. Teams who play in one of the 10 smallest markets in baseball or who have one of the 10 smallest revenue pools in the league are essentially compensated by MLB with extra draft picks, and the Reds are once again eligible for one of the 12 picks that will be awarded for next year's draft. There will be 6 picks that will be selected between the 1st and 2nd rounds, and 6 more that will go between the 2nd and 3rd rounds, and since baseball likes things to be super complicated, there are a few stipulations that could prevent the Reds from receiving either. That's what happened last year, as the Reds were not granted one of the 12 picks (due to there being more than 12 teams that qualified due to the overlap in the criteria), but they'll hope they can nab an early compensation pick like they did in the 2013 draft where they selected Michael Lorenzen 38th overall. There will be 12 teams eligible for one of the 6 early picks again this year, and whichever of those 6 teams that don't get an early round pick will join the Seattle Mariners and Minnesota Twins for an 8 team pool for the second set of 6 picks. Let's hope the Reds don't get screwed like they did for the 2014 draft, shall we?
Over at Reds.com, Mark Sheldon's latest notebook has some good news about Brandon Phillips, a check-in on Joey Votto's status, and an iffy premise regarding Billy Hamilton. First, Sheldon notes that BP threw for the first time since his July 11th surgery yesterday, which is fantastic news until you realize that a baseball player who injured his non-throwing hand had not actually thrown a baseball with his perfectly functional throwing hand for 11 days in the middle of a baseball season. Regardless, it appears that BP is - at worst - on schedule, and perhaps a tad ahead, and that's great news despite how hustle-y Skip Schumaker is (more on that in a minute). There's then a blurb about Votto having platelets shot into his leg, which is rather scary, before moving on to some questions to Billy Hamilton about whether he was worried about not hitting in a 3 game series. A 3 game series. If players were "worried" about not hitting in a 3 game series, they'd need Bryan Price to be a licensed psychotherapist. No player is worried after not hitting in a 3 game series, especially Billy Hamilton. Odd.
Regarding Skip, well, he apparently won the Reds' "Heart and Hustle Award," which was announced this morning, because of course he did. Previous winners include: Shin-Soo Choo, Chip McSweaty, Danny Butternuts, Phil McPassionforthegame, Scooter Leavinitallonthefield, and David Eckstein (probably). Congrats, Skip.
FanGraphs' Eno Sarris got a few quotes from Todd Frazier as he looked at the impact Hamilton's base-path skills have had on Frazier's breakout season. The premise is that when Hamilton's on, the batter at the plate will see more fastballs because any slow pitch will give Hamilton enough extra time to steal that he'd be impossible to catch, but Sarris found that to not necessarily be the case. One thing not mentioned that I've wondered about follows a similar thought process, I guess, but is a tad different: what if the number of fastballs seen doesn't increase, but the type of secondary pitches seen features a lot fewer change-ups and, instead, more cutters?
Cliff Lee threw a clunker last night in his first start off the DL, and then dropped a solid fart at the end of his post-game press conference. The cameras got it, it's gone viral, and according to Aaron Gleeman of NBC's Hardball Talk, there's a guy who works for CSN Philly named "Finger" who wants to be "pulled" into a war of flatulence with the press. I don't even...
The Brewers won (duh), the Pirates lost, and the Cardinals had the day off (why?), which leaves the Reds in 4th place in the NL Central at 51-48, 3.5 games out of 1st in the Central and a full 3 games out of the 2nd Wild Card spot. GET ON THE PHONE, WALTER.
Finally, Beeker was on The Phil Naessens Show again this week to talk about whatever the heck happened in the series against the Yankees and to preview the series against Milwaukee. You will click and listen to our fearless leader, or Corky Miller will come to your house and pour Brut everywhere.
