Red Reposter - Billy & Yorman, OF of the future

As my esteemed colleague RijoSaboTaubenseeTreadwayBenzingerNixWLW detailed yesterday, the Cincinnati Reds have called up 10 players since it's September and they can.  I'm quite excited to see what Yorman Rodriguez can do on the big stage, since he's been a prospect with whom I've remained enamored throughout the ups and downs of his still young career.  His 2014 has been an odd one, but it's also shown signs of continued development, which is absolutely what you look for in a prospect with tools as raw as his.  He started 2014 on fire by hitting .325/.361/.442 in April before an oblique injury sent him to the DL on April 26th.  He came back just 14 days later (which appears to have been way, way too early), and hit a putrid .139/.184/.208 in the rest of his May.  He went from April 21st to June 20th without honking a dinger, but he turned the corner and hit a stellar .292/.381/.456 over the final 289 PA of his season.  That coupled with a great OF arm and the ability to cover serious ground as a defender has me still very high on Yorman, who just turned 22 two weeks ago.

But you should probably read Rant Sports, though, because one of their writers wanted to drop him from the 40 man roster altogether.

C. Trent Rosecrans of the Cincinnati Enquirer is also quite excited for Yorman's arrival.

John Fay chipped in with some thoughts on the September call-ups for the Enquirer, too, and he adds in some analysis of  the recently completed Jonathan Broxton trade and Homer Bailey being shut down for the season, too.  Oh, right...Homer's being shut down for the season.  Given the contract issues and trade speculation that will be hovering over the franchise this winter until some sort of plan is engaged, the last thing the Reds needed was the pitcher in whom they'd already largely invested going down the nebulous road of arm surgery, but that seems more and more likely by the day.  2014 can eat a bag of prunes 87 miles before the next Rest Area for all I care.

Continuing on the "Wick got caught up on the Enquirer this morning" theme, Rosecrans has a pretty dang solid article up about Billy Hamilton, the grind of day to day baseball, and the young CF's chances at taking home the NL Rookie of the Year award later this fall.  You should read that, too, if your cookies haven't forced you to enter credit card info to continue reading on cincinnati.com yet.

Speaking of awards season, /mlb's Grant Brisbee broke down the races in the NL, and both Hamilton and Johnny Cueto occupy much of it.  The gist:  Clayton Kershaw is a ridiculous robot and the NL rookie class has been largely disappointing.

Finally, since the majority of regular season Minor League baseball has officially wrapped, Doug Gray put together a quick look at some of the players in the Reds' system that did the most to improve their stock in the 2014 season over at Redleg Nation.  If you've followed Farmer's Only throughout the season, you'll be keenly familiar with each of these guys, but it's still worth noting that we're not the only ones glowing about a few of the younger prospects in the system.