FanGraphs' Eno Sarris chimed in with his 10 Bold Predictions for the 2015 season, following along in his colleagues' path and producing five more significantly less dumb predictions than we Red Reporters could fathom. His first bold prediction should make Cincinnati Reds fans happy, though, since he's calling for Anthony DeSclafani to have a big league season that trumps what his minor league stats suggests. Disco's got a lot on his shoulders this season, kinda, since he'll be expected to be really good provided everyone else is good and healthy, though I suppose there's a chance they're not and the spotlight won't shine his way too often. Regardless, he's in a pretty good position with a franchise that obviously targeted him with success in mind and a manager who is a pitching witch witchy enough to want to resurrect Jason Marquis' career, so he's in good hands. Be right, Eno.
This is not a full-fledged Enoposter, but the dude puts together some great stuff so I'll link to another of his posts. This one's on sliding into 1B, an act once thought to be a cardinal sin of stupidity that may not be quite as dumb as previously posited.
The Reds announced that Jason Marquis would be a part of their starting rotation just hours before he got shelled in his spring start yesterday. Ever wondered what fans of other teams think of that kind of Reds decision making? Well, here's what Charlie Wilmoth of Bucs Dugout thought about that possibility before it was even made official. We're not the only ones that are confused by the whole concept, that's for sure.
The Enquirer's John Fay chimed in with some notes on Homer Bailey's progression, noting that the club's presumptive #2 starter will take the mound in a minor league game on Sunday and very well may not pitch in a big league game at all in spring training. Minor league games are still stacked with talent (Fay also noted Joey Votto got 7 PAs in minor league games two days ago and even whacked a dinger) so it's not like it'll be completely watered down, and he also mentioned that their intention to start Bailey on the 15 day DL to begin the season would be impacted if they opted to pitch him in big league games. It seems the club is still sticking to the idea that Bailey will only miss one start in April. We'll see.
Finally, here's some insight into the recent public fracas between uberagent Scott Boras and the front office brass of the Chicago Cubs surrounding the intent to keep current top prospect Kris Bryant in the minor leagues to start the season. Bryant currently leads the Cactus League world in dingers, and as Marty Brennamen noted during a recent Reds broadcast (in between calling umpires "clowns") no player who led the spring league in dingers has failed to open the season on a big league team in at least the last 20 years. However, the Cubs are intent on keeping Bryant in the minors long enough to prevent his service time from getting to free agency a year earlier than than if he's kept down for a mere two weeks, which while prudent is drawing the ire of Bryant's agent, Boras. The entire Jason Marquis experiment very well could be the Reds' attempts to do the same thing on a smaller scale with Michael Lorenzen, really, though at least that's been kept more under wraps (and out of the handle of Boras). At least, that's what I'm hoping the Jason Marquis experiment is, since if it's just the Reds saying they think he's good enough to be a major league starter again, I'm completely baffled.