Cincinnati Reds links - Reds scouting Nationals prospect Erick Fedde

FOXSports.com Senior Everythinger Ken Rosenthal dropped a juicy note on Twitter last evening:  the Cincinnati Reds had a few higher-ups in attendance at a Washington Nationals A-ball game to scout RHP Erick Fedde, the 18th overall pick from the 2014 MLB Draft.  Fedde's had a solid start to his 2015 campaign after injuries derailed his 2014, and he's posted an impressive 11.2 K/9 and 2.88 ERA across 25 innings so far this year.  Baseball America went so far as to rank him #90 on their pre-season Top 100 prospect list despite his lost 2014 season, but he's a guy that has very high upside should he stay healthy.  Tis the season for speculation, and speculators have speculated that he may be the kind of prospect that could help form a package for, say, Aroldis Chapman, but he's not established enough to be the centerpiece.  Either way, he's intriguing, the concept of a Chapman-to-Washington trade is intriguing, and it's a sign of life from the Reds front office.

No word as to whether Walt Jocketty called these folks from his condo in Florida and asked them to watch Fedde or if they just were full of gumption on a Thursday evening, however.

This is a few days old - so ignore the Houston Astros mentions since their acquisition of Scott Kazmir - but it's CBSSports.com's Jon Heyman doing his best to poo-poo the concerns that erroneously arose about Johnny Cueto after his rocky last outing.  Heyman does a good job highlighting the secondary factors around Cueto's so-called low velocity from Sunday, providing a solid mitigation of those who thought the Reds ace's outing was a harbinger of bad things to come.

If you're an ESPN Insider, you can read all of Buster Olney's latest from today's column here.  If you're not, just know that he mentions an MLB executive referring to Cueto's scheduled start in Colorado on Saturday as "the biggest start of his life."  That's in reference to his upcoming free agency, the lingering questions about his elbow, the smokescreen he's had to wade through since Sunday's poor outing, and the fact that I may be in attendance to see it in person.

There's no denying the Reds are in rough shape in the standings, in the NL Central futures race, and in their prospect depth.  But, good lord, at least they're not the Colorado Rockies, who are stuck in yet another awful spiral into irrelevance despite sporting several in-prime stars.  The Reds, of course, are in Denver for a three game series that begins Friday evening  (hooray, I'll be at Coors Field!), and while the complete inaction of the Reds in the trade market should have you frustrated, at least it's not as bad as all the nothingness the Rockies are up to.  Small victory?

Finally, Sam LeCure's still in Louisville, but he's still coming with fresh takes on a big league level:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">You don&#39;t see dark brown underwear too often. Why is that?? Makes perfect sense to me</p>&mdash; Sam LeCure (@mrLeCure) <a href="https://twitter.com/mrLeCure/status/624595151906717698">July 24, 2015</a></blockquote>

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