Cincinnati Reds links - Walt Jocketty wants 'legitimate prospect' in Jay Bruce trade

Cincinnati Reds former current not actually but sorta somewhat kinda GM Walt Jocketty is willing to trade the Jay Bruce that's hitting over .270 with 25 dingers and a league-leading 79 ribbies so far in 2016.  Unfortunately, it appears that many of the teams that have some level of interest in acquiring the Reds stalwart RF are pricing in the .695 OPS Bruce produced over a 294 game stretch between 2014 and 2015 to their offers, and they also just might have glanced once or thrice at the hideous UZR and DRS numbers Bruce has been docked with so far in 2016.

That's led to a bit of a disconnect between buyers and seller, as Today's Knuckleball's John Perrotto noted this morning, one that Bruce himself is somewhat aware of.  For what it's worth, Bruce both acknowledged that his previous two seasons were terrible, but he's also keen on the idea that adjustments and the eschewing of habits formed while playing with a bum knee have fueled his resurgence, and that the risk of him slipping into such a nefarious funk again are being way overblown.

As for the offers the Reds have received, well, they don't appear to have been anything close to what Jocketty had hoped for.  He told The Enquirer's Zach Buchanan "you wouldn't believe some of the stuff" he's been proposed so far, which isn't exactly the most ringing endorsement that a Bruce trade is going to send the team's massive rebuild into hyperdrive.  Still, pitching has been the clear priority among teams acquiring players to prep for playoff runs so far in this deadline week, and while the position player market has yet to really see any action, I'm pretty confident that will change between now and Monday afteroon.  At least, I sure as heck hope so.

MLB.com's Mike Petriello has a great statistical and analytic look at what Bruce has been successfully doing during this rebound season.  If you've been watching Bruce closely all season, it's been pretty clear how he's been much more actively attempting to use the entire field of play instead of being pull-happy, and Petriello's got the facts to prove that's actually been the case.

In other news, the Reds front office does deserve some serious dap for finding a loophole big enough for T.J. Friedl to fit through, as they signed the talented University of Nevada OF after he went completely unselected in June's MLB Draft.  Turns out Friedl had redshirted in 2015 and was technically eligible to be selected, but wasn't on most teams' radars because most, if not all, were unaware of that technicality.  FanGraphs' Eric Longenhagen called Friedl a sandwich or second-round talent, which means the Reds just stumbled into more than just a late-round filler of a talent.  Considering the early returns from Taylor Trammell and Chris Okey, it's certainly something worth saluting this front office for figuring out.

A pair of current farm outfielders cracked the Top 10 on Baseball America's Prospect Hot Sheet, as both Aristides Aquino and Scott Schebler have been knocking the snot out of the ball for some time now.  As RedsMinorLeagues.com's Doug Gray noted on Twitter, Aquino hasn't just been destroying baseballs since June 1st, he's been doing so in a league that is anything but a great hitting environment.

Finally, with Ichiro Suzuki closing in on his 3,000th career MLB hit, James Smyth took a look back at the 3,000th hits of other notable players over at The Hardball Times.  It's a cool read with plenty of interesting factoids, including that umpire Kerwin Danley was a college teammate of Tony Gwynn, of which I was completely unaware.