Cincinnati Reds host Colorado Rockies in final Cactus League game

It’s the final Cincinnati Reds game of Cactus League play today, as the Reds will head east for a pair of exhibition games on Monday and Tuesday in Atlanta before opening the regular season on Thursday against the Pittsburgh Pirates. And, Sonny Gray is pitching today, and both of those things should be the headline news here.

Instead, we’re stuck trying to figure out what kind of shenanigans the Reds are going to roll out again.

On the heels of demoting Nick Senzel and sending us double-talk about how it’s not service time related, the Reds immediately went into silly-land in their actions in the wake of the news that Scooter Gennett will be out 8-12 weeks with a groin injury. Now, we find out that Jesse Winker - he of the -1.9 dWAR season in LF - will serve as the team’s backup CF, as The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans relayed, and Winker gets the start there today.

Nick Senzel isn’t ready to be a CF because of his lack of experience, but Winker - who has started a grand total of 2 games in CF in his professional career and ranked as one of the 17 worst OF on defense in any position per FanGraphs last year (min 300 PA) - is their backup plan out there? Right. Not to mention, if Winker’s in CF that’s because Schebler isn’t playing, meaning either Matt Kemp or Derek Dietrich would be the team’s LF that day...and all three of them ranked alongside Winker among those 17 worst OF defenders last year.

To translate, that means the Reds are deliberately not giving a hoot about OF defense while also citing OF defense for why Nick Senzel didn’t make the team. Ya follow?

I’m not even mad. I’m just doing everything I can to try to follow any sort of rational thought with this sequence. Blame it on my B.A. in Economics.

Here’s the full travel roster for today:

It’s an early 3:05 PM ET start today, so plan accordingly. Just don’t plan on watching it since it’s not on TV.

Go Reds. You’re my favorite team. Just please stop making so many silly moves and statements.