Gonzalez out three weeks

From the Reds:

SS Alex Gonzalez has been diagnosed with a compression fracture of his left knee. He will be evaluated again in 3 weeks.

Doc on Dusty

Nice article by Paul D on Cincinnati.com. Read it here.

MORE FANTASY SPOTS OPEN!!

Shoot me an email at letstalkreds@gmail.com to play!

Sad news in Reds family

Source: Lance McAlister

Cincinnati Reds longtime farm director Sheldon “Chief” Bender died today at Fort Hamilton Hospital in Hamilton, Ohio. He was 88 years old.
Reds President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Castellini said, "In the last three months we lost three very special men in Chief, Joe Nuxhall and Bob Howsam. Each left his own legacy here, and they all made very important contributions to the success of our proud franchise. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families."
Bender retired in 2005 after spending 64 years in baseball as a player, manager and executive. He spent the last 39 of those years as a member of the Reds' front office working in scouting and player development.
Bender headed the club's minor league operations from 1967-89, first as director of player development and then as vice president of player personnel beginning in 1978. He was named special player consultant in January 1990.
Under Bender’s leadership the farm system produced many future stars, including Johnny Bench, Dave Concepcion, Ken Griffey Sr., Don Gullett, Mario Soto, Ron Oester, Tom Browning, Paul O’Neill, Chris Sabo, Eric Davis and Barry Larkin.

Weathers report

Source: John Fay

David Weathers is a good teammate and he wants to win, so he wasan't about to complain when the Reds signed Francisco Cordero. But he admits it stung a bit.

“I was a little disappointed when everything happened and the way it did,” Weather said. “You have your best season and you get demoted. As they say, you take on the chin and keep fighting. That’s the way my whole career has been.”

Weathers understands why Cordero was added. Weathers was good last year -- converting 33 of 39 saves -- but the Reds bullpen overall was awful. The Reds finished last in National League in relief pitching with a 5.13 ERA.

“We needed a guy like Francisco,” Weathers said. “We had to have that because it makes our team that much better. But I would have hoped to be in that slot. That’s human nature.”

Weathers has always been afterthought with the Reds. That was the case when he signed his current contract.

In 2006, he was closer until the Reds traded for Eddie Guardado and after Guardado got hurt. Still, the Reds didn’t jump at the chance to bring Weathers back.
They signed Mike Stanton first. Weathers wanted to come back but the Reds weren’t willing to pay what they paid Stanton.

Weathers left to a $10 million, three-year deal from San Francisco on the table to sign with the Reds for two years and $5 million -- $500,000 less than Stanton’s deal.

“It took so long to get a deal done,” Weathers said. “If compared me to what every other guy was doing, I was doing my job as well better as anyone – with the saves, the holds and all that.

“You’re only human. You do feel underappreciated – or taken for granted,” Weathers said. “I felt that way. You sit around and see everyone else get rewarded.”

THE GAMES HAVE BEGUN

Reds vs Phillies

1:05 on 700 WLW

CTR at Reds Spring Training

Also, check out Trent's blog for a breakdown of the intrasquad scrimmage today.

Intrasquad lineups for today

Here's the intrasquad lineups (hopefully they'll play but it looks like it could rain):

Norris Hopper CF
Jeff Keppinger SS
Jay Bruce RF
Joey Votto 1B
Jerry Gil LF
Javier Valentin C
Jolbert Cabrera 3B
Andy Green 2B
Andy Phillips DH
Pitchers: Aaron Harang, Matt Maloney, Richie Gardner, Josh Roenicke, Tyler Pelland.

Ryan Freel CF
Juan Castro SS
Scott Hatteberg 1B
Brandon Phillips 2B
Edwin Encarnacion 3B
David Ross C
Chris Dickerson RF
Drew Anderson LF
Ryan Hanigan DH
Pitchers: Bronson Arroyo, Johnny Cueto, Alexander Smit, Daryl Thompson, Sergio Valenzuela, Ramon Ramirez.

Source: John Fay

Up in the Bit: Bruce should leave Bluegrass behind; Should be at GABP, not Louisville

BY JOHN ERARDI
Cincinnati Enquirer

Something Sparky Anderson said to me Tuesday got me thinking about Jay Bruce on Wednesday.

I had called "The Main Spark," former manager of the Big Red Machine, to talk about Bob Howsam, his longtime friend and architect of the Machine, who died early Tuesday at age 89.

Sparky said that in 1970, Sparky's first season at the helm, he and fourth-year Reds general manager Howsam brought five rookies north with the big club. They also brought along three other fresh young faces, for a total of eight youngbloods.

The average age of all the players on that team was 25.9 years, youngest in the majors. Of their first 100 games, they won 70. They went to the World Series.

And so, in honor of Sparky's 74th birthday Friday, I remind the Reds' new manager and the third-year Reds GM of this:

There is gold in them thar greenhorns, whether they be named Don Gullett (19) and Wayne Simpson (21) or Jay Bruce (20) and Johnny Cueto (22).

The fact is, Kentuckians were the only baseball fans in Reds Country who got to see Bruce play in their home state last year.

I don't know about you, but if Ryan Freel or Norris Hopper or Kenny Lofton is the Reds' center fielder on Opening Day, I'm personally heading for Triple-A Louisville 12 days later to witness Bruce Almighty.

We Northern Kentuckians think highly of our Reds, rank 'em right up there with the UK basketballers, but we'd rather traverse the Purple People Bridge than 90 miles of interstate when Bruce Almighty's involved.

Just in case, however, circle these two dates on your calendars:

March 31, Monday afternoon, is Opening Day at Great American Ball Park, when the Reds face Brandon Webb, the Arizona Diamondbacks ace from Ashland, Ky., by way of UK.

April 11, Friday night is the Louisville Bats' home opener at Slugger Field vs. Pawtucket.

Hopefully, Bruce will be at the former and not the latter. (We believe in him sufficiently to say we don't believe he'll be at both.)

And speaking of UK, why don't the Reds just draft the Wildcats' entire starting pitching staff every June, and not waste their time drafting pitchers from everywhere else in North America who never make it to the majors? Had the Reds done the former, they'd have both Webb and Joe Blanton, of the Oakland A's, in their starting rotation right now.

But we digress.

Bruce is wizened compared to the young Kentuckian on that 1970 Reds Opening Day roster: Don Gullett, of Lynn, Ky., grew up a few miles south of South Shore, across the Ohio River from Portsmouth, and celebrated his 19th birthday just five weeks prior to reporting to his first big-league camp. Eight weeks later, he made his big-league debut.

Every person I've spoken with who has seen Bruce play says he is ready for the majors. I haven't talked with Reds manager Dusty Baker and general manager Wayne Krivsky - like you, dear readers, I'm enjoying the sunshine of Northern Kentucky right now, not the sunshine of Sarasota, Fla.. - but my gut and my brain tell me there is no way Bruce needs more seasoning.

True, all that we have to go on right now are "projections" and the fact that every team in baseball would love to have Bruce (he was Baseball America's Minor League Player of the Year) on their rosters.

Normally, I'm not a big statistics guy - it's not that I don't believe in numbers, it's just that I've always felt baseball is Brandon Phillips going first-to-third, not what he hits vs. right-handers in May - but now is the time to share some math. Bruce's minor-league stats are so good and his major-league upside so glowing that the statistical gurus predict Bruce will be 240-plus points better than either Freel or Hopper or Lofton this season when it comes to getting on base and smacking extra-base hits. To quote Lou Costello in Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine, "I don't even know what I'm talkin' about!" But I know those are big numbers.

And I know that no matter what Bruce does in his four weeks of exhibition games, it shouldn't matter.

Happy Birthday, Sparky.

On April 3, Happy Birthday, Jay.

Nice timing - day game.

GABP. Good place to turn 21.

Reds' Baker dusts off managerial cap

Feb. 24, 2008
By Scott Miller
CBSSports.com Senior Writer

Read it here.

A REDS FAN SPEAKS OUT

Here's what Will from Kenwood has to say...

As a fellow Reds fan, I know the pain that we have all experienced throughout this past decade. We've seen Elmer Dessens, Jimmy Haynes, Brandon Claussen, and Eric Milton (to name a few) take the mound and pitch us out of contention every summer. A lot of it all started with ownership and a poor GM. We've had some stiff owners in Cincy over the past decade and it seemed that none of them wanted to win as much as they wanted to make money. Jim Bowden was just a puppet in the organization who made terrible deals every year (and still finds ways to hurt us i.e. Majewski and Bray trade).

In steps Bob Castellini. A man driven by competition and a proven winner ready to open his wallet to earn a us a pennant. He hires Wayne Krivsky, someone who can get deals done quickly, and Walt Jocketty, a proven winner from St. Louis who knows the game and how to make deals. With our farm system finally starting to pan out and big acquisitions such as Cordero and Baker we seem to be a winning team waiting in the wings.

As for 2008, it's going to be a rocky ride. There is potential to compete and maybe even win the weak NL Central, but its only potential. I am an optimistic Reds fan, but I know that experience is much more important then raw talent. That being said, we have so much young talent it is unbelievable. Bailey, Cueto, Volquez, Maloney, Votto, and Bruce just to name a few, are poised and ready to come up to the majors this season and gain some valuable experience. A few may even dominate like they did in the minors, but it is ridiculous to think that all these rookies will lead us to October. Baker has been accused of riding young arms in the past with Wood and Prior in Chicago, he doesn't have to do that in Cincinnati. While I feel it is essential that Baker gets all of the kids some experience in the bigs this year, he does not need to bring them all up right away. With Haraang, Arroyo, and Belisle along with the acquisitions of Affeldt and Fogg, there are a lot of options at pitcher.

My proposal to Baker is such: We know these young players are all future stars and we should treat them that way. Bring them up at some point this year and be patient. Don't expect them to be amazing right away and bring us a pennant, this will be a gradual process that will last all season. As they develop this year, there will be good times, but there probably will be more rocky and rough times, it's just part of developing youth. See example A, the Milwaukee Brewers two years ago. As they began to slip further and further out of contention earlier in the year around the all star break, they began their youth movement bringing up all of their young talent. They finished the year toward the bottom of the division but the pieces were in place for the following season. The Brewers soared off to a hot start thanks, largely, to their youthful talent and finished a close second to Chicago in the pennant race.

I'm not trying to sound negative in saying 2008 will not be our year, I'm just telling you all to look into your crystal balls and see our future. It's going to be 2009 or maybe 2010 before we are a contender, but I will say this, we WILL be a contender and a force to be reckoned with in the National League. For now, though, let's just sit back and watch the kids grow up. Indeed, we are all Reds fans, we're used to losing let's all suck it up for one more year. Go Reds!

Let Will know if you agree with him by leaving your comments. Have something you want to say? Write it to LetsTalkReds.com and have it posted.

Reds A Contender?

NY Daily News thinks so. Here is is.

All About Kepp

C Trent Rosencrans had the chance to talk to Jeff Keppinger's college coach at Georgie, David Perno. Here is what came out.