Cincinnati Reds

I've had a while to simmer down. 

Please congratulate me if I can somehow manage my way through this piece without jumping into one of Rahm Emanuel's profanity-laced tirades.

Dusty Baker is the sole reason why our Reds are losers.

The talent is there, perhaps not enough to make the playoffs this season—but enough to look respectable while trying.

This is what needs to be done:

Don’t let Michael Jordan beat you.  

Double-team him.  Triple-team him.  

Make sure his tail hits the paint every time he drives to the basket.  Do everything you can to take him out of the game and if Scottie Pippen nails a jumper to put you away, so be it.

No matter what sport you are playing, you should always do your best to take the opposition’s best player out of the game.  In baseball, that means keeping the ball away from the hitting zone and not allowing the batter to get the fat part of the bat on the ball.

In his first spring training ever—and with last year's Arizona Fall League listed as the only professional fodder on his Major League résumé—Mike Leake snagged the role of fifth starter for the Cincinnati Reds on Friday.

The move makes Leake only the 13th pitcher to completely skip the minor leagues since the amateur draft was introduced in the mid '60s. 

It's been 16 years since the last one, Ariel Prieto. He went 15-24 during a six-year career—a possible indicator as to why it has been so long.

The 2010 Cincinnati Reds roster is set. Most of the the roster is not a surprise. We pretty much knew 20 out of the 25 guys going in. Today, the roster was announced.

This list focuses on the guys who surprisingly made the big club. With the possible exception of Mike Leake, these guys are not going to be the difference between a playoff team and a disappointment.

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Opening Day 2010 is less than 72 hours away, which means most fantasy drafts have been completed. Judging by average draft positions on Mock Draft Central , fantasy owners are allowing certain sleeper candidates to go undrafted. One of those guys is Drew Stubbs , who has a current average draft position of 311.40.

There are some players who own a particular team or pitcher.

Some are so good against a particular team that the odds of getting them out seem as low as being struck by lightning.

I have researched and found, by each position, the active players who have had the best success against the Reds.

Let's do this.

We will start with the pitcher and work our way around.

Pitcher

Roy Oswalt   23-1,  2.58, 206 IP, 177 H, 165K

When is a 9.88 a good thing?

When you're taking a test out of 10 points. When you're an Olympic ice skater. When it's your 100-meter dash time.

When is it a bad thing?

It's certainly a bad thing if we are talking about ERA.

The 9.88 ERA belongs to Cincinnati Reds "ace" Aaron Harang—the same guy who will be tying an all-time Reds record for Opening Day starts on Monday with five.

The season hasn't even started, and I'm already hitting the panic button on Harang. 

The Cincinnati Reds finished the 2009 season in fourth place with a 78-84 record. As the club enters the 2010 season, there finally appears to be some honest-to-goodness hope that better days may lie ahead. They could finish as high as second place—IF everything goes right—but I think they’d need to be completely healthy to do so, and with Edinson Volquez unavailable until at least August they’re starting the season with one strike against them.

Key additions: OF Josh Anderson, SS Orlando Cabrera and LHP Aroldis Chapman

With Opening Day only six days away, I thought it would be appropriate to see what the record books have to say about the Cincinnati Reds on the first game of the year. At the present time, adequate records only take us back to 1952.

This game will be against the St. Louis Cardinals against whom the Reds are 8-7.

Since 1952 the Reds are 30-27-1 in their opening game. The lone tie was a 3-3 game against the Milwaukee Brewers in 2000.

A lot has been said about the Reds and their "young" talent.  While there are many prospects in the organization with untapped potential, there are also veterans with a wealth of knowledge and experience.  If the regulars can stay relatively healthy, the infield is one area that Dusty Baker should not have to worry about much this season.