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Cincinnati Reds Roundtable with Caesar Cliffius

The Cincinnati Reds have recently upgraded third baseman Scott Rolen's contract to tie him up for the next three years. That is all well and good, but I believe we had him for this year already, am I right?

We have more pressing problems than pacifying a player for whom we already had mortgaged the farm—no play on words.

Shortstops still change teams or get re-signed by their own club while we sit and wait it out.

Craig Counsell of the Milwaukee Brewers is the latest one to get away. He could have been a pretty sweet addition to our infield. I guess we were too busy seeing how much money we could throw down Scott Rolen’s wallet before solidifying our shortstop situation.

We have no shortstop, can you understand that?

Paul Janish is a fill-in at best. God bless him, he can field with the best of them, but you can’t beat anybody 0-0. We need run production, we need men who can get on base.

Again, we were too busy worrying about keeping Rolen locked up in the stable that we didn’t even attempt to sign Jonny Gomes. He is no superstar, granted, but he is a slugger—something we are relatively light on if nobody has noticed.

Wasting money by keeping Ramon Hernandez wasn’t a big help either. If we don’t have money to pursue good players, it is not difficult to understand why. We flushed $8 million on Hernandez last year, so let’s drop a couple more kids off at the pool in his name, to the tune of $3 million.

I don’t know for sure if they are trying to move Joey Votto to LF and try Yonder Alonso at 1B, but I don’t see that as an answer to anything. I believe it provides more questions than answers.

Some speak of Alonso as though he would be the second coming of something great. He didn’t even hit .300 playing “A” and “AA” ball last season.

So where does this leave us now? Drew Sutton’s .212 batting average won’t get it done, so we can’t move Brandon Phillips to SS and put Sutton at 2B.

And what are we going to do with our pitching staff?

A year ago or so it appeared we would have a gem of a rotation. Bronson Arroyo and Adam Harang as experienced starters, along with Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez as potential stars should have added up to a formidable staff, but that never eventuated. Homer Bailey has finally settled down and I think we can count on him in the rotation.

I would really like to see a southpaw join the starting rotation. Matt Maloney attempted it last year but after a good beginning he fell off in a critical manner.

I guess Walt Jocketty is content that we have a decent squad, but I would personally like to see more wins than losses in 2010.

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