Matt Joyce (OF) of the Tigers. Probably not available, and redundant if Alonso goes to 1b with Votto or Edwin to LF, but this kid is only 23, right-handed with pop and looks promising to me.

to be continued…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHkT4peQdbs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL36nwCSYUM

This whole clip is nauseating. See Maxine Waters around 5:08, also F. Raines: “These assets are so riskless…” lol

The Moth, a not-for-profit storytelling organization, was founded in New York in 1997 by poet and novelist George Dawes Green, who wanted to recreate in New York the feeling of sultry summer evenings on his native St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, where he and a small circle of friends would gather to spin spellbinding tales on his friend Wanda’s porch. After moving to New York, George missed the sense of connection he had felt sharing stories with his friends back home, and he decided to invite a few friends over to his New York apartment to tell and hear stories. Thus the first “Moth” evening took place in his living room. Word of these captivating story nights quickly spread, and The Moth moved to bigger venues in New York. Today, The Moth conducts six ongoing programs and has brought more than 3,000 live stories to over 100,000 audience members.

[WARNING: Links below are iTunes links.]
The latest story involves a 16 year old batboy for the Yankees and is a riot if you like baseball. Also check out the very odd Edgar Oliver’s Revisiting Savannah. Of interest to librarians is Marvin Gelfand’s The Liberty Card.

Give The Moth a try. The stories are usually 10-15 minutes long, often hilarious and sometimes quite moving.

This is not a proposal I make lightly, as he is one of the few Reds who apparently enjoys playing baseball. I think it is ridiculous to say he could be a top-notch SS, there were doubts about his ability at that position from the time he began with the Indians. Yes, he’d have more range than Jeff Keppinger, but so what? He’s a wonderful 2B and if he doesn’t win the Gold Glove this year, they shouldn’t give one. (I still think he is a far cry from Pokey Reece at 2B. Pokey was the Ozzie of 2B to me.)

No one says much about it, but Brandon Phillips is a classic platoon player if it weren’t for his glove:

Note the problem with this in 2008: 354 ABs against his weakness vs. 151 ABs against his strength. He’s spent most of his time in the 3-5 hole this year, when in reality he is better suited to 5-7.

Not convinced? Here are his career totals:

Even so, he is one of the few Reds with substantial trade value. He didn’t cost us much at all, being one of the wrongly-maligned Wayne Krivsky’s better pickups. Why not turn him for a pitcher, a la Hamilton-Volquez? 2B is an easy spot to fill, preferably with someone capable of an OBP better than .350. Is that asking too much? Someone who will hit 10-15 HRs (not that difficult at GABP) and draw 75 BBs. The question is: who could he bring in return?

Matt Cain? Probably not, though I’d love to get him, even if we had to include Homer (”I used to throw 98MPH, really, I did!”) Bailey.

Zack Greinke? I wouldn’t make that deal if I were the Royals GM.

I don’t know. But I don’t think those type of younger, higher-ceiling SPs are out of the question. I wouldn’t deal him for prospects. I’d be interested in hearing what others think he could bring.

Brandon Phillips is a fun player, with some great tools. I like his attitude, but unlike Paul Daughetry, I don’t think he’s the type of player to lead a team. He hasn’t really improved, hasn’t changed his game, doesn’t have the cred to be the leader we want him (or someone) to be. Just because he is the closest we have to that now doesn’t make him untouchable. John Erardi had a column Sunday that highlighted Phillips’ weaknesses. (Erardi’s insightful, evidence-based coverage of the Reds is one of the few bright spots of this season to me, btw.)

I say the Reds should see what he can bring this off-season. If some GM looks at the HRs and SBs and will overpay, the Reds should take advantage of it. He’s good…but only against lefties. He’s Pokey, with a lesser glove, against the pitchers he faces more often, right-handers.

Brief other Reds thoughts:

• Stick with Edwin
• Bring up Stubbs and let him play CF the rest of the year
• Dump Corey Patterson and don’t allow Dusty to advise on player moves ever again
• Move Arroyo and, if possible, Cordero. The Cordero contract is looking like one of Krivsky’s absolute worst moves.
• Pray Alonso lights up the minors. You can move him to 1B and Votto to LF. Love Votto’s attitude and opposite-field power, I think he’ll be much better next year.
• I doubt Chris Dickerson will continue to hit.
• Dorn is an interesting prospect
• In general, challenge your minor league prospects sooner. Stubbs should have been moved along faster, e.g.
• Don’t expect much from Homer Bailey. Something has to be wrong with him, he barely breaks 92 MPH.

• numerous lockups that eventually require a hard restart
• difficulty installing an external USB hard drive (required creating a Environmental Variable to show non-working USB devices, finding it in DevMgr and deleting it, then rebooting and trying again. Good luck talking Grandma through that over the phone!)
• UAC is an even worse nuisance than the Apple ads imply
• mysterious “unable to load Security [blah blah]” locking up random logins
• Can’t run Maplestory (for my 10 year old)
• mysteriously inaccessible Disk Management mmc
• boots 2-3 times slower than a Macbook

This box is nothing special, but it should be able to run the OS at a basic level. I shouldn’t need to max out RAM just to get it to run. I cannot imagine people running this on a Celeron box. I have set everything to run for BEST PERFORMANCE, no eye candy stuff active.

I’ll get it going. It is disappointing, but not surprising. There are a few things I do like about it, too. I’d give it a D+ so far, though. A charitable D+. The Apple OS is so much better it is sickening.

Nothing special, but so cheap and it will smoke the old Dell it is replacing. I’ve bought from the Dell Outlet for both home and work in the past and have never regretted it.

Looking forward to seeing the pricing on new Macbooks and iPods (and iPod Touches, hopefully?) next month. If they had a fresher MacMini, I might have paid up for that, but I couldn’t wait.

Maybe the most amazing track performance of my lifetime. I appreciate the showmanship, the guy is a hoot, but like everyone else , I wanted to see a “sub 9.6″. Here’s hoping he runs the 200 all the way. Michael Johnson’s record is likely toast. Bolt hates the 400 but I would love to see him move up to that in the future.

That margin of victory is crazy. Sub 10.1 only garners last place? Wow.