Friday, November 15, 2013

Time to Fix the Choo Choo

So this is the off-season. Some of you have probably gone into hibernation. It's not a bad decision, really. I envy bears. I mean, think about it, they get to sleep through the entire winter AND wake up skinny? Of all creatures on Earth, bears must be at the very top of the evolutionary chart.

The Reds, on the other hand, feel like amoebas sometimes. They have this awesome ability to develop into a higher life-form, and they just don't. They might evolve into an insect of some sort, but a lowly kind of insect, not bees or butterflies or any kind of useful bug like that. And just when they're about to evolve again, they lose a leg. Sure, they can still walk, but it's an awkward walk, limping along with desperate hopes that spring will regenerate that leg.

The firing of Dusty Baker was a massive step in the right direction. Here you have a guy who couldn't light a fire in the team if he was carrying a blow torch. Turned on. And everyone was doused in lighter fluid. That Wild Card game...wow. You'd think they didn't even care. They should have been jumping up and down in the dugout. They should have been shouting. But it was like they had given up since they dropped all of those games at the end of the season and didn't win the division.

I hope watching Taint Louis in the World Series hurt them.

In recent years, we've had some decent off seasons. Getting Chapman certainly felt like a coup, and the Latos for Steroid Kids deal with the Padres was a good one. Signing Votto, Bruce, and Phillips for multiple years at hefty price tags was good news, too, and then there was the trade for Choo.

TAKE THE MONEY, CHOO.

Look, when was the last time you can remember the Reds having a leadoff hitter who, you know, got on base? I don't remember one. Stick him in leftfield and let Hamilton cover center. How could you ask for a better outfield? Ludwick would be a great bat off the bench, albeit one with a bigger price tag than what Walt seems willing to pay to decorate the pine. It hasn't worked, Walt. The Izturuses and um...I can't even think of the others because they're all the same...they don't work. Nothing like rallying only to have the Izturuses come up to bat and kill it all. They're like deer hunters on a deer farm. Easy targets!

I sure hope the Reds can evolve over the winter. Sure, getting to the playoffs is nice, but losing in this manner year after year is beyond disappointing. To quote our eminent Reds fan Charlie Sheen, that Wildcard game was "a shameful train wreck filled with blind cuddly puppies."

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