A New Season is Upon Us.....

Well, here we go again. It's the time of year where every baseball fan is optimistic about the season. We're all tied for first right now. The Reds made some moves I liked and didn't make some moves that all us Reds fans expected.

Willy Taveras...what can I say about him......well, he's fast...and he swings a little league bat. I see him as another "project" like Corey Patterson was last year. He cannot hit good enough to deserve starting, much less be the leadoff man. His career .331 OBP says that for him to say in the majors, he needs to contribute in other ways, like HR or RBI...which he does neither. I agree with the pundits who say that we would be better off with bringing up Drew Stubbs, former 1st round pick, and have him bat leadoff. He might have a lower batting average than Taveras, but he more than likely would get on base more often and play Gold Glove caliber CF. If they don't feel comfortable with that, then start Dickerson and Hairston Jr in CF, and Gomes in left.

My problem with the team, besides Willy, is the promise to get that All-Star caliber 3 hole power hitter. We needed to do what we did 10 years ago, sign a guy like Greg Vaughn, a clutch power-hitter who will knock in 100+ runs. Instead, we have to rely on Votto getting better, Bruce getting better, and Dickerson living up to the promise he showed last year. We are better defensively this year, and that will help, and we are loaded in pitching. We have 6 guys that should be in our rotation, but one has got to go, and it is likely Bailey will go down to AAA, while Micah Owings holds down the #5 slot.

NFL draft coming up soon. This is my favorite month, a new baseball season, the Masters, and the NFL draft all rolled up together. It would not surprise me at all to see Chad Ochocinco get traded on or around draft day. Houshmandzadeh left us, Ochocinco doesn't look like he wants to be here anymore, so we'll see. We have Coles in now to take Chad's place, Caldwell to take Housh's place, and then we couldn't rule out picking a WR in the 1st round, between Michael Crabtree and Jeremy Maclin. I'll try to break all this down as we get closer to then. What the Bengals need more than anything is a football person to he hired as GM and be allowed to make decisions for the franchise.

I've been really busy with school, so I haven't taken time at all to write on this blog. This time I've spent has gotten me much closer to graduation, which looks to be this December.

Read Ted Dekker, he is an amazing writer. Patrick Rothfuss, amazing writer and hilarious blogger. C Trent Rosecrans, the best blogger alive.

Maltzy