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This ball? No, it's a it's who starting to lose track of the days here.
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I believe it is Thursday, April 30th the very last day of the month.
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So I thought it would be fun to engage some of my red stands here for this topic.
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If you did not catch my stream earlier this week with Josh Bar Log actually attending as a guest, we broke down the breaking news of the week for in the N.
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Nothing set in stone, but it sounds like there at least moving forward with a proposal that could potentially completely changed the landscape of Major league baseball and have the opportunity to start in June.
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Late June or early July is what we're thinking so far at least, so that story came out earlier this week.
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We kind of broke that down.
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I don't want to regurgitate a lot of that same information, just in case you did miss that and to get a recap here.
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Essentially, what they're going to be doing is limiting the season to 100 games, which, as most of you know, I'm in favor of anyways, than splitting the divisions up completely intertwining American League and National League into three separate divisions the central, the East and West.
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And it would be solely dependent on geographic location, so the Reds would be in the central because that's where they're located.
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A lot of the same teams in their division would still be located.
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I believe Pittsburgh got moved to the East, though, which kind of sucks because they're the worst team in the division anyways.
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So, but there are also, you know, big name teams that breads.
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Fans don't get to see all that often, which would be in their division as well.
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They haven't really sorted out the playoff landscape or teams involved.
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How many teams, all that kind of stuff.
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So all those details weren't really released, Just a floater idea out there that has gain some traction here.
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And so that being said, if you're intertwining the American League in the National League, that universal D H idea that we discussed quite a few weeks ago as a potential positive change for Major League baseball would be implemented immediately, which I love.
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And that brings me to my topic tonight because I think that shortened season and Universal D H plan definitely benefits this Reds roster.
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I'm going to break this down tonight, and I'm going to try to be detailed but straightforward as well.
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So the Reds, one of their biggest complaints in the off season with all the moves that they made, are that they have too many bodies and not enough positions the field.
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Adding this D H helps, particularly because the outfield depth that they have, the other struggle for them is that defensively, they're not going to be able to field a great defense of outfield.
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They have a lot of guys that are just average or below average defenders.
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And even if you do mix up the splits lefty righty, you always would have that issue where we just wouldn't have the greatest defense to field.
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This could benefit us as Reds fans.
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Here's my prediction.
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My prediction is that show Go Akiyama, the free agent acquisition that we got from overseas in Asia.
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We'll still come over and play most days in center field because that is his natural position.
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We would still keep Nick Castano's at either probably left field because typically the right fielder in the center fielder are your two best fielders, and they stick the weakest guy in left field.
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So let's assume that Castano's moves over to left.
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Well, guess what that does That frees up the opportunity for Nixon's L, who is coming off injury.
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Teoh slot right in there at right field and be able to play pretty much every day.
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I think that Sen.
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Zell is a much better defender.
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He's got some speed to him.
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He has a great bat this season.
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Starting late helps his injury situation very much so.
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It also helps you hand us or is 1/3 base, get healthy and come back to start the season.
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So not only are they getting healthy, they're able to fit all these pieces in.
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So what I would predict is we see a scenario where we've even heard rumblings over the last two days or so.
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That minor league season might not even go through because with this shortened season and this plan and the whole pandemic scare anyways, that there's just so many health risks and injury risks and everything else that what they would do is they would just broaden these rosters drastically, probably that you didn't even a 40 man roster like they typically do.
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Typically, you're only allowed to have an active roster of it out.
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I think it's 26 guys now, but they would most certainly expand that to 40 right away.
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And maybe even more than that, and what they would do is they would be essentially having some of these elite minor league prospects that were that would be down in the minors for the majority of the season.
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They probably just bring them up to the active roster and had them.
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Andy And what I see them doing is for the D H position.
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Why not Platoon split and had Aquino hit against lefties and Winker hit against righties? That just makes too much sense to me.
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It would fit perfectly.
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And even in late Qing late inning situations in the games where they're the opposing team is swapping out left diverse riding matchups.
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You have that kind of a sin, your back pocket to be ableto pull one of those guys in the middle of the game in a late inning situation and be able to ride him throughout the whole game, so that is even a benefits.
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So not just overall games being played.
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But in the shortened season, you can kind of afford Teoh.
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Give guys days off more often than you would otherwise, and you can afford to kind of fool around with the line up there, which I would love.
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You know you have Aquino with that power from the right side is better against lefties in, and Winker has been drastically better against righties than lefties in his career.
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And if he can be a very strong platoon guy and doesn't have to face a lot of these tough lefties on a day in and day out basis, he would thrive in that role as well.
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I feel like and Linger is terrible in the field.
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He actually graded out as one of the I believe third or fourth slowest fielder in the game is for a sprint speed, which just goes to show you how plodding and slow he is in left field.
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And he's just not an arrogant fielder.
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His defense of metrics don't great out.
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Well, I love him as a hitter.
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I love the hit tool.
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I think he can even improve in that regarding and take a step forward and be even better and be the kind of good, solid prospects type player that we expected coming out, that he really hasn't been able to live up to the potential of yet.
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But I really, really like him in this role as a D H.
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And it would fit with our club.
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So well, we put sins.
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Ellen right? We have costly, honest and left.
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We have Winker and or Aquino in the D eight spot splitting.
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You have sworn his back healthy.
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1/3 shortstop is still the weak point of our team.
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You'd probably have Galvis there at shortstop, but then you'd be able to have new stock is a second thought of it first, Tucker at catcher.
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But I'm telling you, with this situation going on, where minor leaguers are ableto probably be on the active roster, it wouldn't shock me at all.
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If we have Stevenson come through the ranks and be there is a bench.
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Pieces well, is a backup catcher.
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We also have Kirkus Sally's still, so we have the depth there at catcher.
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But it wouldn't surprise me if he's there.
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We also have Josh Van Meter Philip Urban toe fill in bench spots.
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Even so, we have that death to really work out.
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And if we have that extra slot weaken, put that D agent, especially with our lefty righty split guys like Aquino and Winker.
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I think it just fits perfectly.
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And I love love, love this lineup.
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So fingers crossed.
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All those guys stay healthy.
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Still 100 games.
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There's still lot, and I expect some injuries to happen.
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And what makes it even worse with the shortened season is that you know they're gonna have to go back for another spring training.
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Do all that training regiments again, the throwing programs pitching.
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I could see guys in the shortened season on Lee going about five or six innings and then really exhausting those bullpen arms to prevent injuries.
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But I just think they're inevitable.
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It's going to happen.
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These injuries, unfortunately, are going to impact the game.
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And what's the bad part about that is in a shortened season.
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Those injuries are even magnified mawr than they usually would be, because every game is going to be important, especially only having three divisions and just not having any clarity on that playoff situation.
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The way it is going toe play out.
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Those injuries could really, really affect the team and so fingers crossed.
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That doesn't happen as much, but it's going Teoh in these type of cir***stances where you're playing a ton, you're not getting many days off.
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I think that's what the condensed season.
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They're going to try to fit as many games in each week as possible to prevent having to play a ton of doubleheaders and those types of things.
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And you don't want this season going into December January and having a plate, playoff games in neutral fields and warm weather situations.
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It just doesn't seem right now.
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If there's no fans allowed at that point anyways, then who knows? Maybe it won't really matter, But still, I think it's interesting and I really like this set up for Reds, this Reds roster in general.
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So just to kind of recap things here show happy Ana, Joey Votto, Eugenio Suarez, Mike Moustakas, Nick Castano's Jesse Winker and or Aquino.
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You have Nixon's L Freddy Galvis, Tuckey, Tucker Barnhart and in the pitching staff is rounded out well as well.
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Uh, looks like Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray, Trevor Bauer, Anthony Diesel Fine and Wade Miley rounding out that rotation and at the back end here the bullpen.
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Russell Iglesias, Michael Lorenzen, Amir Garretts, Pedro Strope, Robert Stephenson, Tyler Mallee.
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They might even use Mallee as 1/6 starter.
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I could see them doing that as well, potentially just to keep guys healthy and fresh.
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Go with a six man rotation there.
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So there's been talk so that we don't really know what to expect there.
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And then maybe even some minor leaguers to be expected up with the ball club like Tyler Stevenson.
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Like Derek Dietrich.
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Potentially like, uh, you know, as we mentioned earlier, you know, those types of guys are probably going to be up with a big, big league ball club and be able to fill in the gaps here and there on gays where the stars were given the day off.
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So, you know, that is pretty much what I predict to be at least the red starting lineup.
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If this universal D H idea works out in this shortened season, ends up playing out the way that we anticipate be very, very fascinating crazy with the three divisions.
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New rivalries will start to be formed because you're on Lee playing teams in those divisions due to them not wanting to spread the virus around and safest possible and be confined within a certain region of the country.
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So that makes another interesting element to it all.
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And it's just fascinating.
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Every game is going to be so much more impactful and intense.
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I believe it's gonna make some some fun watching for baseball fans, especially those of us that have been, you know, long for this.
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For the last month, we've been without it.
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Opening day was supposed to be over a month ago, and, uh, I assume most of you are itching to get back the way I am.
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So hopefully this all works out.
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This plan in place happens and we can expect a late June early July start to the season, and we can get rolling and really have a fun shortened condensed season.
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And I think if that's the case, weaken, really expect a fun season ahead for Red stands.
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So that's what I'm looking out for in this 2020 shortened season.
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Obviously, if any breaking news happens with the MLB or any Mawr details come out about this plan, anything that solidified, at least I will obviously go live and discuss that.
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But I can't really speculate too much more at this point just because we don't know what the plan is from MLD.
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So I'm assuming we'll find that out in the next two weeks, probably as toe what developments will occur, and we'll just sit back and watch and enjoy the show while we have it.
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So, uh, that just about does it for this stream? I really, really appreciate you guys tuning in.
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I did a stream earlier today, actually, during my lunch break.
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If you guys didn't catch it, it was on the dynasty fantasy football draft.
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Go check that out.
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If you haven't done so already on my page, you can check me out on Twitter at J. Crockett 24.
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As you see on the screen, check the young rap sports network out on Twitter as well at unwrap Sports on Twitter.
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And they actually just opened and joined the Instagram world as well.
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So they had a page on their unwrap sports, so make sure you're checking everybody out with the team and thank you guys for supporting the enjoy your Thursday evening.
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Stay safe out there and I will check in with you sometime this weekend.
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Appreciate it, guys.