Hal McCoy had this to say about Paul Janish:
NOW EVERYBODY is up in the air over Paul Janish batting second. Who else? And who cares at this point where anybody bats when the Reds can’t find first place with mount Palomar? What the Reds need to find out is if Janish can play every day and produce. He is a magician with the glove but a sorcerer with the bat. If he can hit .265 and maintain his magical glove he can play every day.
So maybe batting second and getting a lot of at-bats will give Janish an opportunity to show what he can (or can’t) do with the bat.
Janish actually didn't do that badly last night: 1 for 4. He's probably a bit rusty, having played so little. I'd like to see him show a little more patience at the plate. He did flash some leather, impressing Reds fans who hadn't seen him in action before.
He's starting at SS again tonight, though he's been moved down to eighth in the batting order.
Could this really be an audition for a starting role next year? Possibly. Zack Cozart is supposedly the SS of the future for the Reds, but he's not expected to be promoted to the big leagues until September 2010. That means the Reds need someone to play SS next season. They had an option on Alex Gonzalez, but he and his option have been traded to the Red Sox.
The Reds will have a hard time signing a SS who's any good for just one year. And they are reportedly in money-saving mode. (Sports has been hard-hit by the recession. The Rangers have laid off a lot of their front office staff, and have been
forced to borrow from the MLB emergency fund. The Indians say they're on track to
lose $16 million this year, and the Reds are reputedly in the same boat.) So maybe they'll be willing to give Janish a shot, if he can show them anything at all at the plate.
Hal McCoy, one of my favorite baseball writers, is also being impacted by the recession. And by changes in the newspaper business. His paper, the
Dayton Daily News, announced his retirement and tried to make it sound like his choice, but according to his
blog, it was a cost-cutting move by the paper. It costs them a quarter of a million dollars a year to sent Hal around the country following the Reds, and they simply can't afford it any more.
Papers are
really hurting. A lot of baseball beat writers are losing their jobs, or being moved to other departments.
Baseball writers can
see the handwriting on the wall. No doubt something will replace newspapers, but
Clay Shirky argues that it's impossible to guess what it will be...and things could be very chaotic in the meantime.
Labels: media, Paul Janish, The Greater Depression
