That kid knew!

Mark Sheldon at mlb.com indicates that Reds General Manager, Walt Jocketty faced at least one challenging question at Saturday's Redsfest.

One young fan asked, "Why did you trade two young pitchers for Scott Rolen?"* (ouch)

Knowing that the Reds went 27-13 when Rolen was in the lineup after coming over in the trade, Jocketty responded, "Well, did you see what Scott Rolen did for us last season?"

"I know he got hurt," the child replied.

Classic!

You watch, next year the Reds are going to have a special "children's section" at Redsfest with free ice cream and video games far away from Q & A section.

Learn from your mistakes, you know.

*Since when does Scott Rolen choke up on the bat?

Bronson, why so dumb?

A few days ago, Bronson Arroyo of the Cincinnati Reds said the following:

"I have a lot of guys in the locker room who think I'm out of my mind because I'm taking a lot of things not on the (MLB-approved) list. I take 10 to 12 different things a day, and on the days I pitch, there's four more things. There's a caffeine drink I take from a company that Curt Shilling introduced me to in '05. I take some Korean ginseng and a few other proteins out there that are not certified. But I haven't failed any tests, so I figured I'm good."

He also talked about taking androstenedione and amphetemines before they were banned by MLB in 2004 and 2006 respectively.

Computer Boy saw this on ESPN and said, "How dumb! What do you think MLB will do?"

I told him I thought they would bring him in a for a little talk and immediately test him.

Sure enough per Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY, Major League Baseball plans to schedule a meeting with Arroyo to discuss his supplement use. "We just want to chat with him." MLB vice president Rich Levin said.

Real smart, Bronson!

Arroyo has kind of a reputation as a stoner and I do not know how long cannabis, mushrooms or psychedelic drugs stay in your system but I think that there is a decent chance that any testing of Arroyo likely will be positive for some of those things in addition to whatever is in these exotic supplements that he admits to taking.

Frankly it should not make a difference as any recreational drugs are no doubt "performance-detracting" (maybe Dock Ellis would disagree) rather than "performance-enhancing" but many people might not be able to make that distinction and will be up in arms.

Real smart, Bronson!

Apropos of nothing really but I am not digging on that girly hairstyle.* That stringy Rachel Ray/Mary Tyler Moore thing is just not doing it for me. He needs a stylist or just a good old-fashioned barber.

*I know he has the "rock star" thing going on but it is my understanding that he typically plays in coffee houses before like 50 people so I would not quit my day job or alter my appearance for that.

Why this interest in Bronson Arroyo by teams at the trade deadline?

It is noted that the AP story of last night's Reds/Padres game indicates that there were scouts from 5 different teams at the game watching Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo as their teams may have some interest in him before the trade deadline. Some very quick additional research indicates that the Yankees, Angels and Rockies may be teams that have some interest in Arroyo.

I find this is kind of strange.

Bronson Arroyo has 5.17 ERA and 1.48 WHIP this year. I could look up his career stats but I feel very confident in saying that he has had his share of bad years and his "good" years are probably better classified as just "ok". I do know that when he pitched for the Red Sox, when I would hear that he was pitching against the Tigers at Comerica Park, one thought that would usually come to mind is whether there were any tickets available as the game was probably going to be a slugfest. To top it all off, he makes $9.5 million this year and is scheduled to make $11 million next year.

Why would any team be interested in adding him now? I know Wang just went down again for the Yankees but this is Bronson Arroyo who we are talking about here as a replacement. Think about it. If any other team would be willing to assume all of Arroyo's salary, I bet the Reds would let him go for a bag of balls and a year's supply of lineup cards. Well, they should anyway but then again they did hire Dusty Baker so who knows.

This reminds me of a little anecdot. I won a signed Bronson Arroyo card off of ebay some time ago. It is a replica of the card above.* I am not a Bronson Arroyo fan but I thought the card was colorful and nicely framed and accentuated his high leg kick. I am not home when the mail comes and I have an agreement with Computer Boy that he can open up envelopes with cards in them if he can be careful and he always is. Anyway, he opened up this envelope with the Bronson Arroyo card and he was ready for me when I got home.

"Why did you buy a Bronson Arroyo card?" he said waiving the offending card.

"Well it is colorful, framed nicely, blah blah blah"

"Yea, so. It is Bronson Arroyo."

Who am I to argue?

*I try to refrain from posting ebay scans of cards and I think I have only done it once before. In this case, I am not near my scanner now to scan the actual card and I cannot find the card through a search engine so I (shamefully) have posted an ebay photo of the card here. I an not ashamed though to say that I got my card for less than 15% of the "buy it now" price for this card.