As 2006 winds down I realized that we got very few contributions from AA/AAA.
EZ pitched well at first. Hopefully he just wore down.
Phillips had a great rookie season but he was stolen from the Indians.
Deno did nothing when given his shot ( even though it was brief ).
The rest of the callups we had seem to have very little big league future.
Looking to 2007...Hopefully we will see Bailey. He should certainly be given the shot to win a job in spring training. Votto seems destined for AAA. WK says he needs to work on his defense. Last I looked he had 14 errors at AA at 1B ( ouch ! ). Other than that I don't see anyone else on the horizon for 2007.
A small market team like the Reds is going to need a steady influx of good cheap talent to compete year after year. As much as we all want to win in 2007 it may take a while for the Reds to be a serious playoff threat each year.
- Will