So far this year, the Cincinnati Reds have played like a .500 team. As Rob Lowe in Parks & Recreation would say, “They’ve literally been average.”

And they have. The Reds’ record stands now at 15 wins and 15 losses.

They won today, thanks to some 9th inning competence from Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips, and uncharacteristically, Jay Bruce. Thanks to a solid pitching performance by Travis Wood and the bullpen, the team was only down by 2 in the 9th. Granted, the offense had mustered something like one measly hit against the Houston Astros to that point, but the pitching had managed to keep it close.

I keep hoping that this team will find rediscover the spark they had at the season’s very beginning. The fact that Bruce actually produced today is a good sign, but there needs to be more from him. Like last year, he’s started slow in 2010. He comes up too often in situations where he could help the team and is a key figure for success this year.

Of course, the pitching has been wretched lately, too. The two injured starters are returning this week, and I’d say that Johnny Cueto and Homer Bailey are better than Sam LeCure and Mike Leake, who they’ll be replacing in the rotation. Maybe that will be enough to get this team going, although it feels like more is needed than just a couple guys coming off the disabled list. Heck if I know what, though.

It’s been a frustrating year watching the Reds play so far. The season is by no means over, and the Reds aren’t really in a hole in the standings–they’re in 2nd place. But they’ve been playing teams they should beat, and have instead been losing badly.

Today was a good first step after the team meeting with manager Dusty Baker and owner Bob Castellini. I’m hoping for another good step tomorrow afternoon when Bailey starts for the first time this year.

The USA Today released the opening day payrolls for all major league baseball clubs today. The Cincinnati Reds’ payroll of $75,947,134 sits comfortably at 19th (out of 32), one spot up from 20th last year.

As John Fay notes, the Reds have set a club record this year.

The Reds’ overall payroll is $75.9 million, the most in club history. The previous high was $74.1 million in 2008.

The Reds place in their own division is also in the bottom half at 4th. The Chicago Cubs are first with $125,047,329, while the Pittsburgh Pirates are last with $45,047,000.

The NL Central table is below.

Opening Day for the 2011 season is finally here! I’m pretty excited about it, and for the first time in a long time, I have legitimate hopes of the Cincinnati Reds doing well. (I wasn’t nearly so optimistic about them last year.)

Without further rambling, here’s my guesses about the finishing places of each of the teams in the 2011 National League Central. Let’s hope I’m more accurate than I was in my NCAA bracket, where I predicted 0 of the Final Four.

6th: Houston Astros
It looks to me like the Astros gave up on this season as last season was winding up. I see nothing from them: not pitching, not batting, not fielding, and not promising rookies. Their minor league system is consistently ranked as one of the worst in the majors, and the owner is trying to sell the team. Mark this as another lost year.

5th: Pittsburgh Pirates
There’s a lot I like about the Pirates. Every year they try. It’s usually misdirected–I’m looking at you Dave Littlefield–but it’s an attempt. And unlike the Astros this year, the Pirates are trying, and a bit more intelligently these days. Between Andrew McCutcheon and Jose Tabata, they have two young players that people outside of the organization think will be good ball players. And there are more with promise.

The team still doesn’t have enough to be competitive, but it feels like they’re closer than they’ve been in a long time. The Pirates have actually accumulated real talent since Neal Huntington took over, and if the players reach their potential, a competent year might not be a ridiculous pipe dream.

It won’t happen in 2011. They’ll have another losing season. What will that be? 19? Ouch. But they’ll be better than the Astros.

4th: Chicago Cubs
The Cubs owe too much money to too many old players who can’t come close to producing enough to make it worthwhile. Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Kosuke Fukdome, etc. The list of bad contracts is long, and the Cubs now seem to be waiting until some of them end. (They’ll be waiting a long time for Soriano’s.)

The club has a new manager and did show some new moves, letting Carlos Silva go after a mediocre spring training. Silva also got into a dugout fight with his teammates, like Zambrano last year. Apparently, the Cubs don’t want to put up with that any more. That’s probably a good thing. It’s hard to be a lovable loser when your team is covered in self-inflicted bruises. No one loves cutters.

The Cubs should be the best of the bottom half of the Central. Unfortunately, as I know from the Reds achieving that a time or two, there’s no trophy for that.

3rd: St. Louis Cardinals
How the mighty have fallen. The Cardinals are hard to predict. Sure, they have Albert Pujols, but there’s so little around him. Outside of Matt Holliday, the team has no real offense. Sure, they signed Lance Berkman to serve as protection, but I don’t think that’s going to work. Plus, the addition of him–and Ryan Theriot at short–gives them a bad defense.

Losing Adam Wainwright was a huge blow. His absence will place a lot more strain or an already fragile Chris Carpenter, and the young Jaime Garcia. The team will win more than it loses, but it doesn’t have the depth to last the grueling 162-game marathon.

2nd: Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers made the biggest splash this off-season, getting Zach Greinke and Shaun Marcum to instantly upgrade their starting rotation. It was quite an upgrade. Unfortunately, Greinke hurt a rib playing basketball and will miss a couple weeks at the start of the season. Also, Marcum had some health issues during Spring Training.

Still, those guys the Brewers emptied their farm system for will pitch a lot of games. And the offense, lead by Prince Fielder, will score a lot of runs. But the primary reason I’m not picking the Brewers for first place is because of their defense. I think it’s bad enough that it’ll make the studs in the rotation that much more ineffective. And I’ve seen firsthand how much worse pitching can be when the defense behind it is unstable.

1st: Cincinnati Reds
Like there was ever any doubt. The Reds are the defending Central division champions, and I don’t think anything has changed to unseat them. They have one of the best offenses in the majors, lead by the 2010 Most Valuable Player Joey Votto. Behind him, Jay Bruce and Drew Stubbs seem set to have excellent years, themselves. They also have one of the best defenses in the majors. New this year is a competent glove at shortstop in Paul Janish.

That makes one of the deepest pitching staffs all the better. While the team doesn’t have any starters in the true ace mold–and they did have their share of injuries in the final week of spring training–they do make up for it in numbers. And unlike the Jim Bowden garbage years, these pitchers are good and can be expected to keep the team in the game.

This is a good team. Unlike the 2000s, the ifs surrounding this team would take them from good to great. The Reds have a lot to play for. They were embarrassed in the 2010 playoffs. The only way to change that is to get back there. Granted, no Reds team has made the playoffs in back-to-back years since the 1975-76 Reds, but I’m predicting that this is the year it happens again.

And it starts today.

So I summarize them.

Yahoo! Sports has an ongoing feature showcasing what each baseball team has done in the off-season and how they look for the upcoming season, plus a silly haiku at the end of each article. They wrapped up their last National League Central division team yesterday, so I thought now would be a good time to run through their opinions and analysis.

Chicago Cubs
The Cubs review summarizes the off-season activities, and there weren’t many. Basically, the team signed Carlos Peña to a one-year deal, hoping he’ll bounce back and post better than a .198 batting average.

Yahoo! summarizes the 2010 Cubs season beautifully.

Take a below average pitching staff, supported by a below average offense, backed by a well below average defense, prop it up with the game’s fourth-highest payroll, and what the House of Ricketts received in return was another lost baseball season on the North Side.

Unfortunately, with the huge, inflexible contracts the team gave years ago to the likes of Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Zambrano, and Kosuke Fukdome, 2011 isn’t likely to be any better or different. Several contracts do come off the books after this season, so the team is basically asking its players to “live up to their contracts, to return to their means, and to come to their senses.”

Cincinnati Reds
The Reds review focuses largely on the amount of guaranteed cash the team threw at its young players this off-season.

Despite the spending frenzy, the Reds reduced their payroll. They spent 13.4 percent more in 2010 than 2009, but this season it will roll back to about $73 million, a nifty sleight of hand accomplished through deferred salary and bonuses spread over several years like frosting on a cake.

That payroll will grow over the next few years, and it’s imperative that the team continue to win and increase attendance to keep the winning rolling. Considering the Reds’ recent losing history and the fact that the team is banking on nothing but home-grown players, is this probable?

Optimism is grounded in a fertile farm system that for the first time in many years is producing major leaguers at nearly every position. Votto is homegrown. So are dynamic outfielders Bruce and Drew Stubbs. Bubbling just below the big leagues are legitimate prospects at third base (Juan Francisco and Todd Frazier, shortstop (Zack Cozart), first base (Yonder Alonso) and catcher (Devin Mesoraco and Yasmani Grandal).

Things definitely look good down on the farm. And, if the Reds feel they have a hole to fill mid-season and fans are packing Great American Ballpark, all those good young players should make some great trade-bait.

Houston Astros
The Astros review starts with the news that owner Drayton McLane has put the team up for sale. I wasn’t aware of that happening, but until the sale happens, I doubt the future holds good things for the club. As the Cubs and the Reds have both seen, ownership change can be a rocky affair.

As it stands, the Astros have neither the offense nor pitching to stay with the NL Central’s three lead dogs – Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers – but are capable of making the Chicago Cubs feel bad about themselves again.

Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers review reads like a worship-fest of Brewers general manager Doug Melvin.

Part of what makes Doug Melvin such a gem of a general manager, aside from the resplendent mustache left over from the prop room of a Tom Selleck movie, is his strict adherence to nobody’s philosophy but his own. The impunity with which Melvin gutted his farm system this offseason was spectacular. Teams hoard prospects like kids used to Pokemon cards, and to that practice, Melvin slowly raised a finger. Which finger is rather easy to guess.

Melvin traded away his best prospects for Zach Greinke and Shawn Marcum for the last year that the team will have Prince Fielder. It makes them an early favorite to win the division, but will it be enough to turn a team that lost eight more than it won last year all the way into a contender?

Yes, the Brewers’ offseason was most excellent. Now that they’ve done well in the paper championship chase comes their quest for an actual one, and much of that will depend on their first two months.

If the Brewers start poorly, the team will have to decide whether to trade Fielder, and that would be a huge off-the-field distraction. To keep that from happening, the Brewers need their best starters to “start the year in midseason form.”

Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates review looks at their off-season moves in a mocking way. After 18 years of losing, who has the team turned to to turn things around?

Kevin Correia, Matt Diaz and Lyle Overbay, of course! Since the end of the 2010 season, the Pirates have committed nearly $12 million – around 40 percent of their projected payroll – to a starter who mustered a 5.40 ERA in baseball’s best pitchers’ park last year, a part-time outfielder with a heavy platoon split and a meek-hitting first baseman. Tack on a catcher with a $3.2 million salary and slugging percentage below .300 with the Pirates last year (Chris Snyder), and the Pirates are repeating the mistakes of yore.

I think the Pirates are spending some of that money because Major League Baseball told them they had to, but it does seem odd. Of course, many of the Pirates’ prospects aren’t ready for the big show yet, and they have to send someone out there. I believe all of the free agents signed one-year deals, so it’s not a long-term bad decision.

There is a minor amount of hope.

There are pieces. Not enough to win this year, and probably not enough to win next year, but if the Pirates can ever muster a couple starting pitchers out of their farm system to complement what’s coming on offense, there’s a chance that the streak may end at 20.

Wow. In just two more years, if things fall perfectly, the Pirates may win 82 games. Ouch. It’s gotta be tough to be a Pirates fan.

St. Louis Cardinals
The Cardinals review, like all Cardinals news this off-season, is all about Pujols. Pujols! PUJOLS!

The uncertainty surrounding negotiations for an extension that could give the slugging first baseman the most lucrative contract in baseball history casts a cloud over every other roster decision, every dime the team spends or won’t spend.

There were many moves the Cardinals could have made to improve the offense and defense, but were prevented from doing so because Albert Pujols’ contract extension was up-in-the air. Instead, the team rearranged some Titanic deck chairs, and replaced Brendan Ryan with Ryan Theriot.

Several things have to go the team’s way to win the division. The bullpen will have to outperform expectations and Colby Rasmus will have to not piss off Tony LaRussa and Pujols. Also, third baseman David Freese will have to be healthy and productive, while Kyle Lohse and Skip Schumaker need to have productive years, unlike they did last year.

That’s a lot of what-ifs, but they all pale in comparison to the one the St. Louis faithful are fixated on: What if Pujols doesn’t sign an extension, becomes a free agent after the 2011 season and leaves? Worse yet, what if he signs with the reviled Chicago Cubs?

Until the answer is clear, the Cardinals’ future is cloudy because general manager John Mozeliak can’t spend money earmarked for Pujols. And that might mean sacrificing another season.

As a Reds fan, I’d definitely love another off-year from the Cardinals. They’re due.