Yesterday, at about the same time as news came out about the Reds signing veteran shortstop Edgar Renteria, the Cincinnati Reds also announced that they’d signed reliever Jared Burton to a contract and avoided arbitration.

This is the second player that the Reds have signed before the arbitration hearings, with Jay Bruce being the first. His long-term deal insures Bruce will never have to deal with arbitration.

The Reds have 4 remaining players facing arbitration. This includes Bill Bray, Johnny Cueto, Edinson Volquez, and Joey Votto. Considering that the last Reds player to reach the hearing stage was way back in 2004–Chris Reitsma, who the Reds destroyed in the hearing–I have a feeling that Cincinnati will avoid arbitration with everyone.

John Fay reported this afternoon that the Cincinnati Reds are close to signing Edgar Renteria.

A Reds source told me today that the deal was close and they expect to wrap it up. The Reds have had an offer to Renteria for some time. They were waiting to hear back Monday.

According to ESPN, the deal is worth $3 million with incentives.

Seriously, what does Paul Janish have to do to prove he’s a major league player? I feel the most for him, because there’s no way Dusty Baker has a $3 million backup at short. Especially since Renteria had a couple excellent years for the St. Louis Cardinals almost a decade ago.

Maybe this will turn out to be an excellent move like the Scott Rolen trade, but right now, I fail to see how Renteria makes the team better than Janish does.

Yesterday, the increasingly broken voting system for baseball’s Hall of Fame announced its voting results for 2011. Our favorite shortstop, Barry Larkin, did not get voted in. The winners were Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven.

I didn’t pay attention to baseball much in the 1990s, so I missed the bulk of Alomar’s career. I knew he was a fantastic defensive second-baseman, but the only other thing I knew of him was the bizarre spitting incident. I didn’t realize he had been good enough to get in in just his second year of being on the ballot.

Blyleven was on the ballot for the 14th time, and finally managed to get in. Him, I knew. He was an outstanding pitcher for some terrible, terrible, undeserving teams. I’m glad that finally he wasn’t penalized for that.

In third place was the greatest shortstop of all-time (not that I’m biased), Barry Larkin. Like Alomar, he was also on the ballot for the second time. Unfortunately he fell short, but just as predicted by Chris Jaffe of the Hardball Times, he jumped from the 50s to the 60s this year, getting 62% of the votes. 75% of votes are required for entry, so things are looking good that another Red will enter the Hall of Fame next year.

The only other player with Reds ties on the ballot was Dave Parker. He had some awesome slugging years with the Reds in the 80s and also was involved in the trade that brought Jose Rijo to Cincinnati. He appeared on the ballot for the last time, and although he wasn’t quite good enough to get into the Hall, he certainly had lots of Hall of Fame moments with the Reds.

The Cincinnati Reds yesterday unveiled their plans for the 2011 Winter Caravan. This year will again feature three legs to the tour, a western, southern, and northern.

Slated for the Western Tour with stops in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio are Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips, Hall of Fame radio broadcaster Marty Brennaman, top catching prospect Devin Mesoraco, assistant general manager Bob Miller and Gapper the mascot. Pitcher Matt Maloney will be on hand Thursday only for the stop in Louisville.

The Southern Tour will move through West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio. Outfielder Jay Bruce will be on hand on Saturday and Sunday only. Also part of the entire trip are general manager Walt Jocketty, broadcaster Jim Kelch, chief operating officer Phil Castellini, 2010 first-round Draft pick Yasmani Grandal, former Reds pitcher Tom Browning and mascot Mr. Redlegs.

As part of the Southern Tour is a Saturday, Jan. 29 hometown visit to Great American Ball Park for the annual select-a-seat event for season ticket-holders.

Manager Dusty Baker will be leading the Northern Tour that stops in Ohio and West Virginia and also features broadcaster Jeff Brantley, pitcher Travis Wood (Thursday and Friday), pitcher Homer Bailey (Saturday and Sunday), prospect Todd Frazier and mascot Rosie Red.

The full itinerary is listed below. All stops are free and open to the public.

Western Tour Bus Fan Stops

Southern Tour Bus Fan Stops

Northern Tour Bus Fan Stops

The Cincinnati Reds announced that they have signed outfielder Jeremy Hermida to a minor league contract with an invite to Spring Training.

Normally, I don’t think the signing of a player who will, at best, be a fourth outfielder, would get so much attention. But in this off-season of no activity, this is the first real Reds news there’s been in almost a month.

Hermida is young at 27, but has shown some promise. He was the first-round pick for the Florida Marlins in 2002, and showed promise in 2007 when he hit 23 home runs, got on base 37% of the time and had a slugging percentage of .501. He’s fallen off since then, but since he’s still on the right side of 30, there’s reason to be optimistic that he can recapture his promise, especially in Great American Ball Park.

Plus, he’s left-handed, which would allow him to platoon with Jonny Gomes in left-field. It’s the kind of low-risk, high-reward signing that it’s nice to see Cincinnati make.