Barry Larkin, the proud owner of the first hit I personally ever witnessed at a major league game, will soon know his fate in his second year of Hall of Fame voting. Last year he debuted with 52%. Voting analyst Bill Dean said in this John Erardi article that he’ll take only 53% this year; stat nerd Chris Jaffe at The Hardball Times thinks he’ll get as high as 61%, based on the interplay of the 10 guidelines he’s used to some success in the past few years.

It sounds like everyone agrees that he’s going in eventually, though, and that ought to be a no-brainer. This man, the only captain the team has named in 22 years, single-handedly changed the shortstop position from a defensive genius/offensive liability to a defensive genius/power hitter position in the minds of Reds’ fans. You can lay the entirety of Paul Janish’s struggles for playing time at Larkin’s feet.

Go to the Barry Larkin wikipedia page (the one about the Red, not the one about the guy who pulled off the Olympic torch hoax in the 50s), and these are the pages that are listed under “See also”:

• Top 500 home run hitters of all time
• List of major league players with 2,000 hits
• List of Major League Baseball players with 400 doubles
• List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 runs
• List of Major League Baseball leaders in career stolen bases
• 30-30 club

Jeez, look at that gaudy list. That’s just not normal. Which is pretty much the point of the Hall of Fame, right?

And while we’re talking about Larkin’s playing career, we ought to touch on his post-playing career as well. Can someone in the Reds front office pleeease get this guys back involved with the team? He’s going to need to learn his way around the admin of this organization if he’s ever to take over as manager.

This morning the Cincinnati Reds put up this Facebook post about Sean Casey:

For children with special needs, former Major Leaguer Sean Casey is helping to construct facilities and ballfields in Pennsylvania so kids aren’t left out and can play baseball.

Boy, that takes me back. That Casey: always the nice one. And it also demonstrates how little there is to talk about in Redsland right now if we’re going as far back as the Casey era for conversation. As if this year weren’t already rough enough, content-wise, what with the team being so darn good and all, the holiday season is even rougher without Wayne Krivsky around to make a million terrible trades to bitch about.

I’d rather look forward than back, though, since conjecture is so much easier than analysis. And the next thing on the Reds-related event list for me is the Reds Winter Caravan.

The Caravan will roll through January 27-30, though they haven’t decided which city will be which day or which players, coaches, and administrators will be on each leg of the three legs of the tour, but last year it went like this:

Northern Tour

• Thursday: Marietta OH/Parkersburg WV
• Friday: Athens, OH
• Saturday: Lima, OH
• Sunday: Columbus, OH

Western Tour

• Thursday: Louisville, KY
• Friday: Bloomington, IN and Indianapolis, IN
• Saturday: Muncie, IN and Dayton OH
• Sunday Oxford, OH

Southern Tour

• Thursday: Charleston, WV and Huntington WV
• Saturday: Cincinnati, OH
• Sunday: Lexington, KY

We usually hit the Muncie stop, despite living closer to Indianapolis, and it’s always an event. Muncie remained stoically loyal to the Reds, even when the team ceded Indiana to the Cubs and Cards under the reign of Carl Lindner, but then, Muncie is a place out of time in many ways. I definitely recommend this stop for an excellent visage of a multitude of trucker caps and the hot dog stand that they set up at the back of the dealership for while you’re standing in the autograph line.

Oh, and you can read the rest of the Casey story here.

You may have heard that the Milwaukee Brewers traded for Cy Young award winning pitcher Zach Greinke last week. That move immediately pushed them into the running for the top spot of the National League Central, making it likely a three-team race in 2011 with the Cardinals and Reds.

In 2010, the Brewers finished a distant third with a record of 77-85. The offense was not a problem. They were fourth in runs scored in the majors with 750. No, the problem was the pitching, and the starting pitching specifically. The Brewers allowed the third most runs in the majors, a whopping 804. It’s very difficult to pull off a winning record, let alone competing for a playoff spot, when you allow that many more runs than you score.

In addition to the Greinke deal, the Brewers earlier had traded for right-handed pitcher Shaun Marcum. He’s not as famous as Greinke, but he’s still a major upgrade over the likes of those they had starting last year (Jeff Suppan, I’m looking at you). Marcum has had three solid years in a row, and 2011 will be his age 29 season. He’ll slip into the number 3 slot in the rotation, behind Greinke, and Yovani Gallardo.

The Brewers did a great job in assessing their weakness and in implementing a plan to address it. It’s a short-term plan, especially considering some of the great talent given up for Greinke, but with slugger Prince Fielder signed for just one more year, the time is now. Run prevention from the starting pitching killed them last year. With these two pitchers, that should not be the case in 2011.

You may remember last year at this time how Paul Janish was preparing to become the team’s everyday, starting shortstop. That didn’t happen, thanks to the February 2010 signing of Orlando Cabrera.

So far, this off-season is shaping up to be a repeat of last year. Cabrera was not re-signed, leaving Janish as the only player on the major league roster capable of playing shortstop. Janish’s 2010 was much more promising than his 2009. This season, Janish improved his batting average, not out percentage, and his slugging percentage. All the while, his defense seems to be better than any the Reds have had in many years up the middle.

I wasn’t too happy with the Cabrera signing. Clearly, the Reds weren’t happy enough with his performance to pick up his $4 million option for 2011. Janish has shown that he can produce as much offensively and better defensively than Cabrera, and for the minimum wage.

According to an article from Mark Sheldon, it sounds like manager Dusty Baker is ready to give Janish the ball daily, too.

Asked if Janish was ready to be “the guy” at shortstop next season, Baker replied, “Yeah, I think so.”

“He showed improvement offensively,” Baker said. “There is no better place to serve your apprenticeship, get time in the big leagues and time in service than he had in that role before.”

Obviously, if by some roster and payroll miracle, Hanley Ramirez becomes available, I’d prefer that upgrade. Since that won’t happen, I’d really like to see Paul Janish have a year at shortstop.