Chris Dickerson and Aaron Harang Join Reds' Teammates on Disabled List

Two good things happened to the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday. They beat the Pittsburgh Pirates and emerged from their one-day stay in last place in the NL Central. That coincided with Scott Rolen's return from the disabled list. Unfortunately with the Reds, their two pieces of good news were balanced with two more players hitting the disabled list. Aaron Harang will miss the rest of 2009 after an appendectomy on Saturday night and Chris Dickerson badly sprained his ankle during a pick-off attempt during Sunday's game.

The list of Reds' injuries this year is staggering. John Fay at the Cincy Enquirer has a good run down of all of them; every opening day starter except Brandon Phillips has spent time on the DL while Harang joins Edinson Volquez and Johnny Cueto there, making up 3/5ths of their opening day starting rotation. It's an incredible run of bad luck that's certainly part of the reason the Reds are battling the Pirates for last place. I also think it's creating an easy excuse for a team that has deeper running problems.

A blog post of Fay's really struck me as I read it this weekend. When discussing Rolen's return, he wrote this:

The Rolen trade is [owner Bob] Castellini's latest attempt to change things with one move. It's along the lines of the hiring of Dusty Baker, the signing of Francisco Cordero, the hiring of Walt Jocketty, the firing of Wayne Krivisky and the trading of Ken Griffey Jr. and Adam Dunn.

Castellini was behind all those moves, or at least had the final word.

None of them has righted the listing ship that is the Reds franchise.

The "one move" strategy is one of the most dangerous things for a small market club to engage in. Rebuilding is a long, slow, and painful process. It upsets fans and drives them away from the park and if it's not done right, it drags on forever (see: the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Kansas City Royals , and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays). Thus, a lot of small teams see a glimpse of promise and pounce on that, hoping that a quick rearranging of the deck chairs can make something magical happen.

Since the start of the 2008 season, an interesting foundation has emerged in Cincy. Joey Votto, Jay Bruce, Edinson Volquez, and Johnny Cueto are all very good young players worth building around and rightly generated some buzz before the 2009 season. Still, the Reds opening day roster supplemented them without much more than Brandon Phillips. They came into the season with a question marks at third base (the since-traded Edwin Encarnacion) and left field, and black holes at shortstop, centerfield, and catcher. Throw in a rotation that backed Cueto and Volquez with two over-the-hill guys (Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo) and a pinch hitter (Micah Owings) and, well, you've got a team that was a long way away from contending.

Now, they're entering the Scott Rolen era, but at the same time they're running the Wladimir Balentien experiment in the outfield, hoping Drew Stubbs is ready for the big leagues in center, and they're no closer to answering any of their questions at shortstop or behind the plate. None of those situations are really impacted by their injury troubles at all, unless you consider Willy Taveras, Laynce Nix, or Alex Gonzalez to be something other than what they are. The Reds also owe Harang and Arroyo $23.5 million in 2010 and Volquez likely won't pitch until late in the year or at all. Even without injuries and with Rolen aboard, this Reds team has a lot question marks and holes to fill.

Keep that in mind as the off-season slowly approaches. If November rolls around and the free agency period starts up and Walt Jocketty and Dusty Baker and Bob Castellini are talking about "getting a lot of players back from injury" and saying that they're just a (choose two: shortstop, left fielder, catcher, number two starter, number three starter, number four starter, number five starter) away from contending, it could be another long year in Cincinnati in 2010.