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.

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.