The rumor flying around the Cincinnati Reds’ part of the internet pertained to one first baseman Joey Votto.

Rival executives getting signals that the Reds won’t shop Joey Votto — but that they are fully prepared to listen to offers.

That was a tweet from Buster Olney from a few days ago. Granted, it’s a grown man going by the name of “Buster,” but he has both hands and presumably no mommy issues. Plus he writes for ESPN the Magazine.

Today, Reds General Manager Walt Jocketty responded to the issue.

“I’m tired of talking about it,” he said. “We’re not shopping him. We’re not entertaining offers. It’s frustrating. He’s one of the best players in the game. Why would we trade him? I wish people would stop writing about it.”

It would take one hell of an offer to trade Joey Votto. Clubs draft and develop and draft and develop and draft and develop and still never find a player with the talent of Votto. Once you get one, it makes no sense to immediately trade it away. That preparing for the future thing? That has to be now for the Reds.

And I would suggest that if Jocketty wants people to stop talking about Votto, maybe he should finally get around to improving the team. Votto’s only under contract for two more years.

The St. Louis Cardinals, as many of you know, made it past the Philadelphia Phillies, despite being an inferior club. My feelings on this are largely frustration at the missed opportunity by the Cincinnati Reds and embarrassment by the General Manager who refused to do anything. The Reds should have done what the Cardinals did, and that sucks.

But this next playoff series is clear. The good guys are the Brewers, and the bad guys are the Cardinals. And the Brewers dislike the Cardinals as much as the Reds do.

Speaking to reporters at Miller Park on Saturday, [Zack] Greinke said some of his Brewers teammates don’t like Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter when he shouts at batters from the mound.

“They think his presence, his attitude out there sometimes is like a phony attitude,” Greinke said. “And then he yells at people. He just stares people down and stuff. And most pitchers just don’t do that. And when guys do, I guess some hitters get mad. Some hitters do it to pitchers. But when you do that some people will get mad.

“There’s other pitchers in the league that do it, but, I don’t know,” Greinke said, “a lot of guys on our team don’t like Carpenter.”

Amen. And for a primer on the dislike between the two clubs and the whining the Brewers have received from the Cardinals, I recommend this primer.

From complaints of scoreboards in the stadium to benches emptying altercations, there’s some similarity between the Brewers-Cardinals this year and the Reds-Cardinals last year. Given that there’s only one constant, it makes it easy to root for the Brewers to knock out the Cardinals.

In what I think is a good move, the Cincinnati Reds today announced that Aroldis Chapman will begin his transition to becoming a starter for next season.

The plan is for him to build up arm strength at the Reds’ facility in Goodyear, AZ before heading to Puerto Rico for winter ball.

“We’re finalizing plans right now,” Reds general manager Walt Jocketty said. “He’ll gradually build up his innings. He’ll pitch two or three innings to start. Eventually, we’ll get him up to five innings.”

Chapman will spend about a month in Winter Ball.

“That will give him time to rest before spring training,” Jocketty said.

Sounds good to me. Chapman has never been given a chance as a starter. He spent half of 2010 in the minors as a starter, and this year was sadly wasted. He might not be suited for it–he has a history of being wild–but it behooves the Reds to find out. As this year showed, their starting pitching depth isn’t nearly as deep as they thought.

Over at Red Reporter today, they provide grades for the moves (or lack thereof) by Cincinnati Reds General Manager Walt Jocketty before and during the 2011 season.

I’ve been hard on Jocketty for what I saw as a lack of trying to do anything this year, and it appears I’m not alone. Many of the grades are in the C and D range.

Edgar Renteria: grading this signing is tough. First of all, the Reds definitely needed a SS, and the market by and large was barren. And the Reds would have been in a tough spot indeed if Renteria had not been on the roster. However, if Jocketty expected more than he’s gotten out of Renteria, he was misguided, and perhaps also did not do all of his homework or else failed to communicate clearly during the courtship process if he expected Renteria to play anywhere on the diamond but SS and operate as a somewhat versatile player. The process here was understandable but flawed, and the results were underwhelming but still valuable. It’s a strange situation to assess. C-

Fred Lewis, Jeremy Hermida, and Dontrelle Willis completed Jocketty’s foray into the free agent market before the season began. Not exactly competing with the Milwaukee Brewers and their acquisition of Zach Greinke.

The moves that Red Reporter receives the highest marks on are ones that didn’t really improve the team this year or even next year. The contracts for Jay Bruce and Johnny Cueto. Sure, if the players stay healthy and perform as well as or better than they have, the Reds will get a great deal, but those players were going to be on the team in 2011 regardless.

And when those are the only As on the whole list, you know you had a bad year.

In my mind, the year was a failure. The sweep in the 2010 playoffs exposed some glaring weaknesses that nothing was done to address, while the Brewers did address their weaknesses. Instead, Jocketty signed spare parts and hoped.

He’s obviously had success in the past, but it sure would be nice not to see him stay the course again this off-season.

Although, on the bright side, at least he didn’t pull of the Trade.