Going into this off-season, the Cincinnati Reds had 6 players eligible for the arbitration process: Homer Bailey, Aroldis Chapman, Chris Heisey, Mike Leake, Sam LeCure, and Alfredo Simon. Currently, the club has reached agreements with everyone except Bailey and Chapman.

LeCure and Chapman are both in their first year of the process. LeCure, though, signed a two-year deal with the club that will not have him dealing with arbitration again until his final team-controlled year. His deal is worth $3.05 million.

Chapman and the club have exchanged salary figures, with the Reds offering $4.6 million and Chapman requesting $5.4 million. With as close as those numbers are, it’s likely the two sides will reach at least a one-year deal before the arbitration hearing arrives.

Heisey, Leake, and Simon were all in their second year of arbitration eligibility, and all have signed one-year deals. Heisey will be earning $1.76 million, Leake will be earning $5.925 million, and Simon will be earning $1.5 million.

That leaves Bailey, in his final year with the Reds before he’s eligible for free agency, is asking for a lot more than the Reds are offering: $11.6 million to $8.7 million. At the very least, I’m confident the Reds will sign Bailey to a one-year deal. General manager Walt Jocketty is working on getting a longer-term contract, but Bailey seems quite interested in testing the free agent market. He is a guy who’s thrown two no-hitters already and has improved each of his years in the big leagues. I can’t blame him for getting as much money as he can get.

There have been rumblings of trading Bailey this year if the team can’t sign him to a long-term deal, but I think that’s unlikely, at least at the beginning of the season. Of course, once it becomes obvious to Jocketty that he’s assembled another third-place team, maybe he’ll see what kind of prospects he can get for Bailey.

On December 22, 2012, former Cincinnati Reds infielder and outfielder Ryan Freel committed suicide. This week, his family released news that he’d been suffering with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a concussion-related disease more commonly associated with football players.

On the anniversary, Brett Popplewell at SportsNet writes about Freel’s tragic life and his sad final days. The story opens in a chilling fashion.

A dead man rested on a couch, surrounded by mementoes of the things that mattered most. Memories from a life already lost: his daughters, his wife, his career. He left no note. No goodbye. Just three words, typed on his phone and sent to his mother. “You forgot one.”

The whole thing is worth a read. Hopefully, one day we’ll be able to prevent both repeated head trauma in sports and the damage that they can cause to people and families.

One of the disadvantages to not really paying attention to the Reds or baseball at all this off-season is that I occasionally miss some things. And apparently, I’d missed a doozy of a Twitter account until this morning.

At the beginning of December, an account named Seeall Hearall appeared with this as its first tweet.

Call me treasonous but secrecy ain't good for nobody.

— Seeall Hearall (@SeeHearTell) December 6, 2013

Starting with a double negative is an inauspicious beginning. Seeall Hearall made up for it, though, proceeding to divulge all manner of information on purported negotiations the Reds and General Manager Walt Jocketty were having. The majority of the updates focused on the Reds’ attempts to trade Brandon Phillips to the New York Yankees.

Throughout all of this, people were asking both Seeall Hearall and Reds public relations spokesperson (and would-be rock star) Jamie Ramsey questions attempting to verify the account.

Seeall Hearall ignored the questions for the most part.

@JoshDBresser I'd rather ignore him & let everyone enjoy his antics over not being included

— Seeall Hearall (@SeeHearTell) December 12, 2013

Ramsey, fanned the flames of controversy and kept it going by answering a question with a question.

@Tommy_ATC_PTA @SeeHearTell what do you think?

— Jamie Ramsey (@Jamieblog) December 13, 2013

Seeall Hearall had long been saying the Phillips trade to the Yankees was going to happen. But yesterday, it all fell apart.

Seeall Hearall doubled down on the trade rumors, though, and posted this bombshell last night.

#Reds have reached agreement w/ #Dodgers Brandon Phillips & Homer Bailey have been traded to LAD CIN will receive Matt Kemp

— Seeall Hearall (@SeeHearTell) December 13, 2013

It’s unlikely the account is real, but anything that whips up Jamie into a fit is hella entertaining. The off-season is long, and we need something to watch.

Tony LaRussa was elected to the Hall of Fame yesterday, along with Joe Torre and Bobby Cox.

LaRussa is the first manager or player from the much-maligned steroids era baseball to be elected to the Hall. This election was not performed by the Baseball Writers of America, as the most popular results are. Instead it was done by a Hall of Fame Baseball committee charged with electing managers and overlooked players.

LaRussa won a total of three World Series as manager, one with the Oakland A’s and two with the St. Louis Cardinals.

More than a month after signing Brayan Pena to be the backup catcher for the Cincinnati Reds in 2014, the Reds finally addressed their catching surplus and traded Ryan Hanigan to the Tampa Rays.

The deal was a three-team deal that also involved the Arizona Diamondbacks. In return, the Reds received 22 year-old lefthander David Holmberg. The pitcher has some potential as a back-of-the-rotation starter, which is an area the Reds were very weak in last season.

This also signals to Devin Mesoraco that it’s time for him to step up.

“(Manager Bryan Price) and I talked about it a lot,” Reds general manager Walt Jocketty said. “We felt he was ready to take the next step. We still have a high regard for his talent. He’s matured as a catcher and offensively the last two years. We think he’s ready to be a frontline guy.”

I hope so, too. Mesoraco’s shown slow, but steady improvement, which is kind of expected from the catching position. It’ll be interesting to see if he’s up to the challenge.

As for the trade, it seems a good one. The Reds traded from a surplus and addressed a weakness. Holmberg isn’t an ace-level prospect, but the Reds don’t need that. Hanigan had one more year before reaching free agency. Basically, the Reds turned that year into several more years of a 4th or 5th starter. Very nicely done.