After a brief hiatus from all things related to the Cincinnati Reds–and can you blame a guy after the brutal ending to 2012 and the wasted 2013–I delved back into Reds news this week.

As is so often the case with the Reds under General Manager Walt Jocketty, nothing happens until it’s happened. No one saw the Mat Latos and Shin-S00 Choo trades coming. And just like both of those trades, there’s nothing of substance in any pending trade rumors.

However, a few minor things have happened while I was ignoring baseball. The Reds signed catcher Brayan Pena. What this means for Ryan Hanigan or Devin Mesoraco isn’t known, but it seems likely that Hanigan will be shopped around.

Also, Jocketty dipped into the ex-Cardinal bucket and signed Skip Schumaker to a $5 million, 2-year deal. Schumaker has versatility in the number of positions he can play badly, but assuming he’s used as a backup and not a starter, he could prove useful. I don’t see the need for 2 years of him, though.

And most recently, last night the Reds chose not to offer contracts to outfielders Xavier Paul and Derrick Robinson. Last night was the deadline when teams had to offer contracts to players on the 40-man roster without them. This doesn’t mean Paul and Robinson won’t be Reds in 2014, but it does mean they’re free agents and can sign anywhere. In particular, it might be worth bringing Robinson back. He was valuable in his playing time in 2013, and at 25, could have room to improve.

Lately, it feels like the Cincinnati Reds have been missing something from their offense. Some terror that flaps in the night. Given some recent current events, I think I know just the thing to let the Reds get dangerous. Carlos Danger.

Here’s tonight’s lineup against the second-place St. Louis Cardinals, thanks to the Carlos Danger name generator.

1. Javier Sly, CF
2. Narciso Smash, LF
3. Jorge Sly, 1B
4. Mateo Menace, 2B
5. Ricardo Evil, RF
6. Efraín Verboten, 3B
7. Diego Threat, SS
8. Inigo Menace, C
9. Antonio Evil, P

That’s a whole lot of sly, evil menaces to tee off against the Cardinals. So long as there are no dick pics.

As July winds down, talk in baseball always turns to the non-waiver trade deadline. After that date, trades, although not impossible, become trickier to accomplish. With the Reds sitting in third place, 5 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals, there’s certainly room for improvements, right?

Only if the front office believes in the team’s ability to win. And it doesn’t sound like general manager Walt Jocketty’s sold on that.

Jocketty doesn’t see the need for a shakeup.

“We’ve got a solid club,” he said. “The difference this year is our division is stronger. We hit a little tough spell before the All-Star break, but we’re playing well now.”

You know, except for losing three of four games to the Los Angeles Dodgers because the offense couldn’t score any runs. Other than that, the team’s been doing great since the break.

Jocketty does profess to realize the need for a right-handed bat. But his own arguments against it are odd.

“If we do acquire a right-handed bat, what do we do with Ludwick when he gets back?” Reds general manager Walt Jocketty said. “If there is somebody available that can definitely help the club, we’ll certainly take a look. To this point, we haven’t had any conversations with a club that indicated that.”

Yes, Ludwick is supposed to be coming back from the disabled list sooner than later–he’s on a rehab assignment now. But if there’s an upgrade better than the guys currently filling in for Ludwick, finding a space on the roster for him doesn’t sound difficult. Certainly not so difficult that it should prevent you from making the trade. Not unless you have a feeling that the 2013 Reds aren’t good enough to go all the way and might not be worth the investment.

“There’s not too much we can do. We’ve got four guys on the disabled list and when we get them back, it strengthens our club even more,” Jocketty said. “I don’t want to trade prospects to improve the club.”

That doesn’t strike me as the vote of confidence Jocketty might have meant it to be. He’s a GM who always keeps deals secret until the end, but this sounds a bit like this year’s team isn’t worth the effort.

The only reinforcements are the guys on the disabled list. Which could be enough, but you’re assuming that they’ll be ready to go right off the DL and that no one else will get injured for the rest of the season. Those are a couple very large assumptions to make. But they do make sense if you’re not confident in the team’s chances and prefer to wait until next year to try again.

Everybody’s writing about the recent success that Cincinnati Reds catcher Devin Mesoraco has been having this month.

First, Red Reporter talks about how Mesoraco, kind of forgotten, may well become the right-handed impact bat the Reds have sorely needed.

[T]he 2013 Reds lack an offensive player who is outperforming expectations. They’re like a tech company, twelve years after going public, whose stock takes a hit when they meet their revenue numbers for a quarter but decline to raise targets by 8%….In truth, there wasn’t a single player expected to contribute who you could truly point to and say “yeah, he might really blow our expectations out the of the water.”

It’s a good point. Joey Votto, Jay Bruce, and Brandon Phillips aren’t likely to be better than they’ve been the last few years. What they already are is pretty great. We know what they’re going to do. Todd Frazier and Zach Cozart are early enough in their careers that they could surprise, but they’re performing in line with what was predicted at the beginning of the season.

Which leaves Devin Mesoraco, a guy who’s getting his first taste of regular playing time with Ryan Hanigan on the disabled list for an extended period of time.

The #15 overall draft pick in the 2007 draft has caught fire, and it’s likely no coincidence that the most productive month of his career is coinciding with the month where he’s on pace to have his most consistent playing time. He’s currently .354/.396/.552 tear through 53 PA in July, and with 7 games left in the month (and Ryan Hanigan still on the DL), he looks poised to surpass his previous career high of 60 PA in a month despite the fact that the All-Star break took 4 days off the schedule.

Obviously, that’s a small sample size, but it’s encouraging. Mesoraco has never hit this well in the majors. He has a history of taking time to adjust to new levels of competition. Plus, as a catcher, he has more to learn than any other position player.

John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer noticed Mesoraco’s recent surge, too.

He went into Thursday’s game against the Los Angeles Dodgers with 12 hits in his last 27 at-bats. Among those hits were three doubles and two home runs. He entered the game hitting .262 with a .327 on-base percentage and .407 slugging percentage. Those numbers are comparable to Brandon Phillips.

Of course, the one potential roadblock to Mesoraco becoming the Reds’ surprise bat of the season is Dusty Baker.

“Hanigan is still going to get in there,” Baker said. “There are certain teams that don’t run when Hanigan’s in there. There are certain guys that throw well to him. I’m fortunate to have a veteran guy and a guy that’s on the way and learning.

“Someday, the job is going to be Meso’s. It’s just not now.”

Not that I expect Baker to anoint Mesoraco after one good month, but the feeling I get from this quote is that it’s almost an impossibility for Mesoraco to become the primary catcher this year, no matter what he does. I know Baker likes to protect his players–in this case Hanigan–but this is one of those times it makes him come across as an inflexible manager in a game that requires constant adjustment.

If Mesoraco continues hitting like he has in July and Hanigan struggles after he’s activated, I am confident the playing time will resolve itself, though.

Huey Lewis, of Huey Lewis and the News fame, wrote a piece for The Talkhouse this week where he voiced his desire to ban all pre-recorded music at sporting events.

[A]s a sports fan who knows a little about music, I have to get something off my chest: Can we all agree it’s time to ban most, if not all, pre-recorded music from sporting events?

That’s a bold question. Anyone who’s been to any baseball game within the last decades is familiar with the music that’s played, and it’s always a combination of recent pop hits and old rock standards. Not to mention each player’s at-bat music. What’s Lewis got against all that?

He lists 5 reasons.

1. The murmur of tens of thousands of people in a baseball park, vendors hollering about beer and hot dogs, along with the thrilling crack of a bat hitting a ball, an umpire’s throaty call, and the occasional player’s whistle or cry of “I got it!” is a wonderful symphony of sounds that we almost never get to hear anymore.

It is true that the music during the inning breaks often impedes enjoyment of the game’s sounds. But Lewis’ complaint about the music being played too loudly does remind me of a certain scene from Back to the Future.

Lewis continues to criticize the speaker systems in stadiums, noting that oftentimes speakers interfere with each other, reducing the song to just the beat. He also criticizes the over-use of common songs and laments the lack of live bands and organists in parks.

And I gotta say, I can’t help but agree with him on many of his points. I mean, we have heard the boom-boom-clap portion of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” too many times now. Plus, the idea of roving live bands in each stadium, reflecting a part of the city’s musical heritage, is very appealing.

But banning plate music? That seems a step too far. That’s where some of my recent, fondest baseball memories lie. Now whenever I hear Coldplay, I envision Scott Rolen somewhere walking to the plate. Or Adam Dunn always using Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian.” And of course, Joey Votto and the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black.” No, the plate music I want to keep. But the rest? That I can live without.