John Fay reported this afternoon that the Cincinnati Reds are close to signing Edgar Renteria.

A Reds source told me today that the deal was close and they expect to wrap it up. The Reds have had an offer to Renteria for some time. They were waiting to hear back Monday.

According to ESPN, the deal is worth $3 million with incentives.

Seriously, what does Paul Janish have to do to prove he’s a major league player? I feel the most for him, because there’s no way Dusty Baker has a $3 million backup at short. Especially since Renteria had a couple excellent years for the St. Louis Cardinals almost a decade ago.

Maybe this will turn out to be an excellent move like the Scott Rolen trade, but right now, I fail to see how Renteria makes the team better than Janish does.

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.

I mean signing with Texas, of course. Not the other stuff.

Last week when I was frantically doing my last-minute shopping and wrapping my heart out, Arthur Rhodes signed a one year deal with the Texas Rangers. Wikipedia says it included a vesting option for 2012, but it didn’t mention how much the contract was for. (Baseball Reference was worse, where he’s still listed as a free agent. They must still be recovering from the holidays.)

However, we know that Mr. Rhodes pulled down $2M a year for the last two years, and his All-Star team election and general awesomeness in the last couple years probably didn’t hurt his marketability, even if he *is* 41 years old. I mean, why not? He’s pitching less than Randy Johnson, and looking a lot better doing it (not that Johnson sets the bar very high when it comes to looking good).

ESPN points out:

Rhodes has earned the chance to stay in the majors because he is a high-level lefty specialist. Opposing left-handers have a career .281 opponents on-base percentage against him, which ranks fifth-best among active left-handed pitchers who have faced at least 500 lefties (58 left-handed pitchers qualify, including Billy Wagner, who ranks second and is expected to retire). That’s one point better than the Yankees lefty reliever pickup, Pedro Feliciano.

Over the last three seasons, he’s been even better, dropping that number to .236. The only active pitchers better in that span are Hong-Chih Kuo, Neftali Feliz, Mariano Rivera, and Billy Wagner.

It’s been an impressive run for Rhodes, and it doesn’t appear to be just a fluke. You may recall this tidbit from the Reds’ press release when they signed Rhodes after the 2008 season:

The 16-year Major League veteran has produced a 79-61 record, 4.23 ERA and 32 saves in 714 career appearances and 61 starts for the Baltimore Orioles, Mariners, Oakland Athletics, Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Phillies and Marlins. Rhodes made 20 postseason appearances for the Orioles and Mariners, including 9 in the American League Division Series and 11 in the AL Championship Series.

All-in-all, Rhodes looks like a good pickup for the Rangers and maybe a couple million that the Reds can use on someone else. And none of this changes my early prediction of Reds versus Rangers in the 2011 World Series.

You may have heard that the Milwaukee Brewers traded for Cy Young award winning pitcher Zach Greinke last week. That move immediately pushed them into the running for the top spot of the National League Central, making it likely a three-team race in 2011 with the Cardinals and Reds.

In 2010, the Brewers finished a distant third with a record of 77-85. The offense was not a problem. They were fourth in runs scored in the majors with 750. No, the problem was the pitching, and the starting pitching specifically. The Brewers allowed the third most runs in the majors, a whopping 804. It’s very difficult to pull off a winning record, let alone competing for a playoff spot, when you allow that many more runs than you score.

In addition to the Greinke deal, the Brewers earlier had traded for right-handed pitcher Shaun Marcum. He’s not as famous as Greinke, but he’s still a major upgrade over the likes of those they had starting last year (Jeff Suppan, I’m looking at you). Marcum has had three solid years in a row, and 2011 will be his age 29 season. He’ll slip into the number 3 slot in the rotation, behind Greinke, and Yovani Gallardo.

The Brewers did a great job in assessing their weakness and in implementing a plan to address it. It’s a short-term plan, especially considering some of the great talent given up for Greinke, but with slugger Prince Fielder signed for just one more year, the time is now. Run prevention from the starting pitching killed them last year. With these two pitchers, that should not be the case in 2011.

You may remember last year at this time how Paul Janish was preparing to become the team’s everyday, starting shortstop. That didn’t happen, thanks to the February 2010 signing of Orlando Cabrera.

So far, this off-season is shaping up to be a repeat of last year. Cabrera was not re-signed, leaving Janish as the only player on the major league roster capable of playing shortstop. Janish’s 2010 was much more promising than his 2009. This season, Janish improved his batting average, not out percentage, and his slugging percentage. All the while, his defense seems to be better than any the Reds have had in many years up the middle.

I wasn’t too happy with the Cabrera signing. Clearly, the Reds weren’t happy enough with his performance to pick up his $4 million option for 2011. Janish has shown that he can produce as much offensively and better defensively than Cabrera, and for the minimum wage.

According to an article from Mark Sheldon, it sounds like manager Dusty Baker is ready to give Janish the ball daily, too.

Asked if Janish was ready to be “the guy” at shortstop next season, Baker replied, “Yeah, I think so.”

“He showed improvement offensively,” Baker said. “There is no better place to serve your apprenticeship, get time in the big leagues and time in service than he had in that role before.”

Obviously, if by some roster and payroll miracle, Hanley Ramirez becomes available, I’d prefer that upgrade. Since that won’t happen, I’d really like to see Paul Janish have a year at shortstop.