According to Reds.com, David Weathers, Royce Clayton, and Jason Johnson are the first three players to file for free agency this off-season. The article goes on to say that Weathers may or may not be back, Clayton and Johnson probably won't.

Meanwhile, John Hickey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says that Johnson could be in the plans for the Mariners.

Seattle has had three consecutive last-place finishes, and if things are going to change, general manager Bill Bavasi and his crew see the need for an influx of starting pitching.
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The market for quality starting pitching in free agency is relatively thin. The Mariners have interest in, among others, Jason Schmidt, Jason Johnson, Jeff Suppan and Adam Eaton, plus maybe Miguel Batista, Mark Buehrle or Ted Lilly.

Thin, indeed. Though Johnson was 0-0 with a 3.12 ERA for the Reds, I don't remember him being that good. Could be a tough season for acquisitions.

A few days ago the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the Reds had interviewed former Milwaukee hitting coach Butch Wynegar to fill the vacancy left by former Cincinnati hitting coach Chris Chambliss.

Today they report that the Brewers are interviewing Chambliss to fill the vacancy left by Wynegar:

Milwaukee Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said manager Ned Yost had interviewed Chris Chambliss for the club's vacant hitting coach position. Chambliss, dismissed by the Cincinnati Reds after the 2006 season, was the first candidate interviewed from outside of the organization.

I can hardly wait to see who we'll trade pitching coaches with. That probably depends on which team currently has a pitching coach from Minnesota.

GM wants Yount back, a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday, mentioned in passing that Butch Wynegar is in the running for the Reds' hitting coach job.

In search of a hitting coach to replace Wynegar, who apparently is in the running for the vacancy in Cincinnati, Melvin interviewed Jim Skaalen, the Brewers' minor-league hitting coordinator for the last seven seasons.

Of course, he'd be the obvious choice, given how the Brewers performed better than the Reds last year. Or, rather, how the Brewers did more to exceed pre-season expectations than the Reds did. Or, most importantly, because he was drafted by the Twins in 1974, and it is our destiny to have in the Reds organization every person who ever had anything to do with the Twins.

The good news is that, if he's hired, FSN could start filing a pre-game feature with him and the bench coach called Bucky and Butch, which would spawn a cult following and bring in millions in revenues.

I think the Cards leading the series might be making me a little loopy.

It seems like no one can stop talking about Aurilia. Joel Sherman says in today's New York Post:

The Mets can be pretty certain their pen and lineup will be strong next year. They need to find a second baseman, preferably righty hitting, and an intriguing possibility is Rich Aurilia, a New Yorker who was signed to his first pro contract by a Rangers scout named Omar Minaya. Minaya loves free agent Julio Lugo. But so does new Cubs manager Lou Piniella (who had him in Tampa Bay) and the Red Sox, so the price is going to get steep.

What the heck? Aurilia had the opportunity to go free agent last year and couldn't get a nibble; this year the press can't stop talking about him.

Dude's gonna cash in.

So Fire Brand of the American League wrote up a lengthy discussion of the benefits of Boston acquiring Adam Dunn, including making room for the right-handed bat of Kevin Millar.

And, since the author is committing a total blog foul in leeching my bandwidth by placing a photo from RHM on his own site, I think I'll do a similarly heinous thing and repost his article in its entirety. Though it's not really that heinous, since I'm at least including a link to the site. SOME of us have manners.

Like I said, the article is lengthy, so I'm putting it below the fold.

UPDATE 10/26 -- The author of the article, Evan S. Brunell, was nice enough to write and let me know that weasin' my bandwidth isn't actually illegal while my reposting his article is. So if you want to read it again, you'll have to follow the link.