Still around, much to come

I apologize for my lack of updates this week, and unfortunately I'm not sure if there will be very many until the weekend. I have had relatives at my house until 9pm or later every night since last Friday for my daughter's baptism. And the last of them don't leave town until Sunday morning. It's been fun to have them around, but I'm exhausted and haven't had any time for baseball. On top of all that, the kid has had a cold and isn't sleeping very well at night, plus has had to have a run to the doctor.

It's a bit frustrating, because there's so much to write about these days. The Reds are very much still in the hunt, but they will need to get hot and stay hot for much of the rest of the year to top out all these wild card teams. I'd peg the Marlins as the team to beat. Check out their games above/below graph (courtesy of Hardball Times):
They were 20 games under 0.500, and last night broke even once again. They've come very close to keeping pace with the Mets since mid/late May, probably more so than any other team in the National League (I'll have to pull the numbers on this later). Very good, very exciting young baseball team. Solid offense, good 1-3 pitching rotation (even with Willis having an "off" year with that 3.96 ERA), and good power up and down the lineup. I have to think that Joe Girardi has to be the front-runner for Manager of the Year at this point in the season.

Anyway, I have a lot on in the queue, including at the minimum:
* My August 2006 Reds Review
* Profiles on all the "new" Reds' players, especially Johnson and Kim.
* Discussion of what a few new WPA-based stats that I've been reading about lately say about Reds players.

So stay tuned!