UPDATED!

John Fay is reporting that Uncle Walt will keep the front office and coaching staff in tact. This is a bit of a shock as whispers floated all summer that J Harrison, Scott Nethery and some of Krivsky's area scouts were in trouble. Apparently not.

The bigger shock is no changes on the coaching staff. Baker kept most of the staff from last year because he wanted some continuity. Understood. But Chris Speier didn't have a great year as bench coach (along with the regression of EE defensively), Mark Berry is constantly second-guessed as third-base coach and Brook Jacoby's offense has been pitiful all season. Whenever the cameras glanced on him in the dugout he appeared to have that look of a man without a soul.

I figured Baker would remove Berry and Jacoby, possibly switch Speier to third base, and might even give a coaching slot to Eric Davis. However, I understand the immense value of having Davis work up and down the minor league system. His tutelage and manner with young players is invaluable and he can do far more good with players just starting out than he can at the big league level. He can be summoned to the Reds for a series or two if he's needed.

The other thing is: Uncle Walt has been GM since the middle of April and he didn't do a damn thing to help the roster when the injuries started piling up in May and June, he unloaded Griffey and Dunn but without discernible return (yet), and now a coaching staff that probably needed tweaking is coming back in 2009.

So how's this offseason shaping up so far?

There is some justice in the world. Per John Fay:

There was a scoring change from Tuesday night's game. Joey Votto was credited with a triple in the first ininng. It adds an RBI to his total. The play was originally scored a three-base error on the Ty Wigginton. Votto's updated stats are .293, 22 HR, 80 RBI.

Lineup v. Cardinals

Jerry Hairston, lf

Jeff Keppinger, ss

Joey Votto, 1b

Edwin Encarnacion, 3b

Jay Bruce, rf

Adam Rosales, 2b

Corey Patterson, cf

Ryan Hanigan, c

Bronson Arroyo, rhp

v. RH Braden Looper

I liked the first post better, Mr. R.  How was the walk in the rain??

Does maintaining status quo on the coaching staff mean Dusty will think it's still not his team?

I think Otter may have reasons in addition to CP to use Uncle Walt as his off season lightening rod, if the lousy hitting & poor baserunning of the Reds this year are judged by Jocketty  to have nothing to do with who the coaches are, and the coaching staff is brought back in its entirety

rpa probably won't want this for his website...

from mlbtraderumors.com:

Free agent plus/minus leaders at each position:

• First base: Mark Teixeira, +24


• Second base: Mark Ellis, +25


• Shortstop: Cesar Izturis, +17


• Third base: Joe Crede, +13


• Left field: Jay Payton, +3


• Center field: Corey Patterson, +8


• Right field: Brian Giles, +20, Brad Wilkerson, +4