Hindsight may be twenty- twenty, but common baseball sense is twenty- twenty also.  The Cincinnati Reds are ten games out of first place in early June because of five awful decisions that were hailed as awful decisions AT THE TIME THEY WERE MADE and not just now.  These five decisions, made mainly by ex- General Manager Wayne Krivsky and current Manager Dusty Baker, have cost the Reds at least ten games and probably around thirteen games in the NL Central standings this season.  They are, in order:

1.  Drafting Drew Stubbs in the first round of the 2006 MLB amateur draft instead of Tim Lincecum.  Stubbs, who turns 24 later this year, is hitting .265/ .381/ .402 with a strikeout every 3.4 at bats at High- A ball currently.  Lincecum is the ace of the San Francisco Giants.  This decision has cost the Reds six to eight wins alone this year and will continue to haunt them as long as Lincecum is healthy.

2.  Hiring Dusty Baker as Manager of the Reds.  Baker's habits still have not changed since his days in Chicago and San Francisco and this needs some explaining:

• Many people are giving Baker credit for playing the young kids like Jay Bruce, Edison Volquez, Johnny Cueto, Joey Votto and Homer Bailey and injecting talent, enthusiasm and all- around better play into the team.  This is not exactly true.  Baker was forced into doing this because he tried, as hard as he could, to kick the tires on some veterans and get production out of them before turning to the young guns.  Votto was not given a chance until Scott Hatteberg showed he had nothing left.  Baker turned to Volquez, Cueto and eventually, Bailey because his preferred duo of Matt Belisle and Josh Fogg failed miserably.  Bruce did not get a chance until Corey Patterson, Baker's ultimate favorite, did his best Paul Householder impression.  Baker had no alternative, but to play the youngsters.
  
  
• Baker continues to draw up one of the worst batting lineups in the Major Leagues.  Patterson should not be on a Major League roster, much less be batting near the top of a lineup.  Ken Griffey Jr. is the most unproductive #3 hitter in the NL by OPS.  Adam Dunn and Votto, two of Baker's best OBP hitters are hitting in the fifth, sixth or seventh slots.
  
  
• Aaron Harang was asked to pitch on Thursday, May 29th, on three days rest after a dominating relief performance in the 18- inning affair in San Diego.  Baker knew Josh Fogg was starting later on that weekend.  Why not start Fogg on Thursday?  He was fully rested.  Instead, Harang got rocked that Thursday and his next outing against Philadelphia.  Let's keep a close eye on Harang's numbers since this decision and a closer eye on the health of his arm.
  
  
• If Volquez throws more than 120 pitches in a game again, the Reds fans should jump the walls at GABP and stage a sit- in in the outfield.

3.  Signing Patterson to a $3.5 million deal to play centerfield and bat leadoff.  This coincides with the previous point on Baker.  Watching Baker put Patterson into the lineup and bat him in the first or second slots is like watching a smoker trying to quit.  Everyone in the world knows its a bad idea, but he just keeps coming back to it.  Seriously, it is mindnumbing and painful to watch Patterson bat.  Pitchers use his aggressiveness against him and rarely throw him any pitches over the plate.  Why not?  He swings at anything in the same zip code so why put it over the plate?  He is putting together one of the worst seasons of all time (for a player who somehow plays regularly) at .200/ .240/ .352 in 145 at bats.  (Quick note:  he went 0-4 tonight in his return to the Reds so those numbers are now worse.)

4.  Believing Fogg or Belisle could help at all.  Many people who are hammering Fogg and Belisle now said that they were good, cheap, gambles back in March.  Yes, they are cheap, but I have always maintained that cheap does not mean low risk.  These two took roster spots of better players and while they did so, cost the Reds three to five games.  Fogg was available in early Spring for a reason (the same could be said of Patterson).  Belisle could not be given away in any trades.  They were negatives and it was easy to forecast back in March because neither has any room to make mistakes when he is pitching.  If either is off just slightly with a pitch, they get hammered.

5.  Signing shortstop Alex Gonzalez to a three- year, $14 million contract with a mutual option for a $6 million fourth year.  It is very possible that Gonzalez may not play at all in 2008.  Even if he does, who will be benched as a result?  Keppinger (when he returns)?  Jerry Hairston Jr.?  Edwin Encarnacion?  None of them deserve that and Gonzalez is now buried on the depth chart.  In 2007, he did not show the outstanding glove that he is known for.  Now that he has a knee injury, he may be slowed down even more.  This free agent signing was not as bad as the Eric Milton deal, but nothing is going to come from it.

These five deals all have Krivsky's fingerprints on them.  As a result of some of them, he has been fired.  It is easy to say that his firing is justified in hindsight, but many of us also said that these moves were terrible at the time.  I am not always right, so I take the time to gloat now.  Hopefully, one of these above moves will turn and make me look bad, but I doubt it.