Today, I was watching the Reds when I had this idle thought:

Thinking that Josh Hamilton : 2007 Reds :: Brandon Phillips : 2006 Reds, in terms of forcing himself into the lineup. Move EdE to 1B!!!

In terms of what I’m thinking here, it’s:

1. Install Josh Hamilton as the everyday CF.
2. Move Ryan Freel from CF to 3B.
3. Move Edwin Encarnacion from 3B to 1B.
4. Bench the Jeff Conine / Scott Hatteberg platoon.

Now, I’ve been mulling on that more as the afternoon has worn into the evening [and I finished watching the Reds shut out the Cubbies 1-0], and I think that would work, but:

1. It still has Ryan Freel being an everyday player, and I don’t really think that’s the way for him to be best utilized. I still think he’s best as a super-sub who gets four starts a week while the Reds regularly rest Junior, Dunn, Encarnacion, and Hamilton.
2. It puts Freel, whose game is hustling and being a pest, at what is a prime power position in MLB. Granted, individual lineup construction on a per-team basis can overlook things like this, especially when you have an outfield of mashers like Dunn, Hamilton, and Griffey. [They're everything that D-G-Kearns was supposed to be, without all of Austin's injuries.] But it’s still sub-optimal, even when there’s prior art in terms of Tony Phillips and [more recently] Chone Figgins.
3. It takes an infield liability at 3B [Encarnacion] and shifts him to 1B, where he’s not really guaranteed to be much better.

So then I had this thought:

1. Install Hamilton as the everyday LF.
2. Move Dunn to 1B.

I love the Big Donkey. I’ve had an Adam Dunn batting practice jersey since his first full season in the bigs. I gave him a break when he sulked after Kearnsie was traded last year. [Hey, I was sulking, too, because ... who trades two lineup regulars for two relievers and a couple of spare parts, even when those regulars are Kearns and Lopez, guys unlikely to make you really regret the trade in the future?] But as much as I’ve lamented his OF defense in the past, I think he’s improving now, and I wonder how badly he would react to an in-season move to 1B. I think it’s his eventual position—allowing him and Brook Jacoby to focus on his hitting—but I think that he’s the kind of player that can really use an offseason of learning how to move around the bag. I think that Dunn could be the kind of 1B that Derrek Lee is if he put the time and energy into it—he is certainly athletic enough, and working on footwork should be a natural for a former QB—but I think that he needs an offseason to do that.

Yes, yes, there’s Joey Votto to be concerned about down in AAA. Votto may be a stud, but … crap. Hamilton has essentially missed four years of baseball while dealing with his demons, never had played above AA until this season, and is mashing like he’s … well, the #1 pick he was coming out of HS. There’s small sample size to be concerned with—I’m judging his performance on spring training and two weeks in the bigs—but I have this nagging feeling that Hamilton is here to stay. I also think that he deserves the full-season trial to prove that, too. To really get a fair shake—as Phillips got last year—he needs to be in the lineup all the time. That’s going to mean rearranging the deck chairs, and that puts someone over at 1B to displace the platoon and relieve the crowding in the outfield.

Hey, who wants Hatteberg and Conine for a fourth OF who’s a fly-catcher? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?