Digging your own Graves

In a somewhat surprising move yesterday the Reds designated Danny Graves for assignment. Graves has struggled recently, but then so has the rest of the team. David Pinto points out that his release has more to do with his walking two more batters per 9 innings than he wa striking out than it does with his obscene gesture, but, by their own admission, the Reds have no-one in mind to replace Graves. If I were a Reds fan, this kind of statement:

"Without pinpointing one guy, we'll look at the matchups and different things like that," [manager Dave] Miley said. "Hopefully somebody will run with it."

would not inspire me with a great deal of confidence.

Although Graves' release is puzzling, I can state one thing with the utmost certainty: he is not a victim of the legendary Baseball Desert curse, which has seen a huge chunk of my fantasy baseball team not playing any baseball at all right now. Since the season started I've lost six players to the DL (Rocco Baldelli, Jeff Bagwell, Corey Koskie, El Duque, Tim Worrell, Steve Trachsel (I know - no great loss...)), with two more in the pipeine (Brad Wilkerson and Mark Loretta). I'm really not getting any breaks here - I'm starting to feel like Frank Robinson, who seems to have a new player on the DL every day. And just like the Nats, I'm hanging in there, but only just...