Roundup: Reds sign Manny Parra, DFA former Pirates prospect Todd Redmond

-P- The Reds have signed Manny Parra and designated Todd Redmond for assignment. Parra has a good strikeout rate and very good stuff for a lefty, but he's never gotten over his control problems. Sometime around 2008, when he was 25 and he struck out 147 batters in 166 innings for the Brewers, I thought he might be on the verge of a breakout, the kind of guy who would make a sneaky late-round fantasy pick. Well, that never happened, and after missing the 2011 season with elbow trouble, he's a reliever now. He'll make $1 million plus bonuses with Cincinnati.

Redmond, you'll recall, was the Pirates prospect the Bucs dealt for Tyler Yates. There's a certain subsection of Pirates fans who for some reason still haven't forgiven Neal Huntington for that, but Redmond is almost 28 and has pitched in one game in the majors in his career (in which he got thumped). Redmond has certainly figured out how to succeed in Class AAA, so much so that he probably deserves a shot in the majors somewhere, but his stuff is marginal. Anyway, the fact that Redmond won't be with the Reds anymore likely relieves Huntington of the indignity of watching Redmond one-hit the Pirates while throwing a hundred 90-MPH fastballs at the waist.

-P- Cincinnati also signed catcher Miguel Olivo, who will be somewhere behind Ryan Hanigan and Punxsutawney's Devin Mesoraco on the Reds' depth chart.

-P- The Cardinals avoided arbitration with reliever Marc Rzepczynski, whose name adds five minutes to the publishing time of the recap of any game in which he appears. Thanks a lot, Cardinals. The meanest thing about that name is the "c" at the end of "Marc." You can make sure you've got those "z"s right, feel really proud of yourself, and still misspell the name because you put "Mark." Anyway, Rzepczynski's ground-ball-inducing ways could serve him well going forward -- he allowed 28 fly balls last year, and seven of them went over the fence. That shouldn't happen again.