Price on Reds' lineup: Players need to accept their roles

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Reds manager Bryan Price was asked about his lineup this morning – and he danced around the question as he has all offseason.

While Price did not give a batting order, he did say players should accept their spot. That could be an issue, however, because someone with pretty good numbers on the back of his baseball card is going to have to hit seventh.

"We should have a dynamic offensive player hitting seventh," Price said. "At this point in time if we have concerns over who's hitting seventh or if they're going to having some hurt feelings, then we really don't have the pieces here that we want. We need guys to accept their roles and buy into it to give us the best chance to win."

The two givens about the lineup: Billy Hamilton is going to hit leadoff, and Zack Cozart is going to hit eighth. Second through seventh is TBA.

"These guys are sensitive," Price said. "Everyone wants to feel like where they hit in the order is appreciated. The thing is unfortunately it's not until your career is over that you learn how important it was to hit second or seventh or eighth in the lineup and what type of responsibilities and significant responsibilities there are based on where you hit in the order.

"Great teams are able to create runs in that bottom third of the order. We can't have throw-away innings because we're sitting seven, eight, nine. I think that's not going to be the case in large part because I think Zack Cozart is going to have a real bounce-back year."

The Reds open exhibition season Tuesday with a home game against Cleveland, but you won't likely see the Opening Day lineup for the regular season on a regular basis in spring.

"I have an idea of what I want to do already," Price said. "The thing about spring training, of course, is I don't want to have our lineup together every day. Because we're probably going to the neighborhood of every other day and then two out of three as far as getting theses guys ready."

Spring training rules dictate that you play a certain number of regulars.

"But if I go with starting lineup – what I anticipate being our starting lineup – every other day, it's hard to put together ... You need to have four to five major-league regulars who are going to be on the team on any given day in spring training.

"So I've got to split our players up a little bit. It won't be until the backend of spring training when the guys are playing every day that I really have to solidify a lineup that we'll have for the season. So you'll see guys hitting in different spots in the order, especially early – the first half, two-thirds – of the spring training season."

As for spring games affecting the regular season lineup?

"I have an idea of what I'd like to do," Price said. "We've got to go out there and play and make sure we're healthy before I get too far into talking about Opening Day."