It is no secret that Walt Jocketty is no spring chicken and dipping his vegetables in fizzy high fructose corn syrup is sure to leave some wondering just how long he'll be playing King of the Hill atop Cincinnati's baseball operations. In the off season, Walt brought in defunct General Manager of the Padres and Diamondbacks Kevin Towers as a Special Assistant to the General Manager and some believe to be the heir to Jocketty's throne. Such a move was met with great derision by the analytical savants here at Red Reporter and I'm sure the other great fans of this organization. Kevin Towers wasn't a very good General Manager in the past, and the prospect of him taking the reigns in Cincinnati were terrifying. We're talking about the guy that traded Adam Eaton for Mark Trumbo.

Never fear because Banana Bob does care and listen to you! As being reported by the beat writers at the Enquirer, Joel Luckhaupt (You know, our former fearless leader Slyde!) is being hired by Bob Castelini as Special Assistant to the General Manager, overseeing the entire analytic division of the Cincinnati Reds Front Office in conjunction with the work Sam Grossman is already doing. What makes this special is it seems Bob Castelini is finally getting serious about the numbers part of the game, and is even upgrading his analytics department from scientific calculators to the fancy ones that do graphs and play games.

It's currently being discussed how Bob came to this new decision which varies wildly from what Walt Jocketty had planned. Bob was watching the movie Moneyball on a flight home from the MLB Owner's Meetings after hearing how it changed the game of baseball. Castellini was impressed how the Oakland Athletics had capitalized on market inefficiencies, gaining a competitive advantage using math, and winning 20 games in a row, which he says is a major goal for Reds. The process has been long in the works as Luckhaupt wasn't the first choice for the job. Unnamed sources are claiming he had to wait for Jonah Hill to turn down several offers. Luckhaupt first caught Castellini's eye after listening to him counter all the Thom Brennamen's bad ideas during broadcasts for Fox Sports Ohio where he worked as a statistician.

Good luck, Joel! You better do a good job!

If you'd like to congratulate our old friend hit him up on twitter @jluckhaupt.