‘Duk posted this classic Reds video today at Big League Stew, and it made me realize that there could be a few TedQuarters readers who haven’t seen the following bit of absurdity:

So Steve Phillips has been replaced as ESPN’s resident GM-turned-analyst by former Blue Jays honcho J.P. Ricciardi.

I don’t know exactly how it’ll shake out — from the news stories I’ve read, it sounds as though Ricciardi’s destined for Baseball Tonight and not necessarily replacing Phillips in his star turn as the third member of the Joe Morgan/Jon Miller Sunday Night Baseball booth.

I read speculation earlier this offseason that Bobby Valentine could be ticketed for that role, but I can’t find anything concrete online. Either way, the good news is that this pretty much confirms Steve Phillips will be nowhere near our TV screens anytime soon, unless he’s on the Today show apologizing again or breaking into our homes to steal our TVs.

I don’t know how Ricciardi will fare on-screen. By most accounts, he had a reputation as an accessible and charismatic GM, but he did have a strange proclivity for saying really weird things. And at least one time, just straight-up lies.

So that should be interesting. Plus Ricciardi, as a former Billy Beane protege, is lumped in with Moneyball and sabermetrics even if many of the moves he made with the Blue Jays don’t exactly speak to those philosophies. So if Ricciardi goes off on some misguided tangent like Phillips used to, it will be amusing — or perhaps maddening — to watch the Murray Chasses of the world point to his words as why stats-based analysis has led baseball astray or whatever.

But while I don’t watch a whole lot of Baseball Tonight anyway now that the MLB Network has launched, here’s hoping Ricciardi turns out better as his new job than he was at his old one, and he can use the platform to bring a better understanding of advanced metrics to a wider audience.

Chico Harlan at the Washington Post wrote that the “Nationals’ roster seems unusually well-defined” this morning, but apparently it’s getting a lot, well, less defined this afternoon.

According to Bill Ladson of MLB.com, the Nats agreed to terms with Livan Hernandez on a Minor League deal today.

This is doubly good news for the Mets: First, it means the Mets will not acquire Livan Hernandez at any time in the foreseeable future. Not that the move had been rumored, but, well, it’s always good to have to certainty.

Second, it means there’s a good chance the Mets will face Livan Hernandez several times in 2010.

I don’t mean to discredit the 135 innings Livan scarfed down for the Mets in 2009, especially given how pitiful the Mets’ starting staff was at times last season, but Hernandez’s unique ability to stay healthy enough to make 30+ starts a year has now been entirely mitigated by his inability to retire Major League hitters in any consistent fashion.

Hernandez finished dead last among qualifying pitchers in the Majors with a 76 ERA+ in 2009 after finishing second to last with a 71 ERA+ in 2008. I defy you to find someone who has been permitted to throw so many innings so poorly since Jose Lima.

No one will convince me that Hernandez can offer more to a team than Nelson Figueroa at this point, which is good, because I don’t think anyone’s trying. Even his once-lauded batting abilities have withered with time.