OD thread

[JohnU]

At least it isn't snowing and 41 degrees.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Overcast with temps in the mid 60's with a light shower predicted around game time. Supposed to be dry the remainder of the game.

There were several GABP upgrades reported in preparation for the All Star events. Looking forward to the game and seeing the new look GABP.

Hopefully team stars perform and some unexpected player performances impress enough to keep this team in contention. Most teams need career years from a few key performers to advance to post season. The Reds have several guys capable of having stellar seasons and will need it at the dish and on the mound.

They need Votto, Bruce , Meso, Frazier, and Byrd doing the heavy lifting. But also need Hamilton, Cozart, and Phillips to be more than dead weight making the lifting all the more heavy.

It's hard to see a path where the pitching holds up. Homer coming off injury and 4-5 guys that haven't pitched a full season lately if ever. The bullpen was a area that they intended to upgrade.....not too sure that has happened. The pitching is the phase of the game that the Reds are going to need to over achieve fans expectations the most to be successful. The scoring will never be enough to make up for a bad pitching staff.

Here's to hoping everyone on the team has their oars in the water rowing in the same direction.

 

[JohnU]

Truthfully, upgrading a bullpen is a fool's errand. Guys who are either starters or blow-away closers have those jobs. Everything else is a guy trying to stay in the majors. At least it does not appear that the Reds spent too much money on the bullpen, which is probably the most interesting component of a big-league roster. If you check the number of guys who pitch in relief around MLB and watch how they migrate, it's an amazing exercise in connecting the dots.

The key ingredient to bullpen upgrade reminds me of the Jason Grilli trade for some hack Frieri who was worse. The competing GMs essentially gambled that the "change of scenery" would mysteriously turn them into valuable pitchers.

The funniest thing is teams "going after pitching" at the deadline and ending up with a lot of guys named Dylan Axelrod or John Axford of The Ax Murderer ... which is basically a way to spoon-feed a ration of bullshit to the fans who think the team has upgraded, when all they did was admit they couldn't really FIND any pitching but decided to make the trade anyhow.

I agree on the principle of the stars leading the way, but that has to happen with all teams in a competitive league. Ramon Santiago is not supposed to be playing 3B because Frazier is playing 1B, giving Pena a day off. You just can't win with that.

 

[chico ruiz]

jason marquis is your #3 or #4 starter. 30+ starts from marquis? that's a big '?.' he had insanely good stuff v. toronto in montreal. bailey better get 'stretched out' in a got-dam hurry, and win at least 17 games this year. leake's change-up better have developed into an 'out' pitch. the reds success in 2015 hinges on them, because, in terms of schedule, the reds go from the frying pan to the fire starting on april 6th, and by the time may 7th rolls around the reds will have played every team in the NLC twice. we're going to know a lot about the 2015 reds in that first month. a lot more than in previous seasons. is price going to do the 7th & 8th inning reliever by committee, or will there be 'a' set-up guy? price said chapman would pitch, in the 8th inning, more this year. he said that last year too. that isn't going to happen. who will be the #4 & #5 starters by the all-star break? the reds are hoping for miracles from the pitching staff.

on the plus side; i don't see price's vagueness on the line-up / batting order as a problem. i think it's actually a strength. they haven't had options like this for years, and the bottom half of the order should be much stronger no matter who is down there. frazier had very good numbers in the 2 hole last year, and that was without votto in the line-up. 200 AB's, 11 HR's, 10 SB's, .341 OBP, .294 BA. i can also see the argument for votto in the 2 slot. the reds have made a habit of putting slumping hitters in front of votto the last 5 years. but, there are options. price could have a different order every game with the flexibility he has. it shouldn't be difficult for these guys to be moved around and still be successful. most have hit in different slots for 5 years now. the biggest offensive problem the reds have, and doesn't get talked about very much, is hamilton's OBP. a sub .300 OBP is not below average, it's horrible. throw in the caught stealing #'s last year and it sinks even further. i would venture to say it was the worst in all mlb for a qualifying #1. he's turned into a gold glove type cf. he can run like the wind, and there appears to be nothing but upside. the caught stealing thing should improve. however, the OBP has to significantly improve. he has to get it close to .330 to be an effective lead off.

 

[JohnU]

I think Hamilton will make incremental improvement. He seems willing and he clearly has the tools. As for a leadoff guy, the teams that don't contend usually don't have a good one.

 

[JohnU]

Cueto looks like the best pitcher in the league today.
Lookin' crisp on defense. Hitting continues to be clueless.
Bruce goes yard

 

[JohnU]

Could be, what we saw today is what we are going to get.

 

[redsfan03]

Yeah, that's Reds baseball. Great defense, great pitching from the starter, middle relief blowup, clueless hitting, fortunate home runs. Nothing's changed. Great feeling to get a win on OD though. Never gets old.

 

[ckhokie]

Wouldn't be a Cueto start unless the lead was blown and he gets a ND out of it. Oh well, can't complain too much with a win first Day out

 

[Hit-n-Run]

I can't understand what Price saw in Kevin Gregg. There's no way he should have made the club. Reds are paying him $1.5M to pitch batting practice. The guy was terrible in ST with batters hitting .378 against him. Every pitch he threw today was up in the zone and both outs were rockets. I was shocked when he was brought into the game in the 8th.

This team spends way too much on it's pen. Gregg, Marshall, Parra, and Badenhop are all veteran relievers being overpayed. If you throw in Lecure who is assigned to AAA, the group is pulling down nearly $16M. Two of them aren't even on the active roster and the other three would help the team by joining them.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Nice OD for me. Got to shake hands with George Grande before the game. Nice guy that has never had a bad word to say about anyone. AMAZING LITTLE girl (she looked like she was 8 years old) sang the Hell out of the Anthem...I managed not to get wet, and the Reds won. Cueto and Chapman were nasty. The D was great. Frazier looked like a 3 hitter should, and Votto stroked. Bruce absolutely smoked that HR.

Nice to see BP hitting in the 7 hole, where all .260 /12 HR hitters belong. Wish Cozart could hit that well. Hamilton is going to be fine. Regardless of how bad Chico thinks he is, he still lead all NL rookies in hits, runs, RBI, doubles and stolen bases last year, so there are a lot of rookies that sucked, or not many that lead off, I guess. Besides, how would you feel about a guy that hit .250, with a sub .300 OBP, not many HR but with 75 doubles ? Factor in those SB's, and that's about where Billy lives. He isn't likely to walk much. He's probably Vince Coleman Part II, but I'd take him over Brett Gardner, Dexter Fowler, Drew Stubbs, or about a dozen other similar guys.

If you think the bullpen blows, wait a day or so and look at the rest of the rotation. The may claim there are 12 pitchers on this staff, but I only see about 5.

 

[JohnU]

Parra of course only gets to LOOGIE, which is, to me, a waste of roster spot.
I would guess somebody goes to Louisville when Bailey is back. That's probably Gregg.
I was thoroughly enjoying watching Cueto change his delivery. That had to be maddening.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Gregg just sucks, and is just too old to get better. Parra is bad, too. He's a lefty Hoover. Badenhop is dependent on the bottom 1-1/4" inch of the strikezone. IMO, Cingrani can't fool anyone that can hit- he only has 1 pitch, and has a hard time throwing strikes with that one. I don't think Marquis is worthy of a rotation spot for very long. He wasn't better than average in big parks when he was younger, before his injuries and lost velocity. A pitcher doesn't get shown that many MLB doors and just suddenly turns a corner. I haven't seen Desclafani or Iglasias enough to tell yet, but I'm hoping they can join Cueto, Chapman, Leake, Jumbo and Bailey as MLB quality pitchers...then we'll have 7.

Cueto may be the 3rd or 4th best SP in the game right now. He also holds runners pretty well....imagine, the Cubs think they got a stud in Jon Lester, who also refuses to make a throw to a base...Unfortunately, Cueto is worth quite a bit more than Lester, IMO.

 

[eburg5000]

Great game, Cueto looked great. To bad he didn't get the win. I'm afraid the bullpen is going to be really lousy this year except for Chapman. But at least they won, and that's good enough for me today.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Jumbo looked strong, too. I don't understand why they went to Gregg in the 8th, unless Price is thinking he's the setup man- I hope that isn't the plan, or Gregg has a lot more in the tank than he showed yesterday. It is possible lots of pitching is weak, but less than great offenses may negate some of that- even though Pirates hitters crushed Gregg, 2 of them did make outs anyway. The game is tilted to favor defense. That's my only hope for the Reds pitching so far...that and I'm hoping Bailey is back soon, and the rest of the rotation is stronger than they appear.

 

[JohnU]

Price's comments didn't actually bode well for Gregg. I got the sense that Gregg either isn't prepared or he isn't capable of getting people out. I would say his boat is loaded. When Bailey is back in 10 days or so, the Reds will set Gregg adrift. This is probably one of those generous gestures that MLB is famous for -- letting a pitcher audition to see if he can find a job with somebody who wants him. Cincy had to put **somebody** in Bailey's spot and there's no need to burn an option on somebody who is just a place-holder. At least that's my take on it. Still, I think Price was real unhappy that Gregg pissed all over his Nikes.

This paragraph is about Badenhop. Well, never mind.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Gregg and Marquis came to camp on minor league deals and once added to the active roster they became MLB deals. Gregg and Marquis were both signed with a plan in place. Teams don't pay article xx-b free agents a guaranteed $1.5M for any other reason.

IMO,
Gregg is going to get more rope before he hangs himself out of a job. Most people seem to think Marquis is in the rotation until Homer returns. Unless Marquis is injured or has a ERA somewhere between 6.00 and infinity he's here past Homer's return still pitching in the rotation. Neither of them would have been my choice to fill the roles they presently have, but Price is making those decisions.

Options had little to nothing to do with keeping those two. A player only burns options whIle playing in the minors after being added to the 40 man. So keeping them insured someone else is burning a option year.

 

[chico ruiz]

re-read my post 1507. how do you take a fair, objective, seasoned with reds fan optimism, evaluation of hamilton's 2014 season, and turn it into i wrote he was 'bad?' i wrote -' he's turned into a gold glove type cf. he can run like the wind, and there appears to be nothing but upside. the caught stealing thing should improve' - but, that he needs to improve significantly in the OB part of his game for the reds to go from a good offensive club to a very very good offensive club. it's not debatable. if he gets on base at a .320 clip he's going to score a lot more runs compared to .290. reds management saw it as a serious enough flaw, in his game, to address it rigorously in the off season. everybody in baseball - from old school to new school to too cool school, players, management, pete rose, statisticians, little leaguers, high school coaches, scouts, my 97 year old grandma who has listened to reds games since the 1940's, from a easy chair, in dayton, ohio - agrees on this. with hamilton on base more (significantly more) and votto behind him, the reds should, and probably will, score first in a majority of games they play this season. if hamilton doesn't get on base more the reds will struggle during key player's slumps and DL stints. and they will slump. and there will be 15-day DL injuries. he's vital to the reds weathering those storms. seems unambiguous enough; billy gets on base more in 2015 and the reds could score 800+ runs this year. hamilton on base and a pitcher throwing mistakes to votto is a recipe for a quick unraveling. etc etc etc.

i get it; board posts, in this media, are open to interpretation, and disagreements that hopefully push the dialogue forward; sometimes arriving at synthesis. but, and all i ask is, don't put words in my posts that aren't there, or change the subject line and meaning. i hope this doesn't read as small or petty, because this board has been on a trajectory of interesting, knowledgeable, thoughtful, and respectful discourse that makes it enjoyable to participate in.

 

[JohnU]

Aside from a debate over what was meant, this is pretty clear because it happened a year ago. When Hamilton is on base and less than 2 outs, he very often scores a run. I think last year it was in the 53 percent range.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

It was a different dynamic watching BH on base with Votto hitting in the two hole. Votto seemed to care less that BH was on base and Billy never attempted to run while Joey was hitting. There was even a rare BH only advancing to second on a base hit into LF on a 3-2 pitch. A lot of times he's running on 3-2 and scampers over to third in a manner very few players can. Could be he never felt comfortable with the lefties on the mound the two times he was on first base, or maybe he wasn't given the OK to go on his own. It'll be interesting to watch as the sample size grows.

Votto's best years of run production have come when the hitter in front of him reaches base at a better than league average amount. Unfortunately that hasn't been the case in recent years. The more BH reaches base the more pitchers have to deal with Joey. Should be a lot of first to third and scoring on a double opportunities in Billy's future.