Priceless

[JohnU]

Evidently the word is out

Price will be back.
Sorry, but this isn't the news the fans want to hear.
Of course, which members of this useless pitching staff will be back?

Going from 63 wins to the necessary 95 is about 4 more wins a month.
Not
likely.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

It sends the message the front office is happy with the direction the team is heading in. Hard to imagine unless the club's goal is to draft #1 the next few years. They'll draft #2 in June after finishing 1 game ahead of the Phillies.

As for returning members of the pitching staff....
Free agents Parra and Marshall will be off the books. Sam Lecure I'm not sure of. He's 3rd year arbitration and the CBA doesn't allow for big drops in salary. He made nearly $2M this season leaving him subject to being non-tendered, but the Reds have a lot of recent history in over paying bullpen types, so maybe they offer arbitration. Hoover, Chapman, Iglesias, and Desclafani will be back in their same roles if not traded. I think everyone else is league minimum type salaries and I expect musical chairs with the rotation/ bullpen. Lorenzen, Sampson, and company could end up pitching out of either.

 

[JohnU]

I confess to really only looking at the traditional stats lines for hitters -- BA/XBH/HR/steals ... etc, so I can't say for sure what the advanced metrics are revealing about why this team is losing. The pitching makes a lot more sense but even that, subtracting the rookies, the bullpen should not always be this shitty. I could cull a couple of these flatliners out of the mix and hope to find somebody better ... still not anything I can identify as a real cause for why this team failed. Who's better than Villarreal? I can't say ANY bullpen pitcher is better, but I can say, other bullpen pitchers stuffed a fork up the Reds' hitters' asses this year.
All that established, I look at the dugout staff, and that's just not getting it either. It's not like this dugout staff is lacking baseball acumen.
So what's wrong? Not injuries, really. Bad execution ... yeah, but why is that? Is that on the players, the coaches or on the scouting reports?
Coming up with no answers, the logical solution is to assume that this team just wasn't lucky this year.
I ain't buyin' that, but this is not a 98-loss team, IF IF they find some competent pitching.

 

[Redsfan1507]

This team underscored their opponents about 90-something times...that's why they lost most of them.

The bullpen sucked- but they blew fewer leads than the OF offense gave them.

They flat don't know how to hit. Even the hitters don't hit. Bruce's 27 HR were as useless as Phillips 12. Bruce and Hamilton both hit .226- Phillips almost .300, but BH walked 1 more time than the paltry 27 BP had, and outhit Bruce (.199-.238) by 40 points after the A-S break...and Hamilton can't hit at all.

 

[Redsfan1507]

The only thing Price knows about hitters is, he couldn't get enough of them out as a P, and no other P seems to have that problem with his lineup.

A lot of that, is because he doesn't have many hitters on the roster.

I don't think the Reds are saying they are happy with Price, just that they can't improve the team just by replacing him, and they either believe he can't do more harm, or they can sell the idea that injuries to Mesoraco, Bailey and Cozart are going to make (and the team) him look better. I'm not buying it. I've seen Bruce hit better. Phillips isn't a cleanup hitter on any winning team. I know Chapman would not only the best SP on the Reds, he probably would be one of the top 5 LHSP of the last 3 decades. The payroll won't allow a trade for a current star. The titanic was a similar scenario-some mistakes just can't be fixed. The roster isn't ALL going to die, but it's going to be an expensive, painful recovery that may never be rectified.

The Reds have the Toothpick Trifecta playing- They can't hit, won't learn, and won't do anything about it.

No team can pitch well enough to win 90 games with this lineup.

 

[JohnU]

Price surely can't make it much worse and he's under contract. Alleging something improves, they will avoid being the 2nd team in club history to lose 100 games. I'd say the metrics on the regular starting 7-plus-this week's left fielder ... the book is out on the Reds. They will require a lot of luck to finish anywhere near .460.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

I agree John.
I don't think there's enough luck in the world that would allow this team to play anywhere near. 460 ball next year. They finished the last 2+ months with a 18-43 record (.295), I think they'll be better than that, but not significantly.

I think the theory behind keeping Bryan Price is purely based on what they see as their strength moving forward.....pitching. They put all their eggs in the pitching basket in recent years and Price can help get them there from a pitching development perspective. Improving the offense is a totally different quagmire outside his area of expertise.

 

[JohnU]

I suppose I am a bit of a homer when I compare the Reds everyday lineup to other teams in the division.
On paper, a loose definition of not having a clue, except for hitting, the Reds compare favorably to both the Cubs and the Cardinals.
It's the hitting that hurts ...

The pitching is really not a fair comparison based on what we have, not what we should have.

Could have had Dexter Fowler for next to free before he went to Houston.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

I don't think there's a major difference between being a fan and a homer. We all know this is a flawed team, but so is every other team at some level and most have fan bases with expectations that exceed the eventual end result. It's all conjecture until you're analysing it from the rear view mirror.

If the Reds' pitching doesn't materialize as a top shelf staff this club is in serious trouble moving forward. As John mentions in comparison the future success of the Reds is based on the assumption that the stock piling of pitching is going to pay off. Everyone of the projected SP's could turn out to be mediocre and this team could struggle for years to come.

 

[JohnU]

Watching the Cubs and the Cardinals, a couple of things appear obvious at the moment.
St. Louis is suddenly quite old.
Chicago is suddenly quite young.
Talent being something that matures, but doesn't age well ... where do the rest of the NL-C teams fit?
Honestly, the Cubs are quite vulnerable until they find some more front-line pitching to go with those hitters.
Cubs defense is still quite suspect.
But they are on a high right now.
The Cardinals are managing to fondle the injury cow today, though I can't conceive of any argument that holds any milk. They didn't gloat (much) for winning 100 games with all the injuries that made no difference at all in the best-of-5. Still, Cardinals will whine.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

The Cardinals only scored 7 more runs than the Reds, but won 36 more games. The pitching is currently a night and day difference.

I think the Post Season demise of the Cardinals had a couple of faults similiar to the Reds. The first being a below NL average run scoring offense. Not breaking news for Reds' fans, but probably a little tough for Cardinals' fans to digest. The second issue was how the Cardinals' SP was going to hold up late season. Wacha, Martinez, and Garcia were all question marks with innings limits or hitting the wall due to fatigue coming off low IP 2014 seasons. Wainwright, Lynn, Lackey, and Shelby Miller would have been viewed as the work horses at the end of 2014. They traded Miller, Wainwright got hurt, Lynn was somewhat ineffective late season, and the 35 year old Lackey became the hopeful ace to carry the Post Season torch. The only problem was he got torched on 3 days rest.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

The Cubs are tough to predict moving forward. A volatile offense heavily dependent on the long ball. They led the NL in walks and strike outs, both lead to driving up the pitch count of the opposing pitcher, but the K's are a problem. If their young players can improve their contact they'll score plenty. Defense is a weakness, but they seem content to acquire/ buy pitching as needed.

The Cardinals have some good young hitters. Wong, Piscotty, and Grichuk to go along with Carpenter and Adams...so I think the offense will improve. The pitching will be more prepared to make a Post Season run in 2016 barring majors injuries to the core rotation guys. Next season may be the "Year of the Bird on Bat".

I see the Pirates as the first of the three top NL-C teams to fade. I don't think their pitching is deep enough and they always are questionable from a offensive perspective. They remind me of the Reds in their recent playoff runs. Arbitration and free agency will shorten their ability to contend.

The Reds and Brewers will battle for last place.

 

[JohnU]

What needs to happen for the Reds / Brewers is for the rest of the league to come back to the pack.
How that happens is that the Reds need to beat them a little more often. You can turn a 94-win team into an 87-win team by sweeping a series or two from them.
I might be interested to see if the Cubs throw a little money at a starting pitcher who shall remain nameless for the moment.
Pittsburgh won't go too deep into free agent markets, probably, but might think they have the horses to replace Burnett and maybe Morton ... dunno, that bullpen is probably at its peak. I don't trust bullpens. All in all, their corner infield situation is very iffy. I am not sold on Josh Harrison.
St. Louis has the money to sign a top pitcher. They might need to make a deal or two.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Huntington has done a nice job in Pittsburgh, but they have something like 12 players headed into arbitration this off season. That's a lot of pay raises for a team on a small market budget.

Teams like the Pirates and Reds are rarely serious players in the free agent market. They're generally suppliers..... not buyers.

 

[JohnU]

Dealing Cueto and Leake proved the Reds aren't going into the FA market for anybody they can't get for a couple million.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

The Reds spend a bulk of their payroll extending home grown players and trade acquisitions rather than venturing out into the free agent market. I was trying to remember the biggest free agent signing in club history and it might be Eric Milton. Milton would also be one of the biggest bust in free agent history. The Reds have never done well when signing free agents to multiple year deals. They've had some one year wonders on the cheap side of the market like Ludwick and Ron Gant, but a laundry list of failures on 2+ year type deals.

I don't think the Reds have ever inked a free agent for a $10M yearly salary ... which tells you the quality of free agents they target. You're not getting All Star caliber players for the money the Reds are spending.

 

[JohnU]

Cordero was a 45M dollar closer.

 

[eburg5000]

don't forget that bum closer we got from the Phillies, who never made a pitch in the regular season. I can't remember his name. but that was also 40+ million.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

I think John gets the "Golden Wishbone of the day Award", ...I forgot about Coco. Might have been a subconscious effort to forget. His numbers were always OK. but man it was an adventure watching him close.

The guy Eburg may be thinking of was Ryan Madson. But I think he was a 1 year deal with a option for around $8M, so maybe not.

 

[JohnU]

Madson it was and I recall that the Reds had no "insurance' on him, whatever that means.