Prospects

[JohnU]

Hunter Greene is ramping it up at Dayton. I assume he will get 100 innings there. Probably Daytona next year.

Jonathan India is signed. Top prospect out of Florida. Evidently a great infielder.

Brandon Finnegan needs to take the year off. He got hammered in relief.

Dillson Herrera is trying to impress us. Will the Reds deal Scooter?

And the Quack is pitching well for the Bats.

 

[eburg5000]

The fans are slowly but surely creeping back to the ballpark. Dillson Herrrera is not ever going to replace Scooters bat. And it would be a while if Senzel ever could come close to his numbers.


And with the idea of Bailey, returning to the rotation when Harvey and maybe Iglesias are dealt, sort of takes the excitement of winning and having a decent year away.

I would like to see them offer Scooter a fair contract. Also with the way this team makes trades it could give the Reds 5 or 10 more bad seasons..... Rookie Davis for Chapman for an example. ouch

 

[JohnU]

Not clear on whether Rookie Davis has a future. One assumes not.

 

[eburg5000]

won 2 out of 3 against the White Sox, could of won all 3 but just as easily lost all 3. They were tuff.

 

[JohnU]

Shipping Floro out is the process for teams like the Reds. Pluck a decent reliever off the wire and trade him for a prospect. These prospects are probably not A-plus level but they add depth that allows the minor leagues to move players up a notch.

Looks like Homer is about ready to boot Romano back to the bushes. Shame actually.

Cody Reed will get too many innings, I fear.

 

[eburg5000]

I was going to talk about that trade too. I'm not sure I understand it completely because The Reds gave up a experienced pitcher who was doing a good job and a AAA guy I don't know anything about for to low A player and we still owe them "future considerations " what ever that is .

I think the Reds are in love with getting prospects. Two years in a row that The Reds have given the Dodgers an experience player for basically nothing.

I wonder if the Reds go to the Cleveland Browns front office for advise about trading and player personnel

This make me wonder what is going to happened as we draw near to the end of the month

 

[JohnU]

Reed evidently pissed off the bus driver, who took him back to Lousyville.

I think Floro will be a free agent, so the deal apparently made sense.

 

[eburg5000]

This was only his 3rd season and he was making the MLB minimum salary. So who knows why they did this, I guess the front office does. It's not that big of a deal, except it hurts the bullpen a little. I was just wondering the reason for it.

And now that you brought it up,what's the deal with Cody Reed going up and down just so we could be short a bench player. I guess it could be they wanted an extra left handed pitcher in the bullpen for one night. And that is just a guess

To the untrained eye like mine, someone might think they (the front office) don't know what they are doing

 

[JohnU]

This was only his 3rd season and he was making the MLB minimum salary. So who knows why they did this, I guess the front office does. It's not that big of a deal, except it hurts the bullpen a little. I was just wondering the reason for it.

And now that you brought it up,what's the deal with Cody Reed going up and down just so we could be short a bench player. I guess it could be they wanted an extra left handed pitcher in the bullpen for one night. And that is just a guess

To the untrained eye like mine, someone might think they (the front office) don't know what they are doing

Not sure what that was about but it probably connected more to timing on the Floro trade, time zones being what they are. Plus the physical ... Floro trade was probably made long before it was announced and since they were bringing up Rainey ... anyhow, I suspect it was procedural and that Reed was never intended to join the Reds but you gotta have 25 because you just do.

They didn't need 14 pitchers anyhow. Not sure who comes up tomorrow since today is off-day. Maybe it's Dillson Herrera or Ervin.

 

[eburg5000]

If they bring up Dillson Herrera, I'm going to be getting real nervous about Scooter. And if they do trade Scooter , Are they going to get something for him. I figure we will get some Finnagan and Reed types I hope not

My main concern is that, The front office is not really wanting to do anything but dump salary and keep it as low as they can, I think they are serious, but this is in the back of my mind.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

I never knew Floro was so valuable. They trade him and have to call up two guys to replace him. I think there's a piece of the puzzle missing in that story.

If another deal involving a Reds reliever was pending the Reed call up makes more sense. Could be they had another deal in the works that fell through.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

"future considerations "

Future considerations generally are one team trading a portion of their International pool money to another team. The Reds have already traded a few portions to other teams. They got a 20 year old Venezuelan OF named Lorenzo Cedrola from the Red Sox earlier this month for future considerations.

The reason the Reds are trading their pool money in exchange for prospects is they are in the penalty for over spending a couple years ago and can't really use the $6M+ they are allotted. They're limited to $300k signing bonuses per international player which doesn't get you any where near the top prospects. The kids they're getting in trade are probably better prospects than the kids they'll be signing this summer.

The worse part about them going into the penalty is they really didn't get any top talent for doing so. This club needs to do better in the International market. The cupboard is pretty bare in terms of home grown international players. They've done a better job acquiring international talent through trade than signing and developing them as teenagers.

 

[JohnU]

The worse part about them going into the penalty is they really didn't get any top talent for doing so. This club needs to do better in the International market. The cupboard is pretty bare in terms of home grown international players. They've done a better job acquiring international talent through trade than signing and developing them as teenagers.

Yeah the international signings were mostly a bust.
I did learn that Floro isn't a FA even though he signed as one. The Reds had control of him for a few years, so that was appealing to LA, I suppose. The Reed yo-yo was probably administrative but I wonder if he's actually hurt.
Calling up Dillson would make zero sense to have 2 middle infielders on the bench. So something happened or didn't happen. Either way, the Reds are structured to make a move and nobody seems to be in denial about that.
I think they hold Scooter till after the ASG since he's goine to make the team.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Trade or sign Scooter?

Last season it was Zack Cozart that was having a great year and we were probably having the same discussuon. Cozart signs elsewhere for $40M and is currently hitting .219 and is scheduled to have season ending shoulder surgery. He turns 33 next month.

Scooter is younger, but is he really a .330+ hitter moving forward? His defense is suspect at times.... mostly throwing. He has a shoulder issue that doesn't seem to be getting better. Shoulders are funny that way. They tend to get worse over time and can zap the life right out of a career.

Extending Scooter looks good today. But so did Homer, Mesoraco, and countless others that fans were clamoring to keep instead of trade.

There aren't many players the Reds have traded that I would want back for the salary they recieved elsewhere. A lot of them are injured and Mat Latos is playing Independent ball.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

The Dodgers DFA'd and outrighted Dylan Floro to AAA last season. He elected free agency when the season ended and signed with the Reds.

Zach Neal was DFA'd by the Dodgers and was traded to the Reds for Ariel Hernandez mid April of this year.

Both players the Reds sent to the Dodgers were players that the Reds got from the Dodgers after they were designated for assignment.

I guess the Dodgers can't decide if either of them should be coming or going

 

[Hit-n-Run]

The Reds have 24 on the active roster and 39 on the 40 man, so they could call up Dilson Herrera. But I agree it doesn't seem practical to call him up now unless Scooter is traded.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

The Reds already know the maximum amount they're able to spend on payroll next season and beyond. That's the question and answer to whether they think it's in the best interest of the club to extend Scooter.

What is the bigger key to this team improving next season? Upgrading the rotation or signing Scooter?

I say if this team can only do one of those two they'll win more with another second baseman if they upgrade the rotation.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

A couple notes of interest from the Louisville Bats game tonight.

Dilson Herrera isn't in the lineup.

Robert Stephenson threw 6 shutout innings lowering his ERA to 3.35, recording 12 k's and only 1 BB with 2 hits allowed.

I could see Homer and Stephenson replacing a traded Harvey and demoted Romano.

 

[JohnU]

I don't like Stephenson but he's better than Homer.
Homer will be back.
Scooter needs to be traded and probably will be. Senzel and Dillson make it an easy decision.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

It can be frustrating waiting for the light to come with prospects. Sometimes you wonder if there even is a light.

Stephenson showed a small sample size of effectiveness to end last season, but it didn't carry over to this spring. The guy has quality secondary stuff and if he can become more effective with his fastball command he'll look like a different pitcher. No guarantee that's going to happen, but I'm not counting him out yet.

Of the young guys I've seen Romano and Reed are the two that have the biggest uphill battle to be a SP. Neither one have a quality off speed pitch and have to this point resorted to throwing hard and harder when things begin to unravel. I'd think a curve ball would help both of them keep the batter honest, but neither of them may have a good feel for throwing one.

You really don't see many guys coming through the Reds system that throw a curve ball. I think it's the great equalizer for paralyzing dead red hitters, especially left handed hitters.

Garrett as a SP threw everything on the same plane with left to right movement. A slight change in speeds, but too many of his offerings ended up in the same location. He's much better as a reliever airing it out closer to max effort.

Finnegan is as close to an idiot as anyone in the mix. What he's best at is blaming someone else for whatever goes wrong. He's a clone of Mat Latos in that regard. Homer has some of that going on as well.

Castillo is the guy that could be special, but his mechanics waiver at times. His fastball/ changeup are better than the league, but that doesn't matter if you can't keep your mechanics together.

Mahle is the most consistent performer of them all. His fastball is better than the league, but at times there's a noticeable deceleration in his arm speed when he throws his slider and changeup. Both of those pitches are only golden when they look like your fastball.

Hunter Greene is the guy that projects to be king someday. But tendons and ligaments don't care about that. We'll find out in the next couple seasons how durable he is as his innings are increased. There's some luck involved in all that, but genetics play a large role in whether a guy can do it. Tendons aren't as easily strengthened as muscles, it helps to born with good ones