chico ruiz
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same poster continues, "in 2010, the reds had cueto, harang, arroyo, volquez, votto, bruce ... and stubbs, who they thought was a talent ... phillips was young, and there were pieces in the pipeline. give me that core and I will win a lot of games."
what core? the reds essentially got nothing for harang, arroyo, or volquez. votto, phillips, and bruce hadn't been signed to big $ deals yet, and they got choo, for what was always going to be one year, for stubbs. they haven't won a lot of games comparatively. the a's & rays have both won more games since 2010, and they've done it w/ significantly less payroll $. additionally, the best pieces in the reds pipeline were traded. in the meantime, huntington and his scouting staff were identifying talent like josh harrison, starling marte , gregory polanco, gerrit cole, taillon, and glasgow to name a few. that's a pipeline. a pipeline that is current. the pirates have depth because of well executed scouting, drafting, trading, and signing (in numbers), and subsequent development. btw, not all high draft picks either. if burnett or liriano gets hurt or dl'ed the pirates have viable alternatives. they are not one injury from being a non-contender. huntington saw to that some years back. moore was trading grienke for cain, escobar, and odorizzi. odorizzi eventually being the center piece of the trade that brought shields and wade davis to kc. there are countless other examples of these gm's being proactive rather than reactive. the latos and simon trades seemed reactive to me. one of the above referenced gm's explains perfectly, "anytime you have to do something, it's not advantageous," "so we would much prefer to have the option to … make the decision out of desire rather than need." which brings me back to the crasnick article, and begs the question. why weren't moves made 2, 3, or 4 years ago. yes, the reds were winning. yes, moving any of the players, sans byrd, would have been unpopular with the fans. but, it was imperative they be made to keep the reds competitive and to avoid this 'hastened re-build.' it's what a mid market team has to do, and the evidence to support this is empirical. the good gm's identified what they were looking for; like a player who profiles with a specific skill set or a certain value based on price / contract status point. they used that narrower scope to their advantage, and increased their focus on legitimate prospect possibilities, which allowed them to get a lot of them to create depth and commodities for other trades. this is exampled conjecture, but i believe the reason pittsburgh got byrd in 2013 was because they had more organizational depth. they were willing to part with vic black because they had legitimate v, w, x, y, and z prospects. the reds did not have enough prospect depth to enable them to part with any of them. also, could be the mets didn't see anybody they wanted in the reds system. i was surprised in 2012 that the reds didn't take a college pitcher, as opposed to the high schooler travieso. the starting rotation was rapidly approaching the end of contracts / affordability, and i thought the reds would take a more mature pitcher (quicker to mlb type) like wacha from texas a&m. cingrani (rice), lorenzen (csf), moscot (pepperdine) got to cincinnati quicker via universities. the specific distinction, and 'quicker to mlb' probability, is sharply defined when you consider the pirates and reds 2011 first round choices. the reds were not going to get the #1 pick gerrit cole. it's the path to actually pitching in mlb that is this reds fan's larger concern. cole was pitching in the majors by 2013. stephenson has yet to deliver a pitch in mlb. "all teams are successful at some point in bringing in young talent," says a poster. i say, "some teams are successful more consistently at bringing in young upper-shelf talent, and more of it."
the same poster maintains, "that building a team to contend forever and ever is a yankees philosophy. it's fun to fantasize about that but it's folly if you think a gm is going to guarantee it. almost no team in recent history has achieved that over a period of more than 3 or 4 years. st. Louis is the exception and perhaps the ONE component to this discussion that fuels the anti-walt talk. if st. louis just played ordinary off and on, we'd have no reason to bitch about why the reds gm used to work for them."
this is just wrong and reduces my critiques of jocketty to a sophomoric contempt of the 'other' team. walt could have been with any other team in all of professional baseball. i don't care if it was with the cards, ashtabula turd-shuckers, or bemidji beating bishops. you are grossly misrepresenting what i wrote, and guiding it in a direction i certainly did not intend. this is not a free association tangent i'm on here. i'm not a casual fan who thinks a gm can trade for anybody at the drop of a hat. i understand it's a difficult job with daily challenges, limitations, and high expectations to produce in our hyper-immediate, if not sooner, gratification society. it's the process and machinery (human & digital) that's put in place that i thoughtfully, and objectively as possible, scrutinize. what's worse, the yankees is what drove these other organizations to take notice of the market and their inability to compete financially. so, they built and planned in other ways to stay competitive. these less flush teams are precisely who i've been juxtaposing the reds gm with. the rays have only had one losing season since 2008. the rays have about 30 to 50 million less annually than the reds for payroll. so, how does that kind of success happen? maybe it's that organizational plan or system -you are having a difficult time grasping the concept of- that was put in place. you don't have to be the yankees to contend and be competitive for more than 3 or 4 years. most of the the gm's, and their teams, named above have proven that, and will continue to prove it. the 'win now' motto is a yankee, big market, high payroll saying. the red's should be a mid market 'stay competitive' mantra. the yankees don't necessarily have to build. they buy. maybe jocketty is better suited for the yankee gm position. jonny gomes put it this way, when he was asked about the tb rays, and after leaving the reds. 'look at seasons when they've won with a low payroll. normally, you would call that a fluke. but when you've done it over and over like these guys do, it's not a fluke by any means. players come and go but the anchor is always there in joe and friedman and their staff. they haven't gone anywhere, which means a lot. you go to different teams' different camps, and they're continually trying to find the winning chemistry, trying to find the winning way of things. it's found in the rays. they got it. … they know how to do it.' i didn't expect jocketty to guarantee continued success and competitiveness. i did expect him to pay attention to trends and eventualities that could not be avoided or ignored. huntington, mozeliak, and hoyer have been paying attention and they did their homework. much to this red fan's chagrin, i suspect pittsburgh, st. louis, and chicago will be decade long successes, or at the least, competitive ball clubs in the playoff hunt come august.
there's a couple things that get skimmed over. lorenzen, iglesias, and desclafani will come nowhere near pitching 350 innings combined. next year will be a problem that way too. i wrote coming up 'mlb ready.' that's quite a bit different than just having a prospect. the bigger point was depth, or lack thereof, and the rate / momentum in getting prospects into the organization and to the big club. it's not a singular 'up and comer,' it's the number of 'up and comers,' as you call them. the acquisition and development of these pitchers has been slow and haphazard in walt's time with the reds. when i looked at the reds 2015 opening day roster, the first question that i had was; where are the reds going to get 400 to 600 innings of starting pitching from? that question alone rendered the reds non-contenders. the transitioning from year to year was sloppy. none of the aforementioned young starters will peak 100-150 innings, nor should they. if they push desclafani beyond that, it will be a mistake. in case you haven't been paying attention, the reds will have this same (innings count) problem next year. will the reds have one starter next year who can throw 200 innings? that includes bailey, and it's a legitimate question. jocketty has backed himself into a corner. here's something the crack staff of enquirer writers hasn't asked: who will start the last 70 games of 2015 if cueto and leake are traded? august and september could get very ugly. if you thought the reds bullpen was bad the first half of the season, wait till they're called upon every game in the 5th inning. what team is going to give up a top-line ready to throw 150+ innings prospect? no team gives up such a beast in 2015. the game changed, with respect to this, a long time ago. walt jocketty did not.
what core? the reds essentially got nothing for harang, arroyo, or volquez. votto, phillips, and bruce hadn't been signed to big $ deals yet, and they got choo, for what was always going to be one year, for stubbs. they haven't won a lot of games comparatively. the a's & rays have both won more games since 2010, and they've done it w/ significantly less payroll $. additionally, the best pieces in the reds pipeline were traded. in the meantime, huntington and his scouting staff were identifying talent like josh harrison, starling marte , gregory polanco, gerrit cole, taillon, and glasgow to name a few. that's a pipeline. a pipeline that is current. the pirates have depth because of well executed scouting, drafting, trading, and signing (in numbers), and subsequent development. btw, not all high draft picks either. if burnett or liriano gets hurt or dl'ed the pirates have viable alternatives. they are not one injury from being a non-contender. huntington saw to that some years back. moore was trading grienke for cain, escobar, and odorizzi. odorizzi eventually being the center piece of the trade that brought shields and wade davis to kc. there are countless other examples of these gm's being proactive rather than reactive. the latos and simon trades seemed reactive to me. one of the above referenced gm's explains perfectly, "anytime you have to do something, it's not advantageous," "so we would much prefer to have the option to … make the decision out of desire rather than need." which brings me back to the crasnick article, and begs the question. why weren't moves made 2, 3, or 4 years ago. yes, the reds were winning. yes, moving any of the players, sans byrd, would have been unpopular with the fans. but, it was imperative they be made to keep the reds competitive and to avoid this 'hastened re-build.' it's what a mid market team has to do, and the evidence to support this is empirical. the good gm's identified what they were looking for; like a player who profiles with a specific skill set or a certain value based on price / contract status point. they used that narrower scope to their advantage, and increased their focus on legitimate prospect possibilities, which allowed them to get a lot of them to create depth and commodities for other trades. this is exampled conjecture, but i believe the reason pittsburgh got byrd in 2013 was because they had more organizational depth. they were willing to part with vic black because they had legitimate v, w, x, y, and z prospects. the reds did not have enough prospect depth to enable them to part with any of them. also, could be the mets didn't see anybody they wanted in the reds system. i was surprised in 2012 that the reds didn't take a college pitcher, as opposed to the high schooler travieso. the starting rotation was rapidly approaching the end of contracts / affordability, and i thought the reds would take a more mature pitcher (quicker to mlb type) like wacha from texas a&m. cingrani (rice), lorenzen (csf), moscot (pepperdine) got to cincinnati quicker via universities. the specific distinction, and 'quicker to mlb' probability, is sharply defined when you consider the pirates and reds 2011 first round choices. the reds were not going to get the #1 pick gerrit cole. it's the path to actually pitching in mlb that is this reds fan's larger concern. cole was pitching in the majors by 2013. stephenson has yet to deliver a pitch in mlb. "all teams are successful at some point in bringing in young talent," says a poster. i say, "some teams are successful more consistently at bringing in young upper-shelf talent, and more of it."
the same poster maintains, "that building a team to contend forever and ever is a yankees philosophy. it's fun to fantasize about that but it's folly if you think a gm is going to guarantee it. almost no team in recent history has achieved that over a period of more than 3 or 4 years. st. Louis is the exception and perhaps the ONE component to this discussion that fuels the anti-walt talk. if st. louis just played ordinary off and on, we'd have no reason to bitch about why the reds gm used to work for them."
this is just wrong and reduces my critiques of jocketty to a sophomoric contempt of the 'other' team. walt could have been with any other team in all of professional baseball. i don't care if it was with the cards, ashtabula turd-shuckers, or bemidji beating bishops. you are grossly misrepresenting what i wrote, and guiding it in a direction i certainly did not intend. this is not a free association tangent i'm on here. i'm not a casual fan who thinks a gm can trade for anybody at the drop of a hat. i understand it's a difficult job with daily challenges, limitations, and high expectations to produce in our hyper-immediate, if not sooner, gratification society. it's the process and machinery (human & digital) that's put in place that i thoughtfully, and objectively as possible, scrutinize. what's worse, the yankees is what drove these other organizations to take notice of the market and their inability to compete financially. so, they built and planned in other ways to stay competitive. these less flush teams are precisely who i've been juxtaposing the reds gm with. the rays have only had one losing season since 2008. the rays have about 30 to 50 million less annually than the reds for payroll. so, how does that kind of success happen? maybe it's that organizational plan or system -you are having a difficult time grasping the concept of- that was put in place. you don't have to be the yankees to contend and be competitive for more than 3 or 4 years. most of the the gm's, and their teams, named above have proven that, and will continue to prove it. the 'win now' motto is a yankee, big market, high payroll saying. the red's should be a mid market 'stay competitive' mantra. the yankees don't necessarily have to build. they buy. maybe jocketty is better suited for the yankee gm position. jonny gomes put it this way, when he was asked about the tb rays, and after leaving the reds. 'look at seasons when they've won with a low payroll. normally, you would call that a fluke. but when you've done it over and over like these guys do, it's not a fluke by any means. players come and go but the anchor is always there in joe and friedman and their staff. they haven't gone anywhere, which means a lot. you go to different teams' different camps, and they're continually trying to find the winning chemistry, trying to find the winning way of things. it's found in the rays. they got it. … they know how to do it.' i didn't expect jocketty to guarantee continued success and competitiveness. i did expect him to pay attention to trends and eventualities that could not be avoided or ignored. huntington, mozeliak, and hoyer have been paying attention and they did their homework. much to this red fan's chagrin, i suspect pittsburgh, st. louis, and chicago will be decade long successes, or at the least, competitive ball clubs in the playoff hunt come august.
there's a couple things that get skimmed over. lorenzen, iglesias, and desclafani will come nowhere near pitching 350 innings combined. next year will be a problem that way too. i wrote coming up 'mlb ready.' that's quite a bit different than just having a prospect. the bigger point was depth, or lack thereof, and the rate / momentum in getting prospects into the organization and to the big club. it's not a singular 'up and comer,' it's the number of 'up and comers,' as you call them. the acquisition and development of these pitchers has been slow and haphazard in walt's time with the reds. when i looked at the reds 2015 opening day roster, the first question that i had was; where are the reds going to get 400 to 600 innings of starting pitching from? that question alone rendered the reds non-contenders. the transitioning from year to year was sloppy. none of the aforementioned young starters will peak 100-150 innings, nor should they. if they push desclafani beyond that, it will be a mistake. in case you haven't been paying attention, the reds will have this same (innings count) problem next year. will the reds have one starter next year who can throw 200 innings? that includes bailey, and it's a legitimate question. jocketty has backed himself into a corner. here's something the crack staff of enquirer writers hasn't asked: who will start the last 70 games of 2015 if cueto and leake are traded? august and september could get very ugly. if you thought the reds bullpen was bad the first half of the season, wait till they're called upon every game in the 5th inning. what team is going to give up a top-line ready to throw 150+ innings prospect? no team gives up such a beast in 2015. the game changed, with respect to this, a long time ago. walt jocketty did not.
