Colvin

[JohnU]

Rocks sent the guy to the minors today.
I am maybe on the long side of mad to say we could have gotten this guy cheap.
He has bad numbers this year.

Tyler Colvin, RF, Colorado Rockies, MLB Baseball - CBSSports.com

 

[chico ruiz]

another LH bat? i have a similarly mad idea. ask the mets if they are willing to deal marlon byrd for cheap cheap.

 

[JohnU]

Colvin can hit.
That's the difference.

 

[chico ruiz]

the difference of what? colvin was batting .160 for the rockies this year. byrd leads the mets in home runs and rbi. reds are desperate for a right handed bat to balance the line-up. i'm not sure what i'm missing. i've seen both players this year at the yard. colvin looked off balance and behind. big numbers at coors field last year, but below average on the road.

 

[JohnU]

Well, if it is between Colvin and Byrd ... yeah, I get ya. i was comparing Colvin to anybody the Reds currently have. Byrd would be OK, I suppose. Never considered him. I always thought Colvin was a diamond in the outfield ... er, rough ... but I think the Coors numbers aren't different from GABP numbers. The difference is the Rockies have a hitting coach who accomplishes things.

I think it brings up the bigger question: Which hitter for the Reds has improved under Brook Jacoby's watch? Answer ... nobody but Votto, who clearly studies hitters on his own standard. AND, Votto's power numbers are WAY off in the last year. Who's the hitting coach?

So Tyler Colvin ... he's a conversation, not a solution.

 

[chico ruiz]

right you are john. but, i would add a few things. first, the reds do not need another LH hitter. setting aside the almost complete lack of a recognizable running game, which renders the reds a board game team. as far as i know, cozart has not attempted one stolen base all year. he's simply misallocated by any baseball standard i know. inability to hit behind runners, or go to right field at all. OBP. regardless, in the name of all that is baseball holy, good, and right; put pressure on the other team. instead of scoring 2 or 3 runs in the first inning, bury the opponent with 5 or 6. ironically, the reds have good speed. this particular team construct (without a RH power bat) cries out for some semblance of a running game. it's vexing and boring to watch. the yankees run. the rays run. the orioles run. the sawx run. and they're all from the big bad AL east. you know, the division that just slugs itself to victories. what is going on? the answer is: nothing is going on. my friends and i refer to it as constipated baseball. no movement. it's almost like watching junior, dunn, kearns, and encarncion from the mid 00's. the base to base game is what the reds are now, and all the above makes the need for a RH power bat a desperate need for the reds. anything can happen, and that's what makes the game, and the story of a 162 game season compelling. but, if the reds come back from that ten game west coast trip, after the all-star break, with 3 or less w's, they could very well be finished. i have to believe walt is looking at those two weeks as a defining swing for the 2013 reds. who is the real joey votto? votto had a great 2010. however, i've always thought that was a anomaly. joey will have years like that occasionally. but, he was never going to be a 35-40 HR and 120 RBI every season kind of hitter. votto is a great hitter. one of the most disciplined i've ever seen. he's not a power pull hitter. thank god. he takes what the pitcher gives him and uses the whole field. i saw the NY media do the same thing to david wright. try to make him something he's not. what's wrong with wright, they would ask. possible ped's aside; nothing was wrong with him. he was hitting .300 and spraying the ball all over the park. he was never going to be a 30+ HR player every year. the mlb power ball media frenzy spin, at times, has stolen the essence of the game. you guys know that i refrain from obscenities because i truly believe it undercuts and diminishes a argument. but, allow me - just this once- to finish with this thought. run! got dammit?! run!

 

[JohnU]

The Reds are not very interesting, I agree.
I don't know for sure what the plan was on March 28th but if it all linked to Ludwick, that was akin to the belief that the Edsel could save Ford in 1958. Nice car. Marty B says the reason the Reds don't run is because they strike out too much. So, steal on a 1-1 count. Whatever. The strikeout is getting dismissed as just another out by the sabremetricians. Honestly, if it's the leadoff guy, yeah ... it's the same as a 380-foot flyball to the track.

The discussion raged last night on the radio postgame about making a trade, upgrading at LF or 3B. I kept thinking, why do we want to fix the team without even giving any THOUGHT to the notion that maybe the hitting philosophy is the problem, not the hitters. I KNOW Cozart can hit. He isn't getting any instruction.

And yeah, maybe the coach can only lead him to water ... but there's a concept of fundamentals that the good hitters learn and recognize so that when they slump, they can spend a day working on that ... their slumps are 0-8, not 0-28.

Maybe a new coach wouldn't help but to stubbornly insist that it's not a possible solution is truly mule-like.

Then again, at the end, Dusty and his staff can just shrug and say, we just didn't get the breaks we expected.

When you leave Milwaukee and are grateful to have taken one game -- that's a policy that says there isn't going to be anything fixed. Pre-destination is bullshit.

 

[Redsfan1507]

I saw quite a bit of Cozart in the minors- he stole bases, bunted some
, and hit to Rf quite a bit. He's become a fastball pull only hitter, that never attempts a steal. His k:Bb ratio is bad, but not much different than minors. I have to believe never getting a steal sign and trying to pull everything, is NOT coming from what got him there, rather what his coach is telling him to do since he's here. Im not surprised he's hitting .020 less in MLB than in the minors, but I am surprised anyone thinks he's a 2 hitter.

I also believe than anyone putting pressure on shortstops and catchers to hit more, probably isn't getting as much offense from their OF and/or corner infielders as they should, and that's true for LF and 3b. It should be noted that although Votto is getting on base plenty, he isn't on pace goe 30HR. I still believe they Reds would better themselves with Phillips hitting 2, and Bruce hitting 4. Yes, that would mean nothing but .240 hitters from 5 on down, but IMO, if half your lineup isn't going to hit, you'll score more runs lumping the ones that do together, reducing some of those 1 and 2 out " opportunities" from the best hitters.

The point was made that LF has only hit a few homers, but they haven't attempted many steals either, and typically hit at the bottom if the order, minimizing potential to peiduce runs from other than the few homers they can hit. Again, why not try to use what they are, instead of accentuating what they aren't ? Robinson is a major steal threat, on a team that will actually allow him to try, and Heisey and Paul aren't bad runners either.

You can yank on Ludwick's absence all you want, but the truth is this team has punted LF for a long time, preferring to spend on Votto, Bruce, Phillips, Choo (the only 4 hitters in the lineup), and pitchers. Fraziers unexpectedly effective rookie season made it way to be optimistic he wasn't really the slow, breaking ball deficient hitter with occasional power he always was as a minor leaguer, even if they drank some bad Kool-Aid believing the same brief effective MLB sample size on Ludwick would yield longer term results, but worth the $12 mil he's owed next year ? That's a lot to swallow. It was too many bucks for what he's produced in the past few years, and his age. IMO, with Robinson, Cozart, Billy Hamilton, etc...they have done young prospects that just don't fit the total avoidsnce of small ball/ speed offense of Dusty Baker. IMO, Dusty is a one trick pony offensively,so the Reds need a more powerful lineup, or a more flexible manager, but the current recipe can only result in what we have- a team that is stagnant without homers.

There are NO such answers on the near term farm horizon. Hamilton has struggled trying to adapt to AAA pitching, and trying to play Dustyball( not bunting and slapping as much), and is a misfit in Dusty's style even if he wasn't struggling. Grandal and Alonzo are gone. Lutz is a lefty OF, blocked by Heisey, Paul, etc. Double A is a void, and single A players are a crapshoot 3 years away.

The Reds went all-in to get Latos, Marshall, Broxton, Ludwick, and retain Phillips, Votto, Bruce, etc. It justified a one year contract on Choo. They gambled on Parra. They procrastinated on Chapman. Leake has rebounded, Bruce and Bailey are more consistent, Choo and Phillips might be meeting expectations ( if you expected Choo to be a hitter than can't hit lefties, and Phillips to hit .260-.270 in the 4 hole) but Votto's power is disappointing, and just about every other major player on the team has underperformed expectations. The team hasnt played better fundamentals, or offered to manufacture many runs. Dusty will ALWAYS need another bat, or three, but if they're not already on the roster, he isn't getting them.

This team is going to have to use what they have, to better results, or it's going to be more of what we've seen.

 

[WvuDieHard]

Who in their right fucking mind would think that this Reds team is gonna turn this around? Trust me, you are fooling yourself and here is why. Ludwick will not come back and save this team so you can forget that bullshit. As long as Bruce can't get clutch hits, Cozart pops out 50% of the time and hits .235 in the 2 hole, Frazier continuously misses RBI opportunities, and noone can move runners over, Ludwick will not help and this team will be no different then than they are now. I just don't see improvement from the young players we have built this team around. After the all the games under their belt, Cozart, Frazier and Bruce should be better hitters than they are. The plate acumen is atrocious but the physical skill set is there. So why the mundane effort and results? JUST FIRE THE GODDAMN MANAGER and get it over with. I am so fucking pissed off at the Reds management for letting this shit go on for as long as it has. Somebody has to be accountable because this is cheating all reds fans everywhere. They deserve better and don't deserve to be forced to watch incompetency from the dugout on game day. Obviously, batting practice has been a waste of time because nobody has learned anything there based on the continuous dirt swinging strike outs and 1st pitch hitting homer cuts. Teams can improve and should improve during the course of a season but not Dustmop's squads. They just go thru the motions and find excuses as to why they let another one get away. Enough is enough.

 

[chico ruiz]

marty b is usually only partially right in his prognostications. it sounds more like an excuse than an explanation. the 2010 reds ran a lot, and they struck out a lot. he also said the hamilton for volquez trade was one of the best in the history of the organization. i like marty because he loves cincinnati and the reds, but he sounds uninformed sometimes, or unaware of the nuts and bolts of the game.

maybe, just maybe, cozart, frazier, and heisey aren't capable of hitting successfully in mlb. i rarely see frazier stay back on breaking stuff. i never see cozart pull his hands in. he just can't stay inside of a pitched ball. granted there are only a few miguel cabrera's and joey votto's, but at the mlb level you can't try to hit to the opposite field by closing your stance or striding in. you have to wait longer before you commit your hands. you ever notice where matt holliday starts his hands? at the bottom of his rib cage. he's got that little back swing that enables him to pull the knob of the bat inside the ball. bottom line is; he hits the ball. cozart reminds me of dave kong kingman, and that can't be good. is it coaching, or are the aforementioned guys just not that good?

 

[redsfan03]

Put Tyler Colvin on this team and he'd be on a Stubbs-ian pace for whiffs. The dude was a strikeout machine in Chicago and then you have to add about a 25% increase in K's due to the Dusty/Jacoby "hitting philosophy."

 

[JohnU]

I was just thinking Jacoby could help him.