Regular Season

[JohnU]

Price proving again to be stupid, not just inept.

Price doesn't want Adleman to succeed. Price wants to prove to his coaches that the guys they drafted are better than the guys who busted their ass in indy ball. Price wants Adleman to fail because that would mean that the franchise was right in not having indy league graduates actually succeed.

Price is useless.

 

[JohnU]

Wait, it's an oblique. Well, who knew?

 

[eburg5000]

I'm just about at a loss for words to describe how I feel about the Reds after playing the Indians. Hit-n-Run said yesterday "that after the 1st quarter of the season. He projected about 101 loses." But I think it will be worse. The Reds had 5 wins the 1st week of the season. which is a 3rd of their total. It's hard to believe but I also think the bullpen was playing better then.

I'm thinking 110 -120 loses, the way they are playing now. I could be wrong, I usually am.

I don't see how any Reds fan can be optimistic about the future of this team, as things stand right now. I read where some think the Reds will contend in 2018. I am not convinced.

 

[JohnU]

120 losses is historically bad for the modern era though the Tigers almost made it.
I have to believe that eventually, the Reds will uncover a pitcher or two who does a "Mario Soto" amid the chaos.

My source of optimism is located in Houston, where a horrible baseball team made a one-year miracle of themselves, convinced the pundits that they were onto some kind of metrics magic ... and reverted to an ordinary team after one year. I can't say that will happen to the other lovable losers who have emerged.

As we have seen in the Price era, a contender can be turned into a laughing stock in about 350 games.

 

[eburg5000]

Houston, 17 and 25. that has to make all the "were doing it the Houston way" sort of sick.

 

[JohnU]

Kinda wish we'd been privy to the details that got Strailly to Cincy.
Traded to the Padres and released a day later. Why?
And signed by the Reds on 4-1. Just lucky ol' Dan was suddenly available?
So why didn't the Astros just trade Strailly to the Reds and skip the middle man?

And as it turns out, Strailly is now the ace of the Reds staff.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Dan Straily doesn't have assignment options and was caught up in a numbers crunch in Houston. I suppose Luhnow didn't think he'd clear waivers and wanted some value in return instead of DFA'ing him. They ended up releasing catcher Erik Kratz whom they got for him from the Padres, so I guess the value was less than the hoped for.

Straily was initially projected to make the Padres OD roster, but they kept a rule 5 kid instead. They had to expose him to waivers to assign him and probably were hoping nobody would claim him. It shows someone down at 100 Nuxhall Way was paying attention.

 

[chico ruiz]

h-n-r, as usual, explains the administrative side of straily's recent transactional history informatively and accurately. no mystery there at all. i'm going to try to peel a layer of onion without crying, and try to make some overall organizational and mlb connections.

there's a lot of baseball to be played yet eburg. as the season grinds on, into august and september, pitching, youth, and defense becomes increasingly important. that's something about baseball that hasn't changed. for instance, how in the world could the worst hitting team in all mlb be playing .500 ball? as bad as the 'stros' have been thus far, why are they still within striking distance in the american west? this early in the season, if they win 7 0f 10, they don't look so bad anymore. take a look at how many low-scoring 1 & 2 run games they've lost. a lot of baseball yet to be played. don't make the mistake of writing them off in may. i don't think it's necessarily the 'houston way.' i think it's more that some smart gm's recognized about 10 years ago that they couldn't compete with ridiculously escalating starting pitcher salaries and they had to continually stock and develop more of their own to compete. i'm not going to belabor this point, but does not doing this ring familiar? the trade of straily to the padres is a indicator of where the astros strength is. or, at the very least, where they perceive one of their main strengths to be. i don't think that straily's success is too surprising. he worked hard on the loss of gas to augment & juxtapose with is his secondary pitches. he's only 27 and it was less than 3 years ago that the athletics had enough confidence to start him in a deciding playoff division series game. his recent transaction history reveals more about the teams involved than the player.

 

[JohnU]

Personally I don't think getting Straily was a bad move by the Reds. What I find interesting is that on April 1, he was signed by the Reds, almost as an afterthought. On May 20, he is the ace of the staff. "Ace" being user-defined. A lot about all the metrics is interesting, and a lot about the peculiarity of life is even more so. If somebody had said on Jan. 1 that Dan Straily would be the most dependable pitcher in the organization, you would have said ... 'huh?'

I personally never paid much attention to the 'houston way' of anything. Off and on, the blind pig gets the corn.

Again, as the 'regular season' thread has evolved into still another treatise on how the front office works, it's just not as interesting as what happened in last night's game ... sort of what the 'regular season' thread is supposed to include.

Sometimes nobody cares about the details. What some of us care about is getting outscored 43-16 by a team that is, at best, .500.

But I am sure we can belabor the point despite saying we won't so long as we can bring up a presumption from 10 years ago.

 

[JohnU]

In short, the point of 'regular season' was not another ramblng narrative about how the Reds front office fucked the pooch in 2006. But I guess we get that when we are just anal.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Here we go again. 46 pitches after the 2nd inning.

So it begs to ask one question.....
Where the hell is that beer guy?

 

[JohnU]

The idea that Votto is a better hitter than .212 is a given but when a guy is hitting .212, continuing to leave him in the 3 spot is managing through a kaleidoscope. The manager decided that he only needed 9 relievers in an AL ballpark ....

 

[JohnU]

How difficult must it be for these guys to watch the bullpen do this on a regular basis?

 

[JohnU]

Tim Adleman went on the 15-day DL with a strained left oblique, suffered during the fourth inning of a 7-2 loss to Cleveland on Thursday night. ... Anthony DeSclafani (oblique) threw 45 pitches in batting practice on Friday. He's expected to make at least three minor league rehab starts. ... RHP Jon Moscot (sore left shoulder) gave up four homers and nine runs in four innings of a rehab start for Triple-A Louisville.

 

[eburg5000]

It's like the Reds are playing 2 games. The starting pitching "normally" keeps us close for 5 to 6 innings. A lot of the time the Reds are leading when the starters leave. We all know the bullpen is worse than just bad, but it seems the offense goes home after the 5th inning to. I could look it up, and I might, but I wonder how many runs have the Reds scored this year after the 5th innings or off other teams bullpens. bet its not many.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

As the great Yogi Berra was quoted......
"You can observe a lot by just watching".

I think Mr. Eburg is spot on. The Reds bullpen gives up a ton of runs while the offense scores less off the opposing bullpen.


In today's game of loogy's and specialty roles, you're not suppose to score as much when facing the bullpen. This team has been competitive through 5 innings, but all bets are off after that.

Through the first five innings;
Reds scored 109.... allowed 120

After the fifth inning;
Reds scored 63.... allowed 134

How many walk off wins has the bullpen allowed this season?
The answer will surprise you.

 

[JohnU]

Reds pen has blown 10 of 14 save chances. I can't recall that there have been any walkoffs, so that might be the trick question. I am reading here and there about whether to bring up Reed, Stephie and Garrett. As much as I would like to see them, I guess I can't say now -- after self-evaluation -- whether that would be a good idea. The question is whether they gain more by pitching in Louisville than in the bigs. In Stephie's case, command might be an issue. Reed is ready, I have seen written.

The issue of clubhouse morale is a brutal topic and I'd guess that will have more to do with Price's future than any on-field blunders. My concern is the stated goal of not really being competitive until 2018. That would suggest that another year and three-quarters of this is going to happen. It is going to be hard to beef up the team for a ready-run next year ... being competitive is a fickle finger. Plan the plan and watch the entire rotation go on the DL with season-threatening injuries.

I want this team on the ready-run this year, not next year. Throwing away games routinely with no regard for the consequences might make sense in the smug and toasty front office. The fans are scrambling to find alternate sources of entertainment this year.

Visit Kentucky, the tourism board will tell you.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Zero walk off losses.

The bullpen can't hold the lead before the oppositions last AB and the offense doesn't play catchup.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Every team looks like Murderers Row against this bullpen, but even Murderers Row couldn't make up for the runs this bullpen allows.

 

[JohnU]

So you are a Reds relief pitcher and you look up at the board ... coming up on the 5th inning, the starter has done yeoman's work ... threw 49 pitches the first inning but he's still not losing ... you are all there on the bench, and you just KNOW the phone is going to ring. Which one of you says, "gee, I hope they don't call my name."