2011 Question of the Day: Cincinnati Reds
www.sbnation.com/mlb/2011/2/25/2012680/spring-training-2011-cincinnati-reds
For the Reds, that probably starts with winning a lot more games. They won
91 games last year, and they earned them. They led the league in scoring and
the pitching ... well, the pitching (and defense) was just good enough,
ranking in the middle of the National League pack.
The Reds are highly unlikely to lead the league in scoring again. Among the
13 Reds who totaled at least 100 plate appearances, Orlando Cabrera was the
only one who had a bad year at the plate. Everyone else was either adequate,
good, or great. Cincinnati's catchers, mostly Ramon Hernandez and Ryan Hanigan
ranked second in the league in RBI, third in OPS. Scott Rolen stayed
reasonably healthy and added to his Hall of Fame resume. Joey Votto, you
know about.
This should still be a good hitting team. But perhaps not a great one.
So if the Reds are going to win 90-plus games again, they'll have to
compensate on the other side of the ball, which means mostly with better
pitching.
A year ago, the Reds didn't really have an ace. Bronson Arroyo won 17 games,
but his ERA wasn't anything special. Johnny Cueto was the only other Red
with more than 10 wins, and his ERA was just slightly better than Arroyo's.
In 19 starts, Homer Bailey pitched better than his 4.46 ERA. Rookies Mike
Leake and Travis Wood both pitched better than we might have expected.
Edinson V olquez pitched fairly well after returning from injury in the
second half of the season.
Aaron Harang did post a 5.32 ERA last season, but he's off to enjoy the vast
pastures in San Diego. Which leaves the Reds with six legitimate candidates
for the starting rotation this spring ... but how many candidates for the ace
they will probably need?
Arroyo's a workhorse. He never misses a start, and has averaged 215 innings
per season over the last six seasons. He's got almost no ace potential, though.
Not while striking out five hitters per nine innings and giving up 30 homers
every year.
Once-hot prospect Homer Bailey? He's got a 5.09 ERA in 304 career innings.
Still, his strikeout rate is encouraging and he's not particularly prone to
the long ball. With a little luck and a few fewer walks, Bailey might have
a shot.
Mike Leake shocked everyone last spring by becoming the first starting pitcher
since Jim Abbott to break camp with the big club without having spent a day in
the minor leagues.
Superficially, the results were impressive. As late as June 28, Leake's ERA
was 2.92. But his subpar strikeout-to-walk ratio caught up with him in July,
and then in August he got hurt and didn't pitch at all in September or October.
Between the injury and his performance before he went down, Leake's now
looking like a No. 5 starter for now. At best.
Leake's fellow rookie Travis Wood fared quite a bit better.
Just one year ago, Wood was considered a good prospect. Baseball America
ranked him as the Red' No. 7 prospect; John Sickels gave Wood a C+ grade.
But everything changed in Triple-A Louisville, where Wood's strikeout rate
went up, his walk rate down. After 16 starts and a 3.06 ERA, Wood debuted
with the big club on the 1st of July, just kept on striking out hitters and
not walking them, and wound up with a 3.51 ERA in 17 major-league starts.
Wait, there are yet two more candidates.
Johnny Cueto, a veteran of three full major-league seasons, just turned 25.
His ERA has improved steadily as he's steadily given up fewer home runs. He
does a lot of things well, but nothing brilliantly enough that we should
expect him to make a great leap forward (GLF) this season, into acehood.
Meanwhile, Edinson Volquez has done great things. Three years ago he went
17-6 with a 3.21 ERA.*
* Oh, and tell me again how he finished just fourth in the 2008 Rookie of
the Year voting? Right ... Two voters didn't know Volquez was ineligible for
the award, give him a second- and third-place vote, and the BBWAA in its
infinite wisdom anyway.
Since then he's pitched 112 innings, roughly half before his Tommy John
surgery and half after. Sure, people say guys are just as good afterward,
but it doesn't always work out that way. Volquez figures to be good enough
to pitch in the Reds' rotation this season, but there's no way of knowing
if he'll ever be as good as he was.
Yesterday I was surprised to see that , even after accounting for the
Cardinals' loss of Adam Wainwright for the season, has the Reds with just
a 23-percent chance of reaching the playoffs, still well behind the Cardinals
(44 percent and the Brewers (39 percent).
I haven't looked at the underlying projections, but I will guess the Reds
project to 84 wins because their hitting is expected to regress and their
pitching isn't expected to improve at all.
I'm not going to argue with PECOTA. I don't know which of these fellows
will be a Cy Young candidate, either. And if the Reds can't figure out an
answer, it might be a long season.
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03/27 15:24, , 1F
03/27 15:24, 1F
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