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Originally Posted by cincrazy
Bad pitching and bad defense go hand in hand. How can a pitching staff be anywhere near decent with a crap defense behind it? And how many championships have the Yankees approach won them recently? Obviously, one of the biggest reasons this team has underachieved is because of pitching, but that's not the ONLY factor.
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The Yankees have won four of the last 10 World Series titles, have been the AL World Series representative 60% of the time in that span and have a streak of 11 consecutive playoff appearances. Some failure that club is. But that's neither here nor there because the Yankees have nothing at all to do with what you're complaining about.
The Reds don't have a group of sterling arms who are only held back by a substandard defense. They have a bunch of mediocre-to-bad pitchers whose collective mediocre-to-badness is exacerbated by a sub-optimal defensive alignment chosen by the Manager and GM.
It's not an effort issue. It's not a focus issue. It's a brains and ability issue. Put the right guys in the right position and you'd have less of a problem. That being said, the Reds don't make the playoffs regardless without having a bunch of truly good pitchers on their roster.
There was nothing at all wrong in 2005 with the Reds offense. Nothing. The defense wasn't optimal, but any defensive shortcomings pale in comparison to the extreme issues the Reds have with rotation and bullpen arms; even currently. The former can be dealt with using brains. The latter can be dealt with by acquiring ability. But neither of them have anything to do with focus or effort at this point.
Get smart people who can acquire truly talented players and then put them in the best possible position to help the club and you've got a good team. Don't do that and we get throngs of Joe Average fan complaining about effort on local talk radio and internet message boards.