Lohse - Reds dark horse?

[Red Raindog]

Warning - this comes from ESPN Insider

Jason Churchill says the Reds may be a dark horse with Lohse -- he notes they have the 28th pick in the 1st round but also have the 37th pick.

He opines the Reds may move on Lohse if Chapman is moved back to the bullpen.

Would certainly complicate several positions on the pitching staff.

You heard it here first!

[mattfeet]

Honestly, I really would be too surprised if it happened. The only hindrance, IMO, is where the $ will come from.

[Pony Boy]

Wow, I think this would be a great move. It sounds like Chapman to the rotation might not be a done deal. There have been way too many quotes from people close to the situation doubting the wisdom of the move. Loshe is a major upgrade over Mike Leake.

[cumberlandreds]

Wouldn't surprise me a bit if they can do the finance part of it. Looking like Chapman back to the pen. Lohse would fit in nicely as the 5th starter.

[corkedbat]

I could see a one year deal

[mbgrayson]

I just don't buy it. We already have six starters under team control, why get another? I know, it frees Chapman to move back to the pen, but at what cost?

Kyle Lohse made $12 million per year each of the last two years. Scott Boras is trying to find him a multiple year deal, and is having a hard time. Kyle is now 34 years old, and is seen as wanting too much money for anyone to sign him.

I see these rumors as Scott Boras and his agency trying to spin a market for Lohse. This rumor actually tells me that he may sign with the Cardinals again. Get St. Louis worried that he will sign with the division rival Reds, and they will spring for the dough and the multiple years.

I also think Lohse is coming off two career best seasons, and is unlikely to repeat. His 2.86 ERA and 16-3 record in 2012 are outliers. His K rate last year was only 6.1/ 9 innings, and his BABIP was a fluky low .262. Just three years ago, Lohse ran a .364 BABIP, and his ERA was 6.55 that year.

As for me, I want no part of over paying Lohse for his extremely lucky 2012 season by giving him big money for a multiple year deal.

[dfs]

Kyle Lohse made $12 million per year each of the last two years. Scott Boras is trying to find him a multiple year deal, and is having a hard time. Kyle is now 34 years old, and is seen as wanting too much money for anyone to sign him.

They are a couple of weeks into spring training. Maybe 12 million, but no multiyear contract is coming his way now unless the cash is seriously discounted.

Not sure that the reds would have the cash for a 12 million 1 year contract.
Not sure that the reds would have a place for him on their roster.

Walt has surprised us in the past.

[jojo]

I just don't buy it. We already have six starters under team control, why get another? I know, it frees Chapman to move back to the pen, but at what cost?

Kyle Lohse made $12 million per year each of the last two years. Scott Boras is trying to find him a multiple year deal, and is having a hard time. Kyle is now 34 years old, and is seen as wanting too much money for anyone to sign him.

I see these rumors as Scott Boras and his agency trying to spin a market for Lohse. This rumor actually tells me that he may sign with the Cardinals again. Get St. Louis worried that he will sign with the division rival Reds, and they will spring for the dough and the multiple years.

I also think Lohse is coming off two career best seasons, and is unlikely to repeat. His 2.86 ERA and 16-3 record in 2012 are outliers. His K rate last year was only 6.1/ 9 innings, and his BABIP was a fluky low .262. Just three years ago, Lohse ran a .364 BABIP, and his ERA was 6.55 that year.

As for me, I want no part of over paying Lohse for his extremely lucky 2012 season by giving him big money for a multiple year deal.

To be fair, 2009 and 2010 were injury-plagued seasons for Lohse (he was out 138 days over those two seasons including forearm surgery and a groin issue).

The good? He has bounced back to prove he is durable pitching 400 innings over the last two season. He's had a walk rate (BB/9) below 2 over those 400 innings as well. Potential downside? His command has become so good largely because he's primarily a sinker/slider/change up pitcher now. In other words, outside of his very good change, he induces a lot of contact. He's also going to enter his age 34 season assuming someone signs him.

He'd be a good arm for just about anyone to pick up. But the rub is how much and for how long. He was extended a qualifying offer so signing him would cost a lot of teams a draft pick. He's also got Boras as an agent. That said, what he doesn't appear to have is a market. He might be available for a calculus that works regarding the "how much and for how long" part of the equation.

[westofyou]

Why?

Really why?

Because it creates clickable content that generates ad revenue.

[OesterPoster]

Why?

Really why?

Because it creates clickable content that generates ad revenue.

Clickable content would make more sense if it was a free article, and not already an Insider article.

[REDREAD]

A one year deal would be awesome.

A multiyear deal would be a little scary..

Here's a question.. Arroyo is in the last year of his deal.. Suppose the choice comes down to either Lohse or Arroyo after 2013, who would you pick. In other words, we can sign Lohse for multiple years now, but then we have to let Arroyo walk.. OR we can not sign Lohse now and have enough money to keep Arroyo around (if we chose to do so).

[mbgrayson]

Here's a question.. Arroyo is in the last year of his deal.. Suppose the choice comes down to either Lohse or Arroyo after 2013, who would you pick. In other words, we can sign Lohse for multiple years now, but then we have to let Arroyo walk.. OR we can not sign Lohse now and have enough money to keep Arroyo around (if we chose to do so).

I'm not sure we want either on a multi-year contract. But here is the comparison.

Age: Lohse is 1.5 years younger than Arroyo.
Career stats:
Arroyo has a 124-115 career record, with a 4.25 ERA. He has a 1.305 WHIP, and a 5.9 K/9 rate. ERA + of 104.
Lohse has a 118-109 career record, with a 4.45 ERA. He has a 1.369 WHIP, and a 5.6 K/9 rate. ERA+ of 97.

Arroyo has the better career to date. Which guy relies more on control and finesse? Who will age better? Probably Arroyo, IMO.

[MikeThierry]

I'm not sure we want either on a multi-year contract. But here is the comparison.

Age: Lohse is 1.5 years younger than Arroyo.
Career stats:
Arroyo has a 124-115 career record, with a 4.25 ERA. He has a 1.305 WHIP, and a 5.9 K/9 rate. ERA + of 104.
Lohse has a 118-109 career record, with a 4.45 ERA. He has a 1.369 WHIP, and a 5.6 K/9 rate. ERA+ of 97.

Arroyo has the better career to date. Which guy relies more on control and finesse? Who will age better? Probably Arroyo, IMO.

You're right in an aggregate sense that Arroyo has had a slightly better career. However Arroyo has been pretty much the same pitcher his entire career with random years being better and worse. With Lohse, he has show that he has got better in recent years. Look at RA Dickey as a reference point for this. Dickey has had a mediocre career on a whole but has been stellar the past three years since he's picked up the knuckleball. Kyle Lohse learned to pitch in St. Louis instead of just throwing like he did prior to coming there.

Absolutely NO on Loshe. We had him. He was a waste of money then. Did he pitch well for St Louis, yes. Did they give up on him, yes. Why would we want him?

The reason why St. Louis gave up on him (more accurately didn't sign him to a long term deal) is because they have a lot of young pitching with a ton of upside that would have been blocked if he remained there. It has nothing to do with the Cardinals feeling that he is somehow bad nor does that mean he wouldn't be a positive contributor to the Reds starting rotation.

[Vottomatic]

You're right in an aggregate sense that Arroyo has had a slightly better career. However Arroyo has been pretty much the same pitcher his entire career with random years being better and worse. With Lohse, he has show that he has got better in recent years. Look at RA Dickey as a reference point for this. Dickey has had a mediocre career on a whole but has been stellar the past three years since he's picked up the knuckleball. Kyle Lohse learned to pitch in St. Louis instead of just throwing like he did prior to coming there.




The reason why St. Louis gave up on him (more accurately didn't sign him to a long term deal) is because they have a lot of young pitching with a ton of upside that would have been blocked if he remained there. It has nothing to do with the Cardinals feeling that he is somehow bad nor does that mean he wouldn't be a positive contributor to the Reds starting rotation.

Meh. Arroyo has started 29+ games per season every year since 2004. I'm not big on wins and losses, but he's won 10+ games in 7 of those seasons, and in the other 2 seasons he won 9 in each. Dude is a workhorse. And he's posted a sub-4.00 e.r.a. in 4 of those seasons. And I think we can all put an asterisk next to his 2011 season where he took the ball to start 32 games despite having Mono and recovering from it in a weakened state, which lead to his worst e.r.a. of 5.07.

Then there's Lohse. In 12 seasons of starting, he's won 10+ games 5 times. He's posted a sub-4.00 e.r.a. only 3 times in 12 seasons. He is coming off of his best season which conveniently fell in a contract year. And in 12 seasons, he has started 29+ games 8 times. Fairly durable although he had a couple of injury-plagued seasons recently in 2009 and 2010.

I think with Arroyo, you know what you're getting. With Lohse, it's more of a crapshoot.

If the Reds got 2012 version of Lohse, I'd say they run away with the National League pennant. But you can't predict these things.

[MikeThierry]

Meh. Arroyo has started 29+ games per season every year since 2004. I'm not big on wins and losses, but he's won 10+ games in 7 of those seasons, and in the other 2 seasons he won 9 in each. Dude is a workhorse. And he's posted a sub-4.00 e.r.a. in 4 of those seasons. And I think we can all put an asterisk next to his 2011 season where he took the ball to start 32 games despite having Mono and recovering from it in a weakened state, which lead to his worst e.r.a. of 5.07.

Then there's Lohse. In 12 seasons of starting, he's won 10+ games 5 times. He's posted a sub-4.00 e.r.a. only 3 times in 12 seasons. He is coming off of his best season which conveniently fell in a contract year. And in 12 seasons, he has started 29+ games 8 times. Fairly durable although he had a couple of injury-plagued seasons recently in 2009 and 2010.

I think with Arroyo, you know what you're getting. With Lohse, it's more of a crapshoot.

If the Reds got 2012 version of Lohse, I'd say they run away with the National League pennant. But you can't predict these things.

I'm more interested in recent history, not what someone did in 2004. The recent trend for Lohse is that he's a much better and younger pitcher than Arroyo is. Of course, I've always had a low opinion of Arroyo so I'm always going to be biased against him in an argument. I freely admit that.