They also got to play the Astros a dozen times in 2012, the Pirates weren't as good and the pitching staff remained almost impossibly healthy throughout the year along with Ludwick. We can't can't count on any of those things for 2014 and won't have a guaranteed 200 IP from Arroyo for our young rotation to lean on.
Changes have to be made and the offense has to be improved. I also wouldn't mind picking up some bullpen reclamation depth to stash in AAA. The good thing is that there's so many closers on the market we should be able to get another bad ass arm in the pen anyhow.
Right now this team is worse than last year's team. Yes, the Reds did in fact win 90 games last year. That makes the Reds sound like an elite team, but that's not the case. Four NL teams finished with a better record than the Reds last year. Ten teams in all of baseball finished better. That's a borderline playoff quality team. Now take the second best OBP guy in MLB off that lineup and replace him with Skip Schumacher and how many wins is that same team worth?
I think if everyone stays healthy and guys like Cozart, Ludwick and Frazier play closer to how they did in 2012 than they did in 2013 then maybe this is a 90 win team again. But that's far from being a sure thing. This team needs to get better. We can't have a lineup that, yet again, leaves Votto trying to do too much because everyone around him is floundering. If we have the worst production in baseball from the #1 and 2 spots in the order again, then we aren't getting the most out of Votto. And when you're paying someone that good that much, it should be the #1 priority every off season.