Karl Ravech destroying Billy Hamilton on the BBTN podcast

[membengal]

In a universe where the reds could have afforded choo, I might have been ok with Hamilton making the team and playing cf, because it would have allowed choo to go to lf, and Hamilton to bat 8th or 9th and infrequently tableset in front of choo while improving the team defense.

In this universe, i still think Hamilton in AAA would have been the better route.

[Raisor]

Reds CFers are currently 15th out of 15 in OPS (NL only)

Bright side: there is room for improvement!

[powersackers]

Through 17 games 2014: 66 RS, 60 RA
Through 17 games 2013: 93 RS, 65 RA

Maybe there's something to this Choo vs. Hamilton thing?

[RedLegsToday]

Through 17 games 2014: 66 RS, 60 RA
Through 17 games 2013: 93 RS, 65 RA

Maybe there's something to this Choo vs. Hamilton thing?

It's also not helping that our shortstop is "hitting" .111/.143/.148.

[villain612]

I really like Choo and wish he was still on our team.

But not at 7 years, $130 million (he turns 32 this year).

[villain612]

FWIW....currently, as a team, the Reds rank 12th in the NL in total runs, but 3rd in OBP.

It seems like hitting with RISP is more of a problem right now than OBP. No?

[RedsManRick]

It's 3 weeks in to the season. Billy Hamilton has less than 100 career major league PA. Just wanted to remind people.

[757690]

It's not about April. He hasn't hit since AA. I'm a huge doubter and it has nothing to do with what he's done in 3 weeks in April. It has everything to do with the fact that he couldn't hit when promoted to the higher level and was then promoted again in spite of it. Watching him flail away is reinforcing what his AAA numbers are showing.

He had 4 hits today. I still contend that any random minor leaguer can be given an every day job in the big leagues and have a good day every 10 to 15 games or so. He starts getting on base regularly and I'll reconsider my opinion, but characterizing things as being based on 3 weeks in April is incorrect. He was a suspect going into the off-season and had things been handled properly, somebody else would have been brought in as a stopgap CF and Hamilton would have entered Spring Training with zero chance at a big league job. A couple good months in AAA would get him a look and strengthen the roster by making the stopgap a bench player.

Hamilton didn't fail in AAA, he just didn't dominate like he did in other minor league seasons. If he puts up those same AAA numbers in the majors, with his speed and defense, he's very close to a league average CF. And guess what? Since his first three games, he's put up those numbers here in the bigs. Or, to look at another way, his career MLB numbers are also very similar.

Hamilton hasn't had just one good game every ten days. For the past two weeks, he's gotten on base in 8 of his last 10 games, at the .304 clip every one was expecting. For his MLB career, he's gotten on base in 12 out his last 15 games. Those first three games are skewing everyone's perspective. Hamilton is producing as expected.

[villain612]

Through 17 games 2014: .319 OBP
Through 17 games 2013: .346 OBP

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/200...your-lineup-by

Yes, the Reds had a higher OBP last year with Choo.
But comparing the 2014 Reds strictly to the 2013 Reds is a bit of a fallacy.

It's more important to compare their performance relative to the rest of the league for the current year. The 2014 Reds don't play games against the 2013 Reds.

[Marc D]

The 2014 Reds don't play games against the 2013 Reds.

Which saves Cozart the embarrassment of going 0-10 in a game.

[Chuckie]

Mesoraco's vast improvement over Hanigan should offset the downgrade from Choo to Hamilton.

And since we're ready to write off Billy due to a poor April, I suppose Mesoraco for MVP is a legit possibility.

[villain612]

Which saves Cozart the embarrassment of going 0-10 in a game.

He'd probably get a homer off Ondrusek or Hoover at least.

[SteelSD]

It's 3 weeks in to the season. Billy Hamilton has less than 100 career major league PA. Just wanted to remind people.

I hope that's sarcasm because we've been reminded of that about every 8 posts since the thread started.

And yeah, I actually did run the numbers on that. ;-)

[bigredmechanism]

Sure. That's on him though. If he was so worried about the runner stealing, he messed up by throwing breaking balls. If you are so worried about a runner, breaking balls are a terrible idea. It's just confusing on his part. Worry about the runner, then throw breaking balls. You can get away with that if Jay Bruce is on first. But not Hamilton. If you knew you were throwing breaking balls, why worry so much about holding him on? We are getting off topic some, but the logic there doesn't make much sense from Liriano. He should have thought it through some more.

Hamilton is so disruptive he confuses pitchers into throwing the wrong pitch.

[mth123]

Hamilton didn't fail in AAA, he just didn't dominate like he did in other minor league seasons. If he puts up those same AAA numbers in the majors, with his speed and defense, he's very close to a league average CF. And guess what? Since his first three games, he's put up those numbers here in the bigs. Or, to look at another way, his career MLB numbers are also very similar.

Hamilton hasn't had just one good game every ten days. For the past two weeks, he's gotten on base in 8 of his last 10 games, at the .304 clip every one was expecting. For his MLB career, he's gotten on base in 12 out his last 15 games. Those first three games are skewing everyone's perspective. Hamilton is producing as expected.

Tablesetter/lead-off hitter with a .308 OBP against AAA pitching. That's failing and not worthy of a promotion to the same role in the major leagues.

I'm not one of those posters who says he'd be happy with Hamilton at a .300 OBP. I think that would be grounds for him being sent to AAA. He has a .254 OBP and his .304 in the last 10 days is even a smaller sample size and basically doesn't change the impression that the .308 in AAA is an anomaly and that we should expect better. It reinforces that he's a minor leaguer who isn't ready.