Bray up, Coffey down

[Danny Serafini]

Per team press notes. Shocking news, I know. No other moves today.

[Joseph]

Good move. Todd needs to get some work in, and fix whatever is ailing him.

[Falls City Beer]

I'd start Bray tonight. Well--at any rate, they're going to need the bullpen arms tonight. No question about that. Warm 'em early and often.

Wait, I assume Bray'll be with the team tonight??

[princeton]

is Coffey just unlucky, RMR?

if so, maybe the bad luck goes away now.

[redsfan30]

At some point, the team is just going to have to cut bait with Todd Coffey. He needs a fresh start somewhere else.

He's been given chance after chance after chance and has proven he just can't do it (consistantly enough).

[Matt700wlw]

Good move. Todd needs to get some work in, and fix whatever is ailing him.

...so they can trade him

[WVRedsFan]

I'm sure Coffey will go down to AAA and blow them away. It always happens. Then they'll bring him back up for the same old performance.

A disclaimer...AAA performance is no indication of how he'll perform in the bigs.

I think the more correct direction is to deal him, but who knows?

I wish Bray the best. Maybe this time he'll do much better.

[RedsManRick]

It's certainly looking like it's more than bad luck, priceton. I have no problem admitting that I'm wrong.

However, I'd love to see some more analysis on what exactly is going on with him. Obviously, the simple answer is that he's leaving hittable pitches out over the heart of the plate. But I'm not aware of any other pitcher with an ability to allow HR on 20%+ of the flyballs he allows. Please forgive me for not concluding that Coffey is an outlier and wanting further evidence. Given any sample of 65 IP, I'm going to assume random variance is playing a significant role and Coffey's ongoing struggles won't change my mind about that.

What it will do is make me look more critically at HR rate. I need to do some homework and get a better understanding of how quickly it stabilizes as a predictor.

Coffey misses bats and gets lots of ground balls. Both of those are very good things. Unfortunately, he also makes a lot of mistakes in the heart of the hitters' happy zone. AAA hitters are much less adept at punishing him for that than are major leaguers. There's pretty much nothing a pitcher can do to offset giving up 2 HR/9.

[Will M]

At some point, the team is just going to have to cut bait with Todd Coffey. He needs a fresh start somewhere else.

He's been given chance after chance after chance and has proven he just can't do it (consistantly enough).

100% AGREE. At the beginning of the year I was willing to give Coffey another chance as a Red. Now I 100% believe if he will ever succeed in the bigs it won't be as a Red. Time to move him somewhere else for both his sake and the sake of the Reds ( and their fans ). It is possible he could still have success in the bigs, but I just don't believe it will ever be as a Red.

[bucksfan2]

Coffey misses bats and gets lots of ground balls. Both of those are very good things. Unfortunately, he also makes a lot of mistakes in the heart of the hitters' happy zone. AAA hitters are much less adept at punishing him for that than are major leaguers. There's pretty much nothing a pitcher can do to offset giving up 2 HR/9.

Coffey can and does throw it by people but his mistakes get killed. I wonder if he is tipping his pitches? I also wonder if his weight makes a repeatable delivery hard to sustain? I may be wrong but it also seems like he throws at one constant speed all the time. He doesn't seem to have the ability to change speeds with any success.

[OnBaseMachine]

Good move. Bray has been dominating AAA hitters. In 8.2 innings, he allowed only one run on four hits with three walks and 14 strikeouts. I think he's ready to put it together and have a breakout season.

[lollipopcurve]

However, I'd love to see some more analysis on what exactly is going on with him.

He's got 1 pitch. It's been obvious for years.

[WVRedsFan]

At what point do you quit trying to fix him? That's the question. Bucksfan2 has pointed out he makes mistakes--right over the heart of the plate. That's mental, so how do you change that? I don't think you can.

[RedsManRick]

He's got 1 pitch. It's been obvious for years.

So does Mariano Rivera. So does Trevor Hoffman. So does Tim Wakefield. That, in and of itself, is a wholly insufficient explanation.

Coffey was very solid in 2005 and 2006, when he wasn't allowing HR at a historic rate. Did he forget a pitch or has something else changed?

[REDREAD]

At some point, the team is just going to have to cut bait with Todd Coffey. He needs a fresh start somewhere else.

I would've liked the Reds to just stick with Coffey all year this season.
Just place him in games when the Reds don't have the lead, as they did with Burton last season until he got it together.

Even if he is not closer material, he's still a potentially valuable middle reliever.
He's had his ups and downs since his good rookie year, but I don't see what he's going to accomplish at AAA. He needs to learn how to consistently pitch up here. And the Reds need to find out that this year, so they can plan for next year.

Personally, I would've much rather seen them just cut Fogg and keep Coffey on the roster. I initially supported Fogg, but that was clearly a mistake. Coffey might be part of the future. Fogg definitely is not, so why give Fogg the ML playing time?