Jay Bruce called up!!!!!

[dougdirt]

Whoa. Already giving up on Johnny Cueto after a few rough starts. The only downside to calling up Jay Bruce is how some fans will react when he goes through his first slump.

Jay Bruce doesn't slump.... he evens the playing field.

[Boss-Hog]

Let's get this thread back on topic, please. If you'd like to continue the side debates that have nothing to do with Jay Bruce being called up, start a new thread.

[Falls City Beer]

Well, yeah. The success/failure of Fogg/Mercker/Affeldt/Lincoln isn't one of them. Not sure what point you're trying to make here.

All you're doing is collecting the arms that are likely to be here next season and framing them as the ones who will be successful. But you're talking about half of a pitching staff. I bet if you cherry-picked every pitching staff in the majors as you did, the future of a lot of teams would look very bright. But as we know in reality, some pitching staffs will get better, some will get worse and some will stay fairly consistent. Pointing to the 6 "best" is simply pointing to the 6 best; it doesn't foreshadow anything. If the Reds are going to get better they are going to have to get much, much deeper than their current depth.

[Falls City Beer]

For the record, I've been a massive Bruce booster for years ( I know, huge stretch). And I'm excited as heck to see him play. No pessimism for him.

[fearofpopvol1]

I just ordered my Bruce jersey online. 2-3 weeks before it gets here. I'm hoping it gets here before the series with the Yanks. I'm definitely excited about JB.

I just hope his plate discipline increases, but he's still young so that should hopefully come with time.

[OnBaseMachine]

Reds set to bring up prospect Bruce
Touted outfielder was leading International League in batting
By Mark Sheldon / MLB.com

CINCINNATI -- The time is finally now for Jay Bruce.

Bruce, considered the consensus top prospect in all of professional baseball, will be promoted to the Reds from Triple-A Louisville on Tuesday and make his Major League debut in Cincinnati against the Pirates.

In 49 games with Louisville this season, Bruce led the International League with a .364 batting average and 67 hits. The outfielder also had 10 home runs, 37 RBIs and an on-base plus slugging percentage of 1.023.

Since May 3, Bruce was batting .456 (36-for-79), with 13 multihit games in his past 20.

This season, it was never a question of if Bruce would be called up, but when.

"He was ready for some time, but we wanted to give him more time and give more opportunities to the guys we have here," Reds general manager Walt Jocketty said. "When Jay comes up, he'll play a lot. We wouldn't bring him up and not play him."

The Reds were off on Monday after returning from a seven-day West Coast road trip. A corresponding roster move to make room for Bruce will be announced before Tuesday's series opener at Great American Ball Park.

Bruce, the Reds' first-round Draft pick in 2005, will become the regular center fielder. It's been an unsettled spot with leadoff batter Corey Patterson batting just .201 with a .242 on-base percentage. Ryan Freel has played well when in center field but will remain in a utility role.

The struggling Patterson could be the likely candidate to come off the roster, especially after he went 0-for-8 in Sunday's 18-inning loss at San Diego. But the wheels were already in motion to promote Bruce before the weekend.

"It's something we've been discussing during the road trip," Jocketty said. "We just didn't see any sense in bringing him to California for a couple of days. So we decided to wait until we got back."

Where Bruce bats in the lineup will be up to manager Dusty Baker, who tried the prospect in the leadoff spot during a few exhibition games during Spring Training. Bruce is considered a five-tool player. After he was cut from the club at Spring Training, he was told to improve his baserunning skills.

The only other issue Bruce has is his high strikeout rate. He struck out 45 times in 184 at-bats this season. But the Reds are comfortable enough to let him improve his plate discipline at the big league level.

Other than at Spring Training this year, Jocketty hadn't seen Bruce play in a game until last Sunday, when he visited Louisville. In that game, Bruce went 2-for-4 with a home run. The two also spent some time talking.

"It just confirmed what everyone had been telling me," Jocketty said of Bruce's skills. "You like to see guys from the organization that are good kids get an opportunity. He certainly has earned it."

http://cincinnati.reds.mlb.com/news/...=.jsp&c_id=cin

[AmarilloRed]

Good news; he will be starting every day in center field. That makes it extremely likely Patterson will be the corresponding roster move.

[REDREAD]

I believe they have the best fielding in the league while the Reds have the worst. It's got to be close to those 45 runs...

I'm not saying St Louis is great.
But compare the team pitching numbers

Cincy pitching allows: 270 BA against, 337 OBP against, 442 slg against (779 OPS)

ST Louis allows: 257 BA against, 319 OBP against, 401 SLG against (720 OPS)

The Reds simply allow more hits and more extra base hits. That's why they give up more runs. Strikeouts by pitchers are great, but as a whole, this team gives up a lot of hits and bases beyond HRs.

I think FIP is way overrated as "The" measuring stick. It makes a guy like Burton who sometimes strikes out a lot of people look a lot better than he really is. Because there's some days where Burton gets hit hard, which causes the opposition to score runs, regardless of how many K and BB he has.

Sure, the Reds defense could be better, but the truth is, we have some bad and mediocre pitching along with the good pitching..

[Team Clark]

The Reds have nothing to lose. Good move, good timing. Wish i could make it to the game to watch.

[OnBaseMachine]

That's rough with the long drive since there's still no guarantees Bruce will be starting tomorrow. I'll be waiting until the lineups are up tomorrow before making the final decision to head down. He better be starting, but you never know what kind of Dustification the Reds will try to pass for not starting Bruce tomorrow.

It doesn't look like we're gonna get to go. Oh well, that's fine. I'll be watching the game from the TV with a big smile on my face. I've got a couple abscessed teeth that are giving me headaches and making me sick, so it's probably better if I stay home anyways until I get them pulled next Monday.

[OnBaseMachine]

OBM, no offense. But, ask your dad to coach those kids instead of going to the Reds' game. Maybe one of those kids is the next Jay Bruce, but probably only if they have mentors who prioritize them and dedicate themselves to show up, throw bp, etc...

I see all these soccer fields replacing baseball diamonds all over town, and youth baseball is imperative to keeping the game alive. My coach used to cuss like a marine, make us run laps and dress us down when we made a stupid error. But we loved him because he was there three nights a week throwing 250 pitches of batting practice after working 10 hour shifts in a sweat shop. He never missed a practice or a game, much less to go watch a major league baseball game.

Dad is a dedicated coach, absolutely loves doing it. He also umpires numerous games a year. He's a huge Reds fan and is the reason I love the Reds like I do. His favorite player was always Johnny Bench... I love to listen to him tell stories about how great the Big Red Machine was. But back to him coaching - I've seen his team play and believe me, there are no future Jay Bruce's on that team. He usually takes his team pretty deep in the All-Star tournaments but this years team is probably the worst he's had.

I used to have a little league coach similar to the one you described. He would practice us at 10:00 in the morning during the summers for All-Stars and then have us come back at 8:00 at night and practice under the lights. Some might think it was too much but I loved it. It's baseball man. I miss it badly. I'm 21 now so I can't play anymore except for soft pitch softball, which I'm thinking about doing next year.

[OnBaseMachine]

Reds promote Bruce - finally

By Hal McCoy | Monday, May 26, 2008, 05:40 PM
Latest comment

Jay Bruce is coming. Finally. For real.

The 21-year-old outfielder will be in uniform 32 with the Cincinnati Reds Tuesday when they open a three-game series with ther Pirates.

And it made me a prophet. I told Marty Brennaman during a second-inning visit in Los Angeles on the just complete 2-5 trip to the west coast that I thought he would materialize when the Reds returned home.

After losing an 18-inning game Sunday to the last place San Diego Padres, and watching Corey Patterson go 0 for 8, the Reds decided it was time to call up their No. 1 draft pick from 2005 who is wreaking havoc on Triple-A pitching.

General manager Walt Jocketty said all along that they wouldn’t call him up until they decided he would play.

So…let’s see if he is in Tuesday’s lineup. They say his position isn’t center field, but it isn’t likely they’ll bench left fielder Adam Dunn or right fielder Ken Griffey Jr. If he plays - and why else would they call him up - he’ll be in center.

Scouts tell me he CAN play center field. While he doesn’t have great speed, he gets good jumps on balls and gets to them. That’s all he needs to do, right?

Amazingly, I was dragging myself in the back door of my house after flying all day from San Diego when the phone rang with the news.

I left at 6:30 (9:30 Dayton time) and flew four hours to Atlanta, had a 90-minute layover, than an hour-and-a-half flight to Dayton, arriving home at 5 p.m.

Tired? Oh, yeah. But excited over the prospect of finally seeing Mr. Bruce in the flesh for the first time since spring training.

Bruce has been rated the best prospect in the minor leagues by Baseball America, Sporting News, most scouts, anybody with good baseball sense and fans of the Reds since last year.

He has spent the season at Louisville, where in 49 games he hit .364 with nine doubles, five triples, 10 HR, 37 RBIs and eight stolen bases.

He leads the International League in hitting and hits (67) and ranks among the IL leaders in slugging percentage (.630, 3rd), runs scored (34, 4th), extra-base hits (24, T4th) and RBI (T5th).

All that was wasted in the minors. Now it’s time to put those numbers to good use.

A roster move to make room for Bruce will be made before Tuesday’s game.

Rob Butcher

http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/con...incinnatireds/

[Reds Nd2]

Just as I thought. A lot of teeth-gnashing for nothing.

So, this is Walt Jocketty's big move to stop the losing and turn the franchise around. Color me unimpressed.

[Tom Servo]

Is this the biggest call up in Reds history?

"This is the biggest night in the history of our sport!!"


Awesome news, let the Bruce era begin.

[Spring~Fields]

So, this is Walt Jocketty's big move to stop the losing and turn the franchise around. Color me unimpressed.

There isn't just one move that can fix this team vs the competition, but it is a start.