how BAD are these lineups by Dusty? some stats from the first half...

[BLEEDS]

Don't agree with all of it, but did find some interesting stats:
found at: http://www.redreporter.com/2009/7/13...w-with-lots-of

""
Dusty Baker:
Batting lineups that put Taveras and/or Hairston at the top (the Reds are 30th in OPS and 29th OBP in all of baseball from lead-off and 27th/28th from the 2 hole);

hitting BP 4th; hitting Hernandez 4th (the Reds are 10th in the NL from the clean-up spot):

Willy Taveras. No one in the majors with more than 145 AB at lead-off has a lower OPS than Willy’s .589, yet he has 252 AB there. Only Jimmy Rollins’s .275 OBP is lower than Willy’s .288 among such hitters.

Jerry Hairston, Jr/Alex Gonzalez/Paul Janish: Hairston’s been a slightly better hitter among the three, but Janish (according to UZR) has been a much better defender than either (and he’s been a better hitter than Gonzalez); enough better, in fact, that fangraphs thinks he’s been worth $1.1M while the other two have negative value. Guess who’s not getting any playing time, and will get sent down once AGon gets back?
""

I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad; really.

1st/2nd with those two being THIRTIETH !??!?! WOW.

And, we are 10th in the NL in cleanup spot.
And some people think we don't need to go out and get a Big Bat to add to this lineup.

And the SS hole is gaping larger and larger every day.


Time to make a move for a Big Bat, at least short-term. Longter term we MIGHT have a hitter from the minors and/or MAYBE Votto/EdE can move to LF.

SS needs a long-term solution. We have nobody in the pipeline even close.
We need to trade a pitcher, EE, or some other prospects for a POSITIVE VALUE SS.
I know a lot of people don't like the contract, but I'd take Alex Rios in a second. His bat would be more than enough to make up for his lack of good D.
Other option is get TWO Big Bats and then we can live with Janish at SS and in the 8 hole.


Something has to be done, that's for sure.
Unfortunately that Taveras aquisition is the albatross most of it thought it would be.
That is hard to overcome no matter what you add.

PEACE

-BLEEDS

[Captain Hook]

I really don't understand why Janish hasn't been our everyday SS since early in the season.He can't do any worse then Gonzo or JH Jr.Bat him 8th and see if we have a guy that won't hurt us in 2010.If he proves he can't get the job done then take care of it in the off season.That would probably need to be done by trade though as the SS free agent class is pretty weak this year.

The problem with the top of the order is much bigger since Taveras and Hairston will both be back in 2010.If Dusty is back as well we are in trouble.I think like the SS problem this can be improved by simply making Dickerson our everyday CF/lead off guy and Hannigan our every day C batting him second.At least find out now if that can work next year.

The middle of the order I agree will take some kind of a trade.Even if we are not buyers now this should be taken care of ASAP.I don't mind the Rios idea if you can get Tor. to take Bronson to even out the money a little.Rios is under contract for a while so if he does well in GABP we have solved what could be a major problem for the next few years.

Back to JH Jr. and Taveras.I don't believe these guys are to bad to have around if they are not playing every day and hitting at the top of the order.As long as Dusty is gone next year they will probably be valuable bench guys in 2010.

[BLEEDS]

I really don't understand why Janish hasn't been our everyday SS since early in the season.He can't do any worse then Gonzo or JH Jr.Bat him 8th and see if we have a guy that won't hurt us in 2010.If he proves he can't get the job done then take care of it in the off season.That would probably need to be done by trade though as the SS free agent class is pretty weak this year.

I agree.
We need TWO Big Bats in order to live with Janish at SS.
We either make a trade for BIG BAT and decent D at SS, or we look elsewhere for the offens.

The problem with the top of the order is much bigger since Taveras and Hairston will both be back in 2010.If Dusty is back as well we are in trouble.I think like the SS problem this can be improved by simply making Dickerson our everyday CF/lead off guy and Hannigan our every day C batting him second.At least find out now if that can work next year.

Hairston is not under contract for 2010. That's not to say we WON"T sign him again, but we SHOULDN'T.
Even if he is supposed to be a bench guy, you can't pay a guy like that $2M to pinch hit. He'll get his PT, and he'll ruin our offense as a result.

Hanigan is having a good year, but is he really destined to be a career .400 OBP guy?!?!? I'm not sure you can peg him in at the #2 hole right now, that's a huge reach.

The middle of the order I agree will take some kind of a trade.Even if we are not buyers now this should be taken care of ASAP.I don't mind the Rios idea if you can get Tor. to take Bronson to even out the money a little.Rios is under contract for a while so if he does well in GABP we have solved what could be a major problem for the next few years.

I like Rios. But, Toronto isn't taking on any $$, they are in pure Fire Sale Mode. If they had Arroyo, they'd be trying to trade him, no way they take on that contract.

We MIGHT get them to take on some of the contract if we throw them enough quality prospects.
Some folks on RZ have said go after Rolen, Holliday and Rios. Offer them a Valaika/Cozart, a Heisay and an Owings, a Roenicke, maybe a couple other AA/A fodder and see how much contract they'd be willing to eat for it.

Back to JH Jr. and Taveras.I don't believe these guys are to bad to have around if they are not playing every day and hitting at the top of the order.As long as Dusty is gone next year they will probably be valuable bench guys in 2010.

Again, JHJ is not under contract, but Duhsty is...
Taveras needs to be moved in order to not give Duhsty tools of mass destruction, he can't help himself.

PEACE

-BLEEDS

[Captain Hook]

Hairston is not under contract for 2010. That's not to say we WON"T sign him again, but we SHOULDN'T.
Even if he is supposed to be a bench guy, you can't pay a guy like that $2M to pinch hit. He'll get his PT, and he'll ruin our offense as a result.

I don't know why I thought he was but thanks for correcting me.Certainly the best news(i guess not new news)in a while.He's gone after this year in that case.

Hanigan is having a good year, but is he really destined to be a career .400 OBP guy?!?!? I'm not sure you can peg him in at the #2 hole right now, that's a huge reach.

I agree that it is a reach but what do we have to loose?Not only that what other obvious options do we currently have.I guess Gonzo could be back soon.Too bad that this is the one thing that you and Dusty would agree on.Possibly you should rethink the idea.

I like Rios. But, Toronto isn't taking on any $$, they are in pure Fire Sale Mode. If they had Arroyo, they'd be trying to trade him, no way they take on that contract.

We MIGHT get them to take on some of the contract if we throw them enough quality prospects.
Some folks on RZ have said go after Rolen, Holliday and Rios. Offer them a Valaika/Cozart, a Heisay and an Owings, a Roenicke, maybe a couple other AA/A fodder and see how much contract they'd be willing to eat for it.

That's a huge trade to make for the Reds considering that we aren't in a lot better shape then Toronto is.Two weeks from now we could easily be in worse shape but that is debatable considering the difference in who the two teams are competing with.I say two week because Tor. probably won't make any move until the trade deadline just so they know what's the best they can get for those guys.I don't see anything happening here but I like your optimism.

[BluegrassRedleg]

Disagree on Janish. I think he's just as bad as the other options. No worse, perhaps, but completely overmatched at the dish with no threat of power whatsoever.

[NastyBoy]

How many RBIs could Votto have if he actually had people getting on base for him?

[CWRed]

Just more examples of why Dusty Baker is not qualified to manage a little league team much less a big league one. The obvious is not obvious to him. He plays the wrong guys in the wrong spots an abhorrently high amount of times...then keeps doing it after that. Idiotic. And no, it's not all his fault. They could use another true hitter other than Votto me thinks. WT and JH should be on the bench and get about 100 at bats at the most per year.

[Kingspoint]

I don't know why I thought he was but thanks for correcting me.Certainly the best news(i guess not new news)in a while.He's gone after this year in that case.




I agree that it is a reach but what do we have to loose?Not only that what other obvious options do we currently have.I guess Gonzo could be back soon.Too bad that this is the one thing that you and Dusty would agree on.Possibly you should rethink the idea.



That's a huge trade to make for the Reds considering that we aren't in a lot better shape then Toronto is.Two weeks from now we could easily be in worse shape but that is debatable considering the difference in who the two teams are competing with.I say two week because Tor. probably won't make any move until the trade deadline just so they know what's the best they can get for those guys.I don't see anything happening here but I like your optimism.

With EE back and if Hanigan started at Catcher and Dickerson in CF, could you live with Janish at SS?

[Kingspoint]

How many RBIs could Votto have if he actually had people getting on base for him?

How many RBI's could Phillips and his .330 Average w/ RISP have? He'd be in the All-Star game tonight.

[Captain Hook]

With EE back and if Hanigan started at Catcher and Dickerson in CF, could you live with Janish at SS?

I guess I could for know.I think that as long as there is no one better he should be given the chance to surprise us.Our chances of competing this year are on life support and if no big move is made pretty much dead.SS is the one position that is far below average on the team now that EE is back.Yanish is probably/almost definitely not the answer but the other guys that have been playing there have had their chance and will probably be history after this year anyways.I really think that SS really needs upgraded before next season.Lets start working on that and in time being let the youngest guy that is mlb ready and controlled by the Reds for a few more years play.

[Kingspoint]

Janish is just a 1-year stop-gap. He wasn't supposed to be the SS this season. All signs in Spring Training pointed towards a defensively-healthy Alex Gonzalez. Jockety waited until the last minute of Spring Training to be sure he was healthy, and if he wasn't, then he could have picked up someone right before the season started as cuts were being made.

We weren't after Offense at that position. We wanted Defense. Realistically, there was no reason to suspect that Alex Gonzalez could get through 140+ games even if he had a perfect "bill of health". 22-50 games could have been handled by Janish and Hairston. That's livable. I can't fault Jockety for the way it turned out.

The problem was that Hairston returned to form Offensively, Taveras is everything Colorado thought he was when they let him go for nothing (addition by subtraction was their thought, as it should be ours right now, which is why they're contending, and we're not, when we were supposed to have the better team going into the season), EE got off to his traditional slow start and then was lost for two months, Bruce was horrible and batted in the upper half of the batting order for too long, Votto went down for a month, and Baker hasn't got a clue on setting a lineup so that it, 1. Scores Runs, and 2. Plays Defense.

But, Walt....you are the G.M. You are to blame. Your decisions, or lack of decisions is what's caused this team to be where they are. Injuries are a forgone conclusion in the game and you have to account for them, and have backup plans. The teams that win have those backup plans in place. And, when your Manager sucks, you have to have the backbone to tell your owner that he needs to be replaced, or else step down and let the owner run the team himself. Don't be a puppet.

[Kingspoint]

but the other guys that have been playing there have had their chance and will probably be history after this year anyways.

At this point, I see nothing in Castellini's history to suggest that Dusty will be gone next season, and that Taveras won't be starting and leading off for this team next season, and that they'll be another Jerry Hairston, version 2010, and that Hanigan will continue to ride the pine in favor of Hernandez.

[Captain Hook]

At this point, I see nothing in Castellini's history to suggest that Dusty will be gone next season, and that Taveras won't be starting and leading off for this team next season, and that they'll be another Jerry Hairston, version 2010, and that Hanigan will continue to ride the pine in favor of Hernandez.

If you really think those things do you think that this team has any chance next year?

[Kingspoint]

If you really think those things do you think that this team has any chance next year?

I guess I don't. Not if Dusty's here.

[Captain Hook]

Janish is just a 1-year stop-gap. He wasn't supposed to be the SS this season. All signs in Spring Training pointed towards a defensively-healthy Alex Gonzalez. Jockety waited until the last minute of Spring Training to be sure he was healthy, and if he wasn't, then he could have picked up someone right before the season started as cuts were being made.

We weren't after Offense at that position. We wanted Defense. Realistically, there was no reason to suspect that Alex Gonzalez could get through 140+ games even if he had a perfect "bill of health". 22-50 games could have been handled by Janish and Hairston. That's livable. I can't fault Jockety for the way it turned out.

The problem was that Hairston returned to form Offensively, Taveras is everything Colorado thought he was when they let him go for nothing (addition by subtraction was their thought, as it should be ours right now, which is why they're contending, and we're not, when we were supposed to have the better team going into the season), EE got off to his traditional slow start and then was lost for two months, Bruce was horrible and batted in the upper half of the batting order for too long, Votto went down for a month, and Baker hasn't got a clue on setting a lineup so that it, 1. Scores Runs, and 2. Plays Defense.

But, Walt....you are the G.M. You are to blame. Your decisions, or lack of decisions is what's caused this team to be where they are. Injuries are a forgone conclusion in the game and you have to account for them, and have backup plans. The teams that win have those backup plans in place. And, when your Manager sucks, you have to have the backbone to tell your owner that he needs to be replaced, or else step down and let the owner run the team himself. Don't be a puppet.

It sounds like to me that your being hard on Walt because of his own lack of moves to improve the team over the last month and how Baker is managing the team.

As far as Baker goes I can't imagine Walt wants him around.Bob C. was responsible for that and seemed pretty proud of it to.It still is Walts job to work with his manager and if you think working with Baker at that level is something easy I'd bet that your dead wrong.I think Bakers time is coming when the season ends.Not as soon as most of us would like but that's good enough as far as Jocketty doing his job is concerned.

When it comes to Walts lack of effort to make moves.I can understand your frustration here and I feel it to.In fairness to the GM he wasn't really handed a finished product.This team needed a lot of work last year and he has improved the team imo without breaking the bank or trading prospect.I'll give him a passing grade for now but 2010 and beyond this team needs to contend weather they are spending money or not.