Janish for shortstop?

[Spring~Fields]

Reds need an upgrade at all three OF spots to be able to play Janish at SS

Some with greater speed ?

[REDREAD]

I don't really think the rest of the bats in the line-up has an effect on whether Janish should be a starter.

Based on his total offensive and defensive abilities, he either should or shouldn't be a starter. The rest of the players don't have an affect nor are they affected by that.
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I agree with this line of thought. Janish is not a legitimate starting SS. Even if the other 7 starting players were all stars, a smart team would be looking to upgrade SS.

Also agree with FCB's Castro analogy.

[MikeS21]

IMO, there are actually two issues at play here, and both issues are tied to one another.

The first issue is Zach Cozart: is he going to be your future SS or not? If not, then Jocketty needs to do something now about SS.

If Cozart is your guy, then how are you going to handle the interim until he is ready? This leads me to the second issue: Is Janish is your stopgap?

The trap the Reds must avoid is anointing Cozart as the SS of the future and then bringing in a stopgap SS from the outside who winds up blocking Cozart for two years. The problem with a FA coming in is that a guy who is willing to settle for a one year deal probably isn't going to be a much better option than Janish. And the guy who will be an impact player at both defense and at the plate isn't going to sign anything less than a 3-4 year deal - at which point Cozart is effectively blocked.

Of course, you could always trade Cozart in a year or so, but then you are faced with the same "lack of a SS" problem three years from now and nothing is settled.

[RED VAN HOT]

I think the discussion is premature. He ought to have about 100 more AB's by the end of the season. At the end of that time, the terms of upgrading will become clearer...how much upgrade can we get and at what cost/commitment. I don't hear much concern about his defense, so the issue comes down to evaluating his offensive ceiling.

One thing I like about Janish is that he tends to see more pitches than other Reds. I don't know how to measure the impact, but it stands to reason that there is value in making the pitcher work harder. He has a decent BB/K rate and can hit to right field. Thus, I am not giving up on his ability to hit second. There's some beauty in making the pitcher work for an out right before the heart of the order comes up.

[HokieRed]

I actually don't think you need to see any more AB's to tell that Janish is going to be a backup, not a regular. And I like that he sees a lot of pitches. But he just doesn't hit the ball hard enough.

[nate]

If Janish hit as well as we'd like him to, we wouldn't be able to afford him.

[Spring~Fields]

I actually don't think you need to see any more AB's to tell that Janish is going to be a backup, not a regular. And I like that he sees a lot of pitches. But he just doesn't hit the ball hard enough.

Where do they find that solution and at what cost?

[BRM]

Where do they find that solution and at what cost?

That's going to be Walt's challenge. Especially since it appears the BP to SS experiment will never happen. My gut tells me Janish will be the regular SS next season whether we like it or not.

[Spring~Fields]

That's going to be Walt's challenge. Especially since it appears the BP to SS experiment will never happen. My gut tells me Janish will be the regular SS next season whether we like it or not.

I don’t trust that GM’s being lenient with his manager and coaches and their ability to judge, asses talent/skills and then to utilize it in a position where they might perform best or have the best chances to succeed. Unless the GM can just go out and buy the obvious. Too many McDonald, Patterson, Tevaras, Hairston types for me.

[HokieRed]

Where do they find that solution and at what cost?

If no other outside solutions can be found, I'd prefer to go Frazier to 2b, Phillips to SS--not underestimating, however, as I think a lot of RZers do, how difficult that position switch will be (meaning it may not work and we have to switch Phillips back.) And, as I posted earlier, maybe we have to play Janish every day for a while but I don't want us to get confused about his being an everyday player. It depends on how many of the team's needs can be addressed. I'd approach it as our trying every day to get better and that would mean especially our getting another SP and then a bat--at C, SS, OF, 2b, even 1b.

[Ltlabner]

Janish at SS in 2010 would accurately portray the complete lack of imagination and fear of risk that grips this organization.

[Highlifeman21]

Janish at SS in 2010 would accurately portray the complete lack of imagination and fear of risk that grips this organization.

Aka, par for the course, or standard operating procedure.

[TheNext44]

Janish is an acceptable stopgap, that's it. But just because he's a young Juan Castro type doesn't change the fact that he's still a Juan Castro. He's a 1 win player who will probably help you a little bit more on the field than he'll hurt you at the plate -- but who might not even do that.

When we focus on all of these possible trade-offs, we miss the point. Assuming you can relatively accurately evaluate/project a player's overall contributions (and I'm not convinced the Reds actually do this...), your focus should be on building a team of those guys who give you team the most combined production on both sides of the ball.

This inane focus on trying to build a particular "type" of team is myopic. You win baseball games by scoring more runs than you allow. Don't focus on a player's contributions to one side of that equation or the other -- focus on his contribution to your run differential, period. Trying build a particular type of team leads you making decisions based on misplaced priorities -- signing a replacement level CF who can't find 1B to save his life to a multi-million dollar, multi-year deal because he's fast and plays a decent CF.

Going through this calculus of saying we can afford Janish in the lineup if he bats 8th, etc. is the GM version of trying to get Dunn to hit for a higher batting average at the expense of his OBP and/or power. It's like giving up an out to advance a guy a base in the first inning because you like to manufacture runs rather than "wait" for the 3 run homer -- even if the latter approach produces more runs over time.

At the end of the day what matters is outscoring our opponents by at least 100 runs. Trying to do that by designing a team built outscore them 750-650 instead of 850-750 is simply going to restrict us from considering opportunities which might improve the team but which don't fit in to the neat little box of how we've decided we'd like to win.

Stop rearranging the deck chairs and spend your energy on acquiring more net production however you can get it. There's no such thing as hiding a guy in the lineup. Plate appearances are plate appearances -- outs are outs. If Janish is our best option at SS, fine. But the composition of his limited production has no real bearing on his value or whether or not we should accept a guy who is barely over replacement. He's a 1 win player at best and no more or less valuable than a SS who played poor defense and could hit well and who also ~10 runs better than replacement.

Great post, as usual.

I agree with everything, but just one fine point about a player's overall run production.

I think that there is a point, especially for SS, where a player's defense is so bad, that his offense can not make up for it, no matter how great.

Let's say Pujols played SS. His offense is worth around 60 runs above replacement. If his defense was -50 UZR/150, I think that could be so bad, that it would make it impossible for the team to compete, even though his overall production would be + 10 runs, or one win.

A shortstop that bad defensively would cost the team more than 5 wins on defense, as it would deflate the entire team's confidence, especially the pitchers. There has to be a certain level of professional play for a team to win on a regular basis. When a team is constantly making errors, it leads to them almost giving up, thinking that they don't deserve to win. And has a devastating effect on pitchers.

I do think that this would show up in the numbers, just not in a players personal numbers. It would show up in team's run difference, most likely the overall runs given up, so it's not an "intangible" factor, just a hard to find one.

I think it is similar to my personal feelings about beautiful women and how long I want to hear them talk about something I could care less about.

The more beautiful they are, the longer I will listen, regardless of the topic. But there are certain topics that are so boring to me, (her ex, how "human" her cat is, her favorite "Sex and The City" episode...) that no matter how beautiful she is, I just want her to shut up.

There are some SS, that no matter how much offense they bring, they can't make up for their defense.

[RedEye]

Why do I have the feeling David Eckstein is going to be in Cincinnati next year?

[Spring~Fields]

Janish at SS in 2010 would accurately portray the complete lack of imagination and fear of risk that grips this organization.

Last year they ended the season with a centerfielder in Dickerson, then they got creative, went out and got what they believe is an upgrade to play center. I think they will follow their same patterns and go out and get a shortstop during the off-season.