Restoring the Farm System

[bubbachunk]

Come on Cam seriously? Just why would you toss away a kid who throws what 93 from the left side with a nice slider who just the previous year had a really good season? He's got more velocity than Herrera and better control/command than Viola. Only Rhodes is clearly a better LH arm out of the pen and he is ancient. There is simply no good reason to give up on him IMO, I mean even in arbitration he's not gonna be making ridiculous amounts of cash assuming it gets that far.

I agree they should not give up on him but why bash Herrera? He may not have a ton of velocity but you cannot argue with results plus he has no injury history like Bray. It seems like you are discounting him just waiting for the wheels to fall off. In fact I would argue that Herrera has been a tick better then Bray was last season.

[JayBruceFan]

I am a Mez fan, and I think he should stay in High A, but because of the emergence of Kevin Coddington, I think he gets pushed. Which is in no way a bad thing, but I think without Coddington pushing him, he would have repeated.

Coddington was pushing hard until Chase Weems entered the system and STOLE his playing time


(EDIT: I was mistaken, and after checking stats it just seems like Weems is playing a lot over Coddington)

[camisadelgolf]

Come on Cam seriously? Just why would you toss away a kid who throws what 93 from the left side with a nice slider who just the previous year had a really good season? He's got more velocity than Herrera and better control/command than Viola. Only Rhodes is clearly a better LH arm out of the pen and he is ancient. There is simply no good reason to give up on him IMO, I mean even in arbitration he's not gonna be making ridiculous amounts of cash assuming it gets that far.

Believe me--I don't want to give up on him--but I think there's less than a 50% chance that the Reds will offer him arbitration to keep him around.

Granted, he's still young, but so far, his results have been mediocre. And bringing up which arm he throws with doesn't do much good since lefties and righties hit about the same against him.

If the Reds weren't so deep in the bullpen (Cordero, Rhodes, Masset, Burton, Owings, Fisher, Herrera, etc.), I'd do it, but the Reds already need to shed payroll so they can fill their gigantic holes at shortstop and catcher. I just don't think it makes sense to pay Bill Bray ~$1mm just to have him possibly pitch reasonably well for what may not even be an entire season.

[Scrap Irony]

I'm guessing Jocketty agrees with you, camisa. Not only will Bray be expensive, he's brittle, largely unproven, and he walks people. Jocketty has historically eschewed great arms with poor BB totals.

I think Burton is going to go for the same reason. Expensive for the inning total, especially under Jocketty.

The pen, IMO, will probably consist of:
Cordero
Rhodes
Masset
Fisher
Lincoln
Viola (if protected)/ Ramirez (if protected)/ FA reliever
Viola (if protected)/ Ramirez (if protected)/ FA reliever

There are a couple pretty big questions here, but, if Del Rosario and Ondrusek come on as strongly next season as this, they'll be ready mid-season. None of this mentions the AAA starters that could be good bets to improve the back-end of the staff, such as Lehr, LeClure, Maloney, and possibly Thompson.

The starters are a bit more settled, IMO, with:
Cueto
Arroyo
Harang
Bailey
FA acquisition

Notice the lack of Owings. I'm guessing he's gone, as he's arb-eligible. Jocketty may keep him and slide him into the pen as a long man and that would be just fine, IMO. Money may be an issue and Jocketty is likely to dumpster dive.