Prospect #24 runoff vote

[OnBaseMachine]

Matt Fairel or Pedro Viola?

[mth123]

Gotta go Fairel here. Viola has serious control issues and will be 27 in June. With Rhodes, Herrera, Bray already in front of him and maybe guys like Wood, Maloney and Horst possibly ending in the pen and guys like Thurman, Joseph and Valiquette coming up behind him, Viola seems like he won't have a place on the roster for very long. Hopefully, the Reds could include him in a deal to some team looking for a hard throwing lefty, but he'd be a throw-in to a bigger package and wouldn't net much on his own.

For future value, I'm sticking with the 22 year old who has starter potential and had a good season in 2009. Fairel's IP in 2009 suggest that he could get to the 200 inning range as soon as this year without being pushed too much. He could be a rotation option by 2011 while Viola would seem to be behind several other pen lefty options by then. Viola would have to make a huge improvement real quickly to have any value to the reds.

[HokieRed]

Fairel, only because he's a starter. It's obvious that handed-ness does count a lot with followers of these threads. Personally, I'd have at least 3 righties ahead of both--Hildenbrandt, Tuttle, Lecure, probably Serrano.

[camisadelgolf]

I'm going with Fairel. He's a starter, has a big frame, and keeps the ball in the ballpark while maintaining excellent control. Pedro Viola reminds me too much of Felix Heredia to get excited about.