World Series or bust? If you make all these moves, spend all this money, trade your best prospects away, we have to win the WS, right?
World Series or bust? If you make all these moves, spend all this money, trade your best prospects away, we have to win the WS, right?
The Reds HAVE to make the playoffs with the moves that's been made, anything less would be failure. Another NLDS exit would also be falling short but an NLCS appearance would be a break even season IMO. A pennant would be an accomplishment and a WS would be real nice.
Right now there's about 13 teams (NL: ATL, MIA, PHI, CIN, STL, AZ, / AL: NYY, BOS, TB, TOR, DET, CLE, LAA, TEX) with some type of WS champion capable roster, injuries and other intangibles will thin that field down and at least 1 team not listed will overperform and make a run at their pennant. It would be too premature to look at it since the FA market has so many names left, ST & opening day rosters will be nice times to really analize but the Reds are making some good moves as are the Cards. 2012 will be a great season in the NL Central, I just hope that the division race goes to the last week of the season because locking up the division early sure has shown to hurt the division champ a lot of the time, MIL barely got past AZ this year and the NL Central Champ was knocked out in the DS 4 years in a row before that.
Need to win the Central and not play the Phillies in opening round. We have a chance against them in a 7 game series but will struggle in a 5 game series facing Halladay, Lee and Hammels. I think it's NLCS or bust. Our ability to do that probably dictates what happens with Votto & Phillips extensions.
The Reds have clearly positioned themselves for a postseason run. Too many intangibles to say how far they will go, but this clearly one the best offseasons I can remember in my 35+ years as Reds fan. By the allstar break - if the Reds are not contending they have four massive trade chips in Votto, Phillips, Marshall and Madson to use and starting rebuilding around Jay Bruce. Jocketty will have to be creative or the payroll will have to increase to keep this team together for a long run. I suspect the fans to come out early and support this team. If this team gels, it will certainly be a fun year, and hopefully a World Series year.
I think the reds have the perfect storm coming into this season. They've made the moves to win now while making sure they can win in the future
Originally Posted by alett12
NLCS appearance, anything less is a failure
LOL @ NLCS as "break even." That would be a heck of a year to get to that point IMO, not a break even year.
If the Reds are sellers at the deadline, Baker better be sitting on a beach somewhere sippin' cold drinks and far, far away from the Reds' dugout!
personally i think he should be doing that any way. But it the reds are selling at the dead line then i don't care how much i like him but walt should be gone too.
This division isn't going to be a cakewalk. The Cardinals have a young, improving bullpen, three powerful veterans at the core of their lineup, and will likely get back Wainwright. The Brewers may have lost Fielder and may not have Braun for 50 games, but that's less than a third of the season. They also bring back their impressive rotation and got a major upgrade with Ramirez at third base.
That said, it's playoffs or bust. You don't take on the kind of payroll that we just did for single season contracts if you aren't going for it.
Expectations are 90+ wins and postseason baseball. Playoff outcome based on whether Cueto/Latos emerge as a one-two combination that can battle with Halladay/Lee/Hamels or Carpenter/Wainwright/Gargia, etc. 2010 Giants and 2011 Cardinals beat the Phillies because they matched really strong pitching performances by the Phillies in key games.
I honestly don't think the cards are as good as they look. The majority are old almost done with their careers and the rest were just really lucky. You can't match Albert in the line up with beltran it just isnt the same. Berkman got pitched to because he had albert and holliday. The rotation will be tough i'll give them that one. As for the brewers, aramis will be a big help to them. I've got a feeling they might even try and put braun at 1st when he comes back to get Morgan some more time which makes that line up very fast. So they won't be easy either but i just think the reds are clearly the best team in the division.
Originally Posted by NCCardfan
The Reds HAVE to make the playoffs with the moves that's been made, anything less would be failure. Another NLDS exit would also be falling short but an NLCS appearance would be a break even season IMO. A pennant would be an accomplishment and a WS would be real nice.
Right now there's about 13 teams (NL: ATL, MIA, PHI, CIN, STL, AZ, / AL: NYY, BOS, TB, TOR, DET, CLE, LAA, TEX) with some type of WS champion capable roster, injuries and other intangibles will thin that field down and at least 1 team not listed will overperform and make a run at their pennant. It would be too premature to look at it since the FA market has so many names left, ST & opening day rosters will be nice times to really analize but the Reds are making some good moves as are the Cards. 2012 will be a great season in the NL Central, I just hope that the division race goes to the last week of the season because locking up the division early sure has shown to hurt the division champ a lot of the time, MIL barely got past AZ this year and the NL Central Champ was knocked out in the DS 4 years in a row before that.Getting to the NLCS is a good year and that's not what I meant by my earlier statement.
Walt has made some great moves this off-season and in response to the OP stating that anything less than a WS win is a bust I said:
1 - The Reds HAVE to make the playoffs with the moves that's been made, anything less would be failure.
2 - Another NLDS exit would also be falling short
3 - an NLCS appearance would be a break even season IMO.
4 - A pennant would be an accomplishment
5 - and a WS would be real nice.
The OP's statement about making the WS or the season's a bust was not entirely accurate IMO but my point was that with the lost prospects and the players that Walt has picked up short term that an equal return on the investment would be a trip to the NLCS.
Only 4 out of 30 teams will go to the league championship series this year and CIN has made the moves that should get them there if the injury bug doesn't rear it's ugly head. Hope this makes more sense.
Win the Pennant.No excuse not too.
ROLL TIDE ROLL!!
Posting Permissions
|
Board Moderators may, at their discretion and judgment, delete and/or edit any messages that violate any of the following guidelines: 1. Explicit references to alleged illegal or unlawful acts. 2. Graphic sexual descriptions. 3. Racial or ethnic slurs. 4. Use of edgy language (including masked profanity). 5. Direct personal attacks, flames, fights, trolling, baiting, name-calling, general nuisance, excessive player criticism or anything along those lines. 6. Posting spam. 7. Each person may have only one user account. It is fine to be critical here - that's what this board is for. But let's not beat a subject or a player to death, please. |
