I thought it was 2-10 prior to yesterday's game.
I thought it was 2-10 prior to yesterday's game.
Jacoby may not be the right hitting coach, I couldn't tell you.
But let's not avoid the real issue.
The Reds are a below average hitting team in the OBP and BA departments and are particularly weak in these areas against right handed pitching. It was like that all year, and the second half of 2011.
If you like to watch home runs and long doubles, the Reds are your team.
Consistent hitting against all types of pitching? Maybe you want to look somewhere else.
To me, it's the personnel. Walt's job this off-season is to fix it. Whoever the manager is.
I don't post much anymore but my .02 is that teams take on the personality of the leader and Baker led teams have a track record of playoff choking.
The nucleus is there for this team, the window is open for the next few years. They need a manager with a proven playoff track record (of success).
In the game I was watching and in the play by play on the website, the reds went into the 5th inning down 3-2.
While Dusty is talking to the national tv guys about how well Leake is throwing, Leake gives up two doubles on three pitches scoring another run and leaving a man at second.
You've got an 11 man pitching staff but nobody is even warming in the 5th inning where your starter isn't dominant in a must win game?
And then to do the same thing the next day with Latos?
I'm all for dancing with the guys that brought you there and everything and lord know I have the Tony LaRussa managed every game like it was the 7th game of a world series, but you've got that weapon of a bullpen don't you use it for more than 3 run leads?
I've been a Baker supporter all this time, but I feel very, very let down by those last two games.
"Even a bad day at the ballpark beats the snot out of most other good days. I'll take my scorecard and pencil and beer and hot dog and rage at the dips and cheer at the highs, but I'm not ever going to stop loving this game and this team and nobody will ever take that away from me." Roy Tucker October 2010
“I don’t care,” Votto said of passing his friend and former teammate. “He’s in the past. Bye-bye, Jay.”
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/
Reds To Offer Baker Contract
By Ben Nicholson-Smith [October 12 at 11:21am CST]
The Reds want manager Dusty Baker back for the 2013 season. General manager Walt Jocketty planned to meet with Baker and offer him a short-term contract this morning, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports (on Twitter).
The Reds were eliminated from the playoffs yesterday, ending a season that saw the team win 97 games and the NL Central title. Baker, who has managed the Reds since 2008, recently missed some time after suffering a mini-stroke. However, he recently said he's "not through managing," an indication that he expects to return for at least one more season.
The Reds have won the NL Central twice since Baker was hired, and their overall winning percentage for the five year period is .517. The 63-year-old earned $3.5MM per season on his first contract with Cincinnati.
Lol, I agree.
I assumed the poll would lean towards "No", but I had no idea it would be this lopsided.
It's not Dusty's fault that the knee injury sapped Votto's power and that Cueto couldn't pitch in the playoffs.. It's not his fault that the pitching evaporated in the last 3 games (Latos losing his cool, etc)
Honestly, Dusty might be the best manager this team has ever had.
He gets results. Sure, he had talent this year, but on paper, this team could've easily finished 3rd in the division (as many on this board forecasted a non-contending season).
[Phil ] Castellini celebrated the team's farm system and noted the team had promising prospects who would one day be great Reds -- and then joke then they'd be ex-Reds, saying "of course we're going to lose them". #SellTheTeamBob
Nov. 13, 2007: One of the greatest days in Reds history: John Allen gets the boot!
And this right here, as far as any criticism of Baker goes, is the key, and I do lean towards agreeing with your assessment.... not managing with a sense of urgency.
But again - the vast majority of the blame for the loses goes on those players who struggled to execute, take advantage of GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES with RISP when they presented themselves. And the Giants gave them plenty of them too.
I just got done talking to a buddy... had to talk him down off a bridge because he was so distraught over the Reds..... but when they announced that Cueto was done, and decided to call up Leake, I immediately thought.. "Why not give the start to Chapman? You got Broxton and Marshall to close. It's one game, but a very important one. You close it out, and you have several days of rest.
But I think this gets back to Baker's mindset, which is pretty traditional-thinking, and you have defined roles for players, and you don't sway from that.
I still say that if we had Cueto we'd have won this easily.
Last edited by GAC; 10-12-2012 at 02:06 PM.
"In my day you had musicians who experimented with drugs. Now it's druggies experimenting with music" - Alfred G Clark (circa 1972)
"In my day you had musicians who experimented with drugs. Now it's druggies experimenting with music" - Alfred G Clark (circa 1972)
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