Season's start. (No need to wait, let him get big league experience now.)
Mid Season Classic. (Let him refine his def. skills in cf for a few months and fast track him)
September Call-Up (Get him on the roster for a possible post season run and a cup of tea)
2014 (Give him a full season to develop and get him ready to start in 2014)
I voted mid season. If hes tearing it up at AAA then why not? Yes there would be a log-jam in the OF and he wouldnt be playing everyday but he would still help the team. There may even be an injury with one of our current OF you never know I guess they will just play it out. He may be needed or he may get the time to develop his craft some more.
"Losing feels worse than winning feels good." -Vin Scully
I would probably trade him this year if I could get a proven top of the rotation starter for him.
"My mission is to be the ray of hope, the guy who stands out there on that beautiful field and owns up to his mistakes and lets people know it's never completely hopeless, no matter how bad it seems at the time. I have a platform and a message, and now I go to bed at night, sober and happy, praying I can be a good messenger." -Josh Hamilton
Would you keep Chapman as closer then and then keep Leake as rotation insurance?
Every team can use another TOR starter, but I am not sure if we need to make a Dickey-like trade to get another. A ballclub definitely needs to trade a lot to get a TOR arm and I don't see the need to acquire another one right now...
Losing 3 in a row in the playoffs says the Reds need another TOR starter who can get it done. I always thought I would want Chapman as a starter, but he's magic at the end. I would probably keep him there. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not sure he has the makeup to be that #1 guy.
RA Dickey isn't the type of guy that I would go after.
"My mission is to be the ray of hope, the guy who stands out there on that beautiful field and owns up to his mistakes and lets people know it's never completely hopeless, no matter how bad it seems at the time. I have a platform and a message, and now I go to bed at night, sober and happy, praying I can be a good messenger." -Josh Hamilton
They lost 3 games in a row after being up 2-0. They had every opportunity to actually win the World Series this year. I believe another TOR arm would have sealed that fate.
Either way, I'd much rather have a proven guy like James Shields (just an example) than a huge question mark like Hamilton. I would have to be a bigger deal and Shields isn't on the market now, but the Reds need that other guy to go with Cueto and Latos. Maybe Homer steps up and becomes that in 2013.
"My mission is to be the ray of hope, the guy who stands out there on that beautiful field and owns up to his mistakes and lets people know it's never completely hopeless, no matter how bad it seems at the time. I have a platform and a message, and now I go to bed at night, sober and happy, praying I can be a good messenger." -Josh Hamilton
"My mission is to be the ray of hope, the guy who stands out there on that beautiful field and owns up to his mistakes and lets people know it's never completely hopeless, no matter how bad it seems at the time. I have a platform and a message, and now I go to bed at night, sober and happy, praying I can be a good messenger." -Josh Hamilton
Yet your original statement was about the playoffs. Homer Bailey allowed 1 hit in 7 innings with a walk, a run and 10 strikeouts in his lone playoff appearance. The Reds somehow still lost that game. Having that extra ace wasn't the difference maker because they had it during 2012 in the playoffs on at least one day, and the Reds still couldn't win.
"My mission is to be the ray of hope, the guy who stands out there on that beautiful field and owns up to his mistakes and lets people know it's never completely hopeless, no matter how bad it seems at the time. I have a platform and a message, and now I go to bed at night, sober and happy, praying I can be a good messenger." -Josh Hamilton
But Chapman was NOT ready as a starter, and I never thought the whole bullpen deal was anything but a PR ploy to exploit the 100+ mph arm sooner, as opposed to allowing him to develop into a good starting pitcher. The Reds have blown two years of development time where Chapman could have been perfecting a slider and a change-up. As a starter, that fastball won't be near as important as the off-speed and breaking stuff, and the control to put all his pitches in the strike zone.
Of course it was fun to watch Chapman blow people away in the 9th inning of a game. Every Reds closer for the next ten years is going to be compared to the 2012 Aroldis Chapman. Jonathon Broxton could have a very good year, but unless he puts up Chapman-like numbers, he will only be criticized. Heaven forbid if he blows a save or two next season.
I, for one, hope the PR side show is over, and would like to see if Aroldis Chapman can become an actual shut down Number One starter that you want to hand the ball to for the first game of the World Series, or will be he be nothing more than a five-inning Number Five starter with the lively arm and the iffy control. I would have like to have found this out two years ago.
“I think I throw the ball as hard as anyone. The ball just doesn't get there as fast.” — Eddie Bane
“We know we're better than this ... but we can't prove it.” — Tony Gwynn
"My mission is to be the ray of hope, the guy who stands out there on that beautiful field and owns up to his mistakes and lets people know it's never completely hopeless, no matter how bad it seems at the time. I have a platform and a message, and now I go to bed at night, sober and happy, praying I can be a good messenger." -Josh Hamilton
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