Send Jay Bruce down to AAA

[Vottomatic]

Ballgame was Rolen on third with 1 out and Bruce goes down swinging at 3 pitches, all the same, low and out of the strike zone. Unreal.

He's only 23. He has tons of potential. Yadda yadda yadda.

Sick of him. Couldn't believe he couldn't make contact and get a sac fly or atleast make something happen. 1 frickin' out.

With Bruce and Cordero, this team has too many holes to go very far.

Very frustrating.

Insert the following comment: "It's unfair to pin this game on Bruce....." yadda yadda yadda........

Whatever. Knew he'd strike out, like he always does, when it was critical. Terrible, terrible at-bat.

[sabometrics]

Yeah ... we're all disappointed he hasn't been better, but no.

[urdun]

Yeah ... we're all disappointed he hasn't been better, but no.

:thumbup: and 'nuff said.

[Hondo]

Let me say this CLEARLY....

"NO"

[vottofan4life]

I'd rather send down Drew Stubbs

[GIDP]

Id be ok with it if they DFA'd Gomes. Bruce not getting that run in from 3rd against a very tough lefty was bad. Gomes butchering 2 plays that lead to 3 runs was 10 times worse. Plus he isnt hitting either.

[RedsFanInBama]

Our starting outfield last night was garbage, no way around it. Dickerson should have been brought up by now to play against righties. Every righty, he should be in there, be it in place of Stubbs or Gomes. Heisey should be getting more time.

It's very disappointing to have a chance to win the game like last night and not get it done. I went from excited that Rolen pushed his way to third on a fly ball not deep enough to do it, to reconciled to the fact that we still weren't going to score because of who we had up. I think they said that Bruce was 10 for 24 at getting a runner in from third with less than two outs. Well, now 10 for 25. Atrocious. I think Stubbs is about the same.

[lidspinner]

this one hurts, not as bad as the 6 run lead loss....but this loss hurts really bad...I can count about 6-8 of these losses this year that has hurt.....hurt because most good teams win those games.....

[scott91575]

Our starting outfield last night was garbage, no way around it. Dickerson should have been brought up by now to play against righties. Every righty, he should be in there, be it in place of Stubbs or Gomes. Heisey should be getting more time.

It's very disappointing to have a chance to win the game like last night and not get it done. I went from excited that Rolen pushed his way to third on a fly ball not deep enough to do it, to reconciled to the fact that we still weren't going to score because of who we had up. I think they said that Bruce was 10 for 24 at getting a runner in from third with less than two outs. Well, now 10 for 25. Atrocious. I think Stubbs is about the same.

Well, it was imperative for Rhodes to face one more batter the next inning vs. bringing in Heisey to replace Bruce at the plate vs. one of the better left handed relievers in the game.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

[Carolina Red]

I would like to at least see a platoon with Heisey. Bruce just can't hit leftys. Heisey deserves more at bats.

Comparing Bruce to Stubbs is rediculous. Bruce has had almost 2 more years in the majors to develop. I wouldn't send Stubbs down, I don't think he has had enough time and he is bad fast. Don't be surprised to see Bruce traded before he is due big money.

[BringDownMugabe]

And replace Bruce with who exactly? Bruce is frustrating the hell out of me too, but it's not like there's a viable replacement and it's not like Bruce's defense is worse than Gomes. If anybody should be replaced, it's Gomes. He's awful in every aspect. Period.

[RedsFanInBama]

Don't be surprised to see Bruce traded before he is due big money.

He's going to have to step up his game pretty big to even reach the point where he is due big money.

[bgwilly31]

Ohhhhhhhhhhh he's just 23! :rolleyes:

[BurgervilleBuck]

Well, it was imperative for Rhodes to face one more batter the next inning vs. bringing in Heisey to replace Bruce at the plate vs. one of the better left handed relievers in the game.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

Go look at Heisey's numbers against lefties and revise your post.

[lidspinner]

And replace Bruce with who exactly? Bruce is frustrating the hell out of me too, but it's not like there's a viable replacement and it's not like Bruce's defense is worse than Gomes. If anybody should be replaced, it's Gomes. He's awful in every aspect. Period.


Replace him with Heisey or Chris Dickerson....jeepers, I would think anyone could go out there and play marginal defense and be able to sac a guy in when he is on 3rdbase....lay a freaking bunt down, take off your swing and go up there swinging for the fly ball ONLY...not going for gold every swing....I know he is 23, and I am sure in 5 years we all will pull this thread up and laugh about us wanting to bench him....but I am not willing to let him cost this team games just so he can learn......Between Jay, Drew and Dusty, this team is throwing games away. Sure Gomes is not much better, but lets start with 1 spot at a time.

[lidspinner]

Go look at Heisey's numbers against lefties and revise your post.


Heisey sucks against lefties, I agree.....but I would still put him in there to bat if I knew he was going in the next inning anyhow. No way in heck I let Jay Bruce bat in that situation.....we all knew the outcome of that AB before jay even stepped in the box, and I think jay knew it too.

[BringDownMugabe]

Replace him with Heisey or Chris Dickerson....jeepers, I would think anyone could go out there and play marginal defense and be able to sac a guy in when he is on 3rdbase....lay a freaking bunt down, take off your swing and go up there swinging for the fly ball ONLY...not going for gold every swing....I know he is 23, and I am sure in 5 years we all will pull this thread up and laugh about us wanting to bench him....but I am not willing to let him cost this team games just so he can learn......Between Jay, Drew and Dusty, this team is throwing games away. Sure Gomes is not much better, but lets start with 1 spot at a time.

Gomes is not only "not much better" than Bruce, but Gomes is much worse than Bruce.

Jay Bruce:
April: .333/.500/.833
May: .387/.440/.827
June: .339/.485/.825
July: .235/.261/.496

Jonny Gomes:
April: .254/.367/.620
May: .420/.636/1.056
June: .304/.400/.704
July: .290/.391/.681

Is this even a serious debate? The numbers don't lie. And when you consider defense, it's a landslide. Bruce is no doubt struggling, but Gomes needs to be removed from the lineup far before Bruce is. Gomes had a helluva of May, but it's obviously a complete aberration -- just based on his career and seasonal splits alone.

[GIDP]

Gomes is not only "not much better" than Bruce, but Gomes is much worse than Bruce.

Jay Bruce:
April: .333/.500/.833
May: .387/.440/.827
June: .339/.485/.825
July: .235/.261/.496

Jonny Gomes:
April: .254/.367/.620
May: .420/.636/1.056
June: .304/.400/.704
July: .290/.391/.681

Is this even a serious debate? The numbers don't lie. And when you consider defense, it's a landslide. Bruce is no doubt struggling, but Gomes needs to be removed from the lineup far before Bruce is. Gomes had a helluva of May, but it's obviously a complete aberration -- just based on his career and seasonal splits alone.

Finally someone landing on mide side of this. Glad to see you post.

[BurgervilleBuck]

Gomes is not only "not much better" than Bruce, but Gomes is much worse than Bruce.

...

And when you consider defense, it's a landslide. Bruce is no doubt struggling, but Gomes needs to be removed from the lineup far before Bruce is. Gomes had a helluva of May, but it's obviously a complete aberration -- just based on his career and seasonal splits alone.
Post more often. We need your reasoned arguments in the sea of crud.

[CWRed]

Finally someone landing on mide side of this. Glad to see you post.

Ditto.

[Roush's socks]

I agree that the OF needs work. Not sure who should get replaced, but I would like to see Dickerson in CF or LF against RH pitching. Maybe some more at bats for Heisey. But the truth is that only a trade will bring a substantially better OF'r, and I'm not sure one is available even if the Reds were interested.

[lidspinner]

I agree that Gomes need to sit...but our whole OF needs to sit...no way can you sit Gomes and not sit the other 2....I think the whole OF needs a little coaching and fine tuning.

[BringDownMugabe]

I agree that Gomes need to sit...but our whole OF needs to sit...no way can you sit Gomes and not sit the other 2....I think the whole OF needs a little coaching and fine tuning.

:rolleyes:

Care to prove why you can't sit Gomes before sitting Stubbs and Bruce?

[BLEEDS]

Knee-jerk "FANS" up to their old shenanigans again.

Even the best guys who hit .300 w/RISP. That means they FAIL 70% of the time.

You know even if our guys hit .800 with RISP, they'd be mad at the 2 times out of ten they didn't get a hit.

Jay Bruce is fine, he's just in a little funk in July. To start the month he was .280/.356/.476 for an OPS of .832. His D in LF is still top notch.

They're not sending him down.

PEACE

-BLEEDS

[GIDP]

Yea hes great in LF. Ive never seen him make a bad play out there.

[BlastFurnace]

Knee-jerk "FANS" up to their old shenanigans again.

Even the best guys who hit .300 w/RISP. That means they FAIL 70% of the time.

You know even if our guys hit .800 with RISP, they'd be mad at the 2 times out of ten they didn't get a hit.

Jay Bruce is fine, he's just in a little funk in July. To start the month he was .280/.356/.476 for an OPS of .832. His D in LF is still top notch.

They're not sending him down.

PEACE

-BLEEDS

Bleeds...he has 41 RBI's at 105 games this season. I don't think that is fine at all for someone who is supposed to be developing and our future in the outfield.

I agree that we shouldn't send him down to AAA, but Bruce needs to pick it up soon.

[LeDoux]

They should try him in the leadoff slot. His OBP and OPS far better than Cabrera.

Bruce
Phillips
Votto
etc

[Krawhitham]

Something stupid as unusual


Do you always take the counter argument because you are trying get under everyone's skin or are you just that baseball illiterate?

[gedred69]

What is frustrating about Bruce is as Doc Rodgers put it, he doesn't adjust at the plate as an AB/count/ opposing pitcher dictate. Trying to pound everything. But what really frosts me, is he hits in the line-up 3 batters behind the ultimate adjusting hitter, and hasn't learned a thing while having the opportunity to watch Votto's success.

[lidspinner]

Knee-jerk "FANS" up to their old shenanigans again.

Even the best guys who hit .300 w/RISP. That means they FAIL 70% of the time.

You know even if our guys hit .800 with RISP, they'd be mad at the 2 times out of ten they didn't get a hit.

Jay Bruce is fine, he's just in a little funk in July. To start the month he was .280/.356/.476 for an OPS of .832. His D in LF is still top notch.

They're not sending him down.

PEACE

-BLEEDS


Some of these knee jerk fans have more insight than you appear to have....how you can honeslty say Jay Bruce is fine is silly. I am not saying send him down either, thats a little harsh, sit him on the pine is all I am getting at, and I am sure that would be fine with the thread starter as well........but its "FANS" like you Bleeds that make me wonder if you ever take off the Red colored glasses......Jay Bruce is far from fine. Jay Bruce is going to be a stud, but he farrrrrr from fine. I have more faith in Willy Mo Pena right now that Jay Bruce.....I think Eddie Milner could come up here right now and do a better job of hitting.

WOW, saying Jay Bruce is fine at this point is like saying the oil spill in the gulf will be OK. The month of July alone Jay Bruce swung at 6 pitches that bounced either in front of home plate or on home plate.....I dont care if your 12 years old, you make adjustments on your at bats and learn......Jay is not doing that at all right now....he needs a few days off, that is all.

Bleeds, your a vet of this site, but come on, you can see what is going on cant you? I love Jay Bruce as much as the next Reds fan, but that dont mean I dont want him sitting the pine if I think he is hurting this teams chances of winning.

[Kingspoint]

Brooks Robinson was sent down several times.

Sending Bruce down, while sounding pretty far-fetched on the surface, wouldn't be the end of the world for Bruce. It would certainly get his attention that he needs to do something differently than what he's doing.

[GIDP]

Once again if you are goin to send down Jay Bruce you better have an upgrade taking his spot, and considering hes the best outfielder on the roster thats going to be basically impossible.

[BEETTLEBUG]

I say keep Bruce up for now send Stubbs down bring up Dickerson up and tell Stubbs cut down on strike outs & work on bunting for base hits.

[MrMcConnell]

Does Jay lead the world in 3 pitch K's? It seems like it's happened an awful lot this year.

With that said, I wouldn't mind sending him down. But there's really no one to replace him. His main problem aren't his mechanics, it's all mental for him and it appears he's a mentally weak baseball player.

[texasdave]

Does Jay lead the world in 3 pitch K's? It seems like it's happened an awful lot this year

Jay Bruce has struck out 14 times on 0-2 counts. Drew Stubbs has struck out 24 times on 0-2 counts. The winner is.....Drew Stubbs.

[MrMcConnell]

Jay Bruce has struck out 14 times on 0-2 counts. Drew Stubbs has struck out 24 times on 0-2 counts. The winner is.....Drew Stubbs.

Thanks for the stat.

But it concerns me more with jay considering he was known more for his bat.

[bshall2105]

Thanks for the stat.

But it concerns me more with jay considering he was known more for his bat.

[MrMcConnell]

Known for his bat? The guy is basically a gold glove right fielder.

I know he's a great defender. But his stats compared to Drews in the minors aren't even comparable offensively. Drew was known more for his defense while Jay was known as a better hitter even with his great defense.

[RedsFanInBama]

Known for his bat? The guy is basically a gold glove right fielder.

You're arguing that when Jay Bruce was coming up he wasn't known more for his ability as a hitter? He is a very good fielder, but that's not what 99% of people were talking about when he was coming up through the minors and early in his ML career.

[GIDP]

Jay Bruce has had 1 bad month this year. It was pretty bad but lets not forget that he was a .825 OPS bat at least so far this year other than July. Incredibly short sighted to want to send him down.

[bshall2105]

You're arguing that when Jay Bruce was coming up he wasn't known more for his ability as a hitter? He is a very good fielder, but that's not what 99% of people were talking about when he was coming up through the minors and early in his ML career.

I guess I was thinking more in terms of now than in the minors. I'll put in an official detraction of my prior statement.

[RedsFanInBama]

Jay Bruce has had 1 bad month this year. It was atrocious but lets not forget that he was a .825 OPS bat at least so far this year other than July. Incredibly short sighted to want to send him down.

FIFY.

Hopefully that awful month is behind him and he will finish the season strong. It would be a great boost to this team if he could.

[MrMcConnell]

Jay Bruce has had 1 bad month this year. It was pretty bad but lets not forget that he was a .825 OPS bat at least so far this year other than July. Incredibly short sighted to want to send him down.

Actually, I'm looking long term if I were to send him down. But then after re-thinking this, sending him down might be the worst thing you can do for a guy as mentally weak as he seems to be.

[GIDP]

The whole outfield was bad in July. Actually Drew Stubbs was probably the most productive out of all 3.

[bshall2105]

If Jay is that emotionally weak that he can't take being sent down due to poor performance, he has issues off the field that need to be resolved. Being sent down is part of the game.

[RedsFanInBama]

That's amazing considering he had a 1-for-36 thrown in there.

[GIDP]

That's amazing considering he had a 1-for-36 thrown in there.

it really is.

[bshall2105]

John Fay thinks that Stubbs is going to be the guy that gets sent down. That seems more likely than Bruce.

[texasdave]

In light of how poorly Cincinnati's outfielder hit in July that should be cause for optimism. They have to hit better than that the rest of the season one would think.


NAME OPS
NIX 1.304
HEISEY 0.880
GOMES 0.674
STUBBS 0.657
BRUCE 0.508


These numbers are ugly:


NAME AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB SO SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS
GOMES 96 15 23 2 0 4 37 14 5 18 2 1 0.240 0.288 0.385 0.674
STUBBS 89 13 19 2 0 5 36 14 4 28 2 0 0.213 0.253 0.404 0.657
BRUCE 95 7 19 6 0 0 25 5 6 28 0 1 0.200 0.245 0.263 0.508


It has to get better.

[sabometrics]

It should be noted that Nix had 22 AB's and Heisey had 31 AB's in that OPS comparison.

[texasdave]

It should be noted that Nix had 22 AB's and Heisey had 31 AB's in that OPS comparison.

I was just gonna put Gomes, Bruce and Stubbs, but I didn't want to get any nasty PMs from Heisey or Nix. :)

[Old NDN]

Bruce is not getting any quality ABs lately. When he does make contact, very few are being hit hard. Looks like he's flailing weakly and guessing on most pitches. (This describes Stubbs, also,) I said in another thread that more PT for Heisey and Nix should happen. I wouldn't give up on Bruce, but he sure doesn't deserve to be given a free pass to play, no matter how poorly he performs. We're in a pennant race.

[GIDP]

The only person receiving a free pass right now that Cabrera is out is Gomes.

[redssince75]

Jay Bruce:
April: .333/.500/.833
May: .387/.440/.827
June: .339/.485/.825
July: .235/.261/.496




Jay Bruce is fine, he's just in a little funk in July. To start the month he was .280/.356/.476 for an OPS of .832.



I'm not a hard-core "stats" guy, but I can see there is something very wrong with the first set of numbers. Not only do I not remember Jay Bruce hitting well above .300 at any point this year, it is also impossible to hit .333 in April, .387 in May, and .339 in June, then start July at .280. Can someone enlighten me?

[redssince75]

WOW, saying Jay Bruce is fine at this point is like saying the oil spill in the gulf will be OK.


I'm not saying Jay Bruce is fine, but actually.....mostly the oil is gone, cannot be found. It's not the calamity the media has been making it out to be for the last few months.

Bruce or Stubbs batting in a situation where they must avoid the K is a greater calamity than the oil spill. :D

[GIDP]

I'm not a hard-core "stats" guy, but I can see there is something very wrong with the first set of numbers. Not only do I not remember Jay Bruce hitting well above .300 at any point this year, it is also impossible to hit .333 in April, .387 in May, and .339 in June, then start July at .280. Can someone enlighten me?

its his OBP and slug%

[redssince75]

its his OBP and slug%


What is? No pronouns please.

I guess you're saying Bleeds and BDM are not using the same numbers in the format

###/###/###

Correct?

Also, where is the batting average in Bleeds' post?

[GIDP]

What is? No pronouns please.

I guess you're saying Bleeds and BDM are not using the same numbers in the format

###/###/###

Correct?

Also, where is the batting average in Bleeds' post?

The stats in BringDownMugabe shows

OBP/SLUG/OPS

BLEEDS is pretty obviously Average/OBP/Slug then the OPS

[improbus]

Haven't we been down this road before? Gomes and Bruce are obviously streak hitters (like Dunn and Phillips to a certain degree). My issue with taking them out is that we could very easily miss out on another May type month from Gomes. Gomes and Bruce have PROVEN that they can hit big at times, which is something Heisey and Dickerson to a certain degree have not.

I like that the Reds have an "everyday" lineup, even if it is flawed. I like that guys have roles and I like that guys know that when they hit a rough patch, they aren't going to Louisville. Bruce isn't going to magically learn to hit a big league slider by playing in Buffalo.

I'm not always the biggest Dusty fan, but I do think that Dusty sees and understands the big picture very well, and the big picture dictates that we let our most talented hitters hit, whether they are killing the ball or not.

[redssince75]

Last night's Jay Bruce opportunities.

4th: men on 1st and 2nd, 1 out, 0-6, ground out FC to first

6th: men on 1st and 2nd, 1 out, 1-7, ground out FC to pitcher

8th: lead off, 4-7, K

9th: man on 1st, 1 out, 6-7, K


Literally, I could have done that well. Something has to give here.