Unexpected Offense

[HUHUH]

During (and before) spring training last year, the prevailing thought was "will this team have enough offense to compete"? Don't you remember Marty et/al barking about the pitching but oh so worried about the offense?

And then the Reds unexpectedly went out and led the league in most offensive categories, antithetical to common thought.

And now I would posit a huge warning sign for the 11 season: we're implicitly expecting the same offensive output. Why and how could anyone expect the Reds to lead the league in all such offensive categories again? Ain't gonna happen folks. It was an anomaly last year. When most of the regular bats start to regress, things ain't gonna look so good.

I do, however, have faith that our starting pitching will keep us in the race.

[MikeThierry]

I think if the Reds just regress to the means they will still be an offense to look out for. That ballpark also helps a bit. Wouldn't panic on the offense.

[defender]

I think the Reds probably generated more runs than expected, given their actual hitting. Their hitting was better than expected, and they did not have many injuries. I would project them to score fewer runs this season, except I think Jay Bruce will reach a new level. I also think the starting pitching will be much better.

[RedsLvr]

The Reds still have a very good offense. It'd be hard to see them finish out of the top 10. Keep in mind that we did have a huge offensive dropoff in the second half in the season and we still finished with good offensive numbers at the end.

[UPRedsFan]

They'll still be top 5 in my opinion

There will be some individual regression, but Bruce will improve, Stubbs will improve, and I believe the left field option will improve with Lewis/Gomes platooning.

[Orodle]

Bruce need to hit like he did at the end of last season.

[Tadasimha]

The Reds were also very aggressive with their base running and it paid off for them because they had so many runners in scoring position. Continue that pattern with even marginal improvement from Stubbs and Janish and average performances from the rest of the lineup and they'll continue to be a highly productive offense.