Which will get better with age first?

[brm7675]

Is it the pitching or hitting? If left alone and allowed to mature with the present talent, which do you see gettting better sooner?

[drowg14]

I think that some of the hitters, such as Bruce, Stubbs, Mes once he comes up, and to some extent even Votto, have a lot room to grow as they age and mature. With the exception of maybe Cueto, the pitching staff doesn't have the pure talent the hitters do. Wood and Leake are good, but don't have the raw tools Bruce and Stubbs have imho.

[mu4103]

A ton of hitting talent in minors. If left alone the Reds could be a premier offensive club. I will again say I am not sold on Stubbs. Let him roam Coors Field! A lead-off hitter/basestealer who is going to lead the league in K's? He will probably be saved because he has been seeing some pine - Dunn will probably beat him out.

[CRedsLarkin11]

It's unfortunate because Stubbs has everything except plate discipline. Speed, power, good defense. He is B.J. Upton all over again. There is some value in that, no doubt, but he is probably one of those guys that everyone always hopes will be much more though his numbers will probably be pretty impressive other than BA (Sound familiar? LOL)

[CRedsLarkin11]

But to answer the question, you would believe that hitting would end up being okay if they decided to leave it alone though they have to start hitting with runners in scoring position. Cozart helps this team tremendously from the black hole that was there most of the first half and Mesoraco gives some optimism for the future at catcher but I think they need one bopper to play left or 3rd. They need someone to bridge the gap between Votto and Bruce in the lineup and there is no one to do it. Phillips is a great player but not an RBI man, he is out of his element in this lineup. But that is a wishlist, of course, and not easy to come across. 30 HR, 120 RBI guys don't grow on trees. I like the pitchers the Reds have and I think they all have potential (Bailey, Leake, Wood) to be #3 guys and be solid. Cueto finally looks like he's near ace material but as we all know too well, this league requires two or more aces at this point to really be able to make some noise.

[FireDusty]

The Reds better think long and hard before they trade any of these young pitchers.

The Braves legendary rotation didn't get anybody out for 2 or 3 years at the beginning. Glavine didn't get his enormous strike zone until 1991.

You trade a young left hander and it can bite you in the ass.

[Vottomatic]

Ah look. Another thread started by brm.

[redssince75]

Split right down the middle on hitting vs. pitching. Kind of like all the posts on redszone sniping at each other lately.

I think it's entirely possible that we're just sucking as a complete team right now.