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Thread: Is the ceiling mediocrity?

  1. #1
    Member adkindo's Avatar
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    Is the ceiling mediocrity?

    I am not happy....but honestly I do not really have an opinion of the FO. I just have not been paying enough close attention in recent years to the off the field dynamics to have a feel for how much is on the FO personnel compared to ownership, etc. etc. All that said, I am still not happy with the way this team is performing.

    I look at it and become a little worried that in the end, the construction may end up being flawed....or simply not good enough. It happens...teams are built on paper with little room for improvement and reality sets in that it is not enough....and major changes end up being needed. If the talent on this roster proves to be a .500ish level team (or below), where can quick improvements be made?

    Manager - I clearly believe this role can be improved, but I seriously doubt the FO will make any changes over the next 2-3 seasons unless the wheels fall off.

    Pitching - Bullpens can always be improved on every team and fluctuate from year to year, but in regards to starting pitching the team will hope to remain even if we lose Bauer. There is a real chance the quality could diminish over the next 2-3 seasons.

    Catcher - Clearly is a position that can be improved, and should be improved over the next 2-3 seasons.

    1st Base - Votto will be there for the next 2-3 years with likely diminished performance.

    2nd Base - Moustakas will be there for the next 2-3 years with likely diminished performance.

    3rd Base - Suarez will be there for the next 2-3 years with likely similar performance.

    Shortstop - Clearly is a position that can be improved, and should be improved over the next 2-3 seasons.

    Left Field - Shogo will likely be there for a couple years with likely similar performance.

    Center Field - Senzel will be there for the next 2-3 years with likely improved performance.

    Right Field - It is a question mark with Castellanos's contract options, but at best he (or a replacement) is there for the next 2-3 years with likely similar performance.

    I think we all agree that the Reds are at least in the salary range that they will be comfortable spending in over the next few years, so going out an signing a elite difference maker such as Lindor in a couple years in not a reasonable expectation. In a perfect world, Stephenson, Garcia, Greene, Lodolo step up and fill those voids....and everything works out perfectly.....but we know the odds are not high that all works out. Also, maybe with Boddy here and Bauers openness to signing short term deals, we can keep him in the mix for a few more years. If those things, that are not really within managements control, where is the area where this team can significantly improve over the next 2-3 years? It is one thing to suck, be very young without much financial commitments because that fan base often has "hope"....but it is a much less optimal position to be in when much of the roster is filled for the next few years with little financial flexibility and not able to contend.

    In basketball (NBA), we often see small to mid market teams build up rosters full of talented players....but are never really good enough to "truly" contend and show up each year, win 50 games and a playoff series (Nuggests, Jazz) or even worse a team like the the TWolves who heavily invest in young talent and realize it simply is not going to work, forced to audible into major structural changes. Sometimes, I feel like this is the path that the Reds are on.....quality players across the field, but simply no real difference makers....no Yelich, no Betts, no Lindor....those special players that raise the level of an entire roster hoping to win more or at least as many as they lose.

    Is the ceiling of this version of the Reds mediocrity over the next 3-4 years?
    “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
    ― Marcus Aurelius


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  3. #2
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    Re: Is the ceiling mediocrity?

    short answer, no, the ceiling is higher. but you would never know it after watching this team attempt to play baseball for the first seven games of this "season."

  4. #3
    Member RedsManRick's Avatar
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    Re: Is the ceiling mediocrity?

    The average, the expectation should be mediocrity. But there's almost always more variance than your intuition tells you there is. Consider, the best projection systems still have team W/L records with standard deviations of ~6-8 wins, which means about 28 of the 30 teams will finish within ~12 wins of their projected total. If your projection is 82 wins, that's the difference between the playoffs and 4th place.

    So, even using the team ceiling conservatively (e.g 95th percentile outcome, not absolute best possibility), real mediocrity gives you an outside, but not crazy, shot at the playoffs in any given year.

    Obviously individual season W/L records aren't the same as variance in team quality, but it should get you in the same brain space. Let's say we're an 85 win team talent-wise right now, which is basically what the projections have us at. That's 5-7 unexpected wins from having wild card expectations, not just hopes. That's both a lot ($50M in FA) and not that much. It's counter-intuitive, but while it takes a lot to proactively push a team's expected performance up by 5+ wins, it happens somewhat unexpectedly all the time.

    Maybe your starting pitching just stays unusually healthy. Maybe your depth comes through and you just don't have to eat cumulative below replacement production at the back of your roster. Maybe Senzel breaks out and turns in to the Reds' Jeff McNeil a somewhat unexpected 5 WAR performer.

    I think you're right in that something(s) unexpected would have to happen at this point to get the team over the hump. And I think the Nuggets and Jazz (and I'd add Pacers) cops are uncomfortably good. They are not the Bucks or Lakers and basically are quite unlikely to ever be them. The Bucks were extremely unlikely to be the Bucks too, of course. But the production is too spread out across an MLB roster to luck your way into a championship contender because a Giannis Antetekoumpo (or a Mike Trout) falls in your lap. That said, the difference, I think, it that the gap between teams in MLB tends to be small than in the NBA. There are no MLB teams that are the equivalent of NBA's 60+ win teams (120 in MLB). Because the structure of the game forces you to get production from so much of your roster, the best MLB teams are the equivalent of NBA's 52 win teams. The intuition that should foster is that if you're good enough to make the playoffs in baseball, you are by-definition a real threat to win the championship. The same can't be said about a 48-win NBA team earning an 6 seed and being almost certain to being bounced in the 2nd round if they manage to beat the 52-win 3 seed in the first.
    Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.

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    adkindo (08-05-2020)


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