What Went Right: What Went Wrong: 2020 Reds

[Ron Madden]

This seems to be a pretty fair summary:

https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-team-ro...153405571.html

[boxseat]

Right: Defeated teams they were supposed to defeat. Wrong: Only defeated who they were supposed to defeat.

[dfs]

I know one stat doesn't define all, but


Player OPS+
Senzel 57
Aquino 65
Shogo 76
Tucker 77
Galvis 86

That's a pretty big hole to start with. The rest of the offense wasn't terrible, but there was a LOT of money invested in that "wasn't terrible" and the only player who really had a good year offensively was Winker. Yeah, the starting pitching was good and the bullpen wasn't a crater, but ....ya gotta score runs.

[klw]

Two faults I have with the article are:
1. Says Moose failed to reach double digits in HR without mentioning that his season was shortened with injury
2. Talks about Gray faltering in September without mentioning his DL stint and its role.

[UPRedsFan]

I'm going to go from the 1,000 foot level right down to the 2 foot level. They struggled but they were righting the ship in September. What went wrong with the season for me came down to game 1 of the playoffs. In consecutive innings the Reds made baserunning blunders.

In the 6th Castellanos got thrown out by a mile trying to go 1st to 3rd on a single with only 1 out. He stays at 2b and they've got Suarez and Moose on deck with 1 out. Pressure on the Braves to take Fried out.

In the 7th Aquino got caught in a rundown trying to steal home on a double steal taking the bat out of Davidson's hands facing a tired left handed Fried.

And the most frustrating was in the 13th. With Votto on 2b, Suarez hits a single and Votto freezes momentarily then retreats a couple steps back to 2b thinking it may be caught instead of going part way to third. The ball falls and Votto has to hold up at third instead of scoring. they had to be aggressive and try to score there with Aquino and Garcia coming up.

All they had to do was push a run across in one of those scenarios and I believe they take game 1. That puts Sonny Gray on the mound for game 3 against an inferior Braves starter. The Reds could have easily won that series 2games to 1. I believe they had a great chance to defeat the Marlins. And I believe they would have crumbled against the Dodgers eventually.

[bounty37h]

Right: Defeated teams they were supposed to defeat. Wrong: Only defeated who they were supposed to defeat.

The Tigers say otherwise

[Kc61]

I know one stat doesn't define all, but


Player OPS+
Senzel 57
Aquino 65
Shogo 76
Tucker 77
Galvis 86

That's a pretty big hole to start with. The rest of the offense wasn't terrible, but there was a LOT of money invested in that "wasn't terrible" and the only player who really had a good year offensively was Winker. Yeah, the starting pitching was good and the bullpen wasn't a crater, but ....ya gotta score runs.

Agree with this, but it doesn’t go far enough. Reds used 21 position players. Only seven had OPS+ of 100 or higher. Six if you exclude Tyler Stephenson’s few PAs. Basically it was five best hitters and Casali.

If you total up all the PAs of those hitting below 100 OPS+, it comes to 967 PAs in 60 games. That’s just 67 fewer than the aggregate PAs of the 100 OPS+ or better group.

In other words, almost half Reds PAs went to players who couldn’t OPS+ 100 - and in most cases didn’t come close.

[Kc61]

To take this a bit further.

I’d argue that the failure of each of 14 Reds position players with 967 aggregate PAs to OPS+ 100 - in many cases finishing well below - was a more serious problem than the low team BA.

BA isn’t the be-all and end-all. Reds top six hitters averaged, generally, about 110 OPS+ well over league average. They were disappointing overall but still productive.

That might have been adequate with reasonable support from the other hitters.

[mth123]

To take this a bit further.

I’d argue that the failure of each of 14 Reds position players with 967 aggregate PAs to OPS+ 100 - in many cases finishing well below - was a more serious problem than the low team BA.

BA isn’t the be-all and end-all. Reds top six hitters averaged, generally, about 110 OPS+ well over league average. They were disappointing overall but still productive.

That might have been adequate with reasonable support from the other hitters.

That's still not going far enough.

- The guys who can hit can't field
- The guys who can field can't hit
- Everybody is streaky
- Nobody can run

The position players on this team aren't good enough as a group.

[dfs]

To take this a bit further.
I’d argue that the failure of each of 14 Reds position players with 967 aggregate PAs to OPS+ 100 - in many cases finishing well below - was a more serious problem than the low team BA.

It's interesting. The bench after Casali and Farmer was a disaster. Not that those guys were world beaters, but they were ok. After that you get into decisions that all look reasonable when taken one at a time, but none of them worked out.

I thought protected by several outfielders better than him Phillip Ervin would be entirely adequate facing only left handers once or twice a week. Ooops. I was wrong.
Nobody thought Josh VanMeter was going to be good, but I don't think anybody expected that.
They replaced VanMeter with AAAA vet Colon who....hit about like Josh VanMeter did.
And speaking of AAAA vets how about we reward Mark Payton for that great year in Lousiville in 19 and ...Ouch.
Ok...we'll pick up some flotsam and try Mark Davidson or Brian Goodman.
How about Jose Garcia? That kid sure can field and he's hitting better so....oh. well no.

It's 250 or so at bats that these guys got and you would think by simple luck ONE of them would hit a little bit.
I guess the game is less luck driven than we like to think.

[mth123]

Casali was probably the only guy on the roster who hit this year who could also play defense.