Tejay Antone sings praises of Reds player development

[klw]

Shortstops aren’t pitchers, so no.

Hernan Iribarren and Stanford Cardinal for Life Alex Blandino beg to differ. Also do you not remember batters trembling as Cy Janish took to the mound?

[M2]

And maybe we’re sleeping on DeLeon too.

Possibly. And even if he doesn't pan out there's a number of others who hopefully will. Every team has a collection of arms to throw against the wall, but the Reds seem like they might have their pitching house in order to the extent where we can reasonably expect some stickiness. Oddly, we don't seem to mention Derek Johnson a lot these days, but I'm real happy the Reds have got him.

[RedsManRick]

The Reds director of hitting is actually Joe Mather

https://www.reddit.com/r/Reds/commen...omment/ghf6k4j

Interesting. He's still listed as assistant hitting coach on the team page on MLB.com and I couldn't find any news on a promotion. But I imagine Kyle Boddy would know. It's not like they do a press release for every promotion.

[Kc61]

Don't you believe BABIP?

I believe in BABIP. But BABIP is often mistaken to simply reflect luck. Luck is part of it, but not always the essence.

As discussed often here, BABIP means batting average on balls in play. It’s influenced by batted ball type (LD, GB, FB), using the whole field (or not), and a number of other factors.

Generally, Reds had a high pull rate (into the shift often) and a high FB rate (tends to produce outs). These adversely influence BABIP. Separately from BABIP, Reds had a high K rate, which obviously results in outs.

I believe the problem was largely approach - emphasizing homers and walks with little emphasis on contact and using all fields. Luck played a part, but as a poster wisely noted last year “luck is the residue of design.”

[Griffey012]

I believe in BABIP. But BABIP is often mistaken to simply reflect luck. Luck is part of it, but not always the essence.

As discussed often here, BABIP means batting average on balls in play. It’s influenced by batted ball type (LD, GB, FB), using the whole field (or not), and a number of other factors.

Generally, Reds had a high pull rate (into the shift often) and a high FB rate (tends to produce outs). These adversely influence BABIP. Separately from BABIP, Reds had a high K rate, which obviously results in outs.

I believe the problem was largely approach - emphasizing homers and walks with little emphasis on contact and using all fields. Luck played a part, but as a poster wisely noted last year “luck is the residue of design.”

What you say is true, but overall the Reds hitters were still pretty unlucky. Statcast expected averaging and slugging which I believe encompasses all of those pieces seems to back it up.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leade...team=CIN&min=q

[BillDoran]

Who is the Kyle Boddy of hitting?

I feel like I can confidently answer it is not Turner Ward or Alan Zinter.

Getting closer, via process of elimination.

[texasdave]

https://www.efastball.com/hitting/li...tion-websites/

There are some interesting tidbits in this link. Their is a youtube channel entitled MrBatSpeed.

[texasdave]

Reds clean-up hitter in 2050.

[camisadelgolf]

Reds clean-up hitter in 2050.

This might be closer to reality than we think. I especially like how dollars are incorporated into each pitch.

[757690]

What you say is true, but overall the Reds hitters were still pretty unlucky. Statcast expected averaging and slugging which I believe encompasses all of those pieces seems to back it up.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leade...team=CIN&min=q

Thanks for the link.

If you look deeper into the numbers, it's interesting.

First, overall the Reds were definitely unlucky, but not as unlucky as their BABIP suggests. They were 10 points unlucky in their wOBA according to Statcast, but 47 points unlucky according to their BABIP. Still that was next to last in the league according to statcast, so definitely unlucky.

Second, player by player is even more interesting.

Castellanos was the most unlucky of all returning starters, 32 points unlucky in his wOBA, that's a lot, meaning he's should rebound the most, probably close to his career norms.

Senzel was the next most unlucky at 29 points, pointing to a big rebound from him too, assuming he's healthy.

Suarez was actually rather close to his expected wOBA, meaning he just wasn't hitting the ball that well last year. But he was coming off an injury, and now is slimmer, so reason to be optimistic still.

The rest of the starters were rather close to their expected wOBA, so not much to draw conclusions from.

So it is looking good for the Reds to bounce back offensively next year.

[klw]

Reds clean-up hitter in 2050.

Weak grounders and popups to second base- did they model it on early Zack Cozart?

[Joeyjection19]

Weak grounders and popups to second base- did they model it on early Zack Cozart?

It looks like it was built in Germany - I'd say it was based on Donald Lutz.

[texasdave]

Weak grounders and popups to second base- did they model it on early Zack Cozart?

They have 3 decades to work out the kinks.

[podgejeff_]

There certainly needs to be an adjustment in Reds team hitting philosophy this year. I agree that some comments, including Votto’s, suggest guys may be “figuring out stuff for themselves” as you put it.

I refuse to believe that in 2020 suddenly all the Reds hitters became unable to hit singles or that almost every Reds hitter was cursed by bad luck. There was a hitting philosophy issue of some kind.

But - they don’t have to be public about it, I have to believe they are making adjustments, and that the hitting coach and others are working on an approach for 2021.

Organizationally, Reds have said they want an organization-wide hitting approach, so hopefully that happens too.

I just finished reading something that boiled it down to two factors for our HISTORICALLY TERRIBLE BABIP (seriously, the worst of the last 30 years):

1) The shift just chewed up our lefties
2) Our righties were honestly historically unlucky

[CaiGuy]

Reds clean-up hitter in 2050.

So the Reds are too cheap to buy the name-brand batting robot and end up with the piece of junk in the 4 hole?