stephenson was taken #11 overall in the draft. extremely high for a catcher. if he is not at least a decent starter during his reds' career, that is a massive fail.
i'm confident he will do well. continued to make progress in the minors and really flashed during his cameo appearances with the reds in 2020.
Old school 1983 (03-25-2021)
I don't know if Stephenson will succeed or fail, but that 11th overall pick is going to get him a couple seasons in a regular role to see if he can step up and that's why Barnhart is gone no matter how Stephenson performs. In 2022, Stephenson likely starts 60% of the games no matter what he does this year. If he succeeds, he won the job. If he fails, he learned valuable lessons and they will want to see how he adjusts. if he was a 15th round pick, he'd need to win the job. Not saying I agree with the approach, but it's how it is IMO.
All my posts are my opinion - just like yours are. If I forget to state it and you're too dense to see the obvious, look here!
REDREAD (03-25-2021)
757690 (03-24-2021),CarolinaRedleg (03-25-2021)
this is true. it's why a guy like drew stubbs got so much rope. if he had been a 10th round pick instead of a first-rounder, he wouldn't have been anointed as the centerfielder/leadoff hitter of the future. the reds managed to ignore the fact that he struggled in the minors and eventually made him the CF/leadoff hitter as they had planned all along. why? because of that first-round status.
i do have a much better feeling about tyler stephenson than i ever did about stubbs, though. stephenson looked like he belonged during his brief appearances in 2020. very small sample size, but i liked what i saw a lot.
Old school 1983 (03-25-2021),REDREAD (03-25-2021)
It should be but BobC will step in and hang on to him since he probably thinks people come to the ballpark to watch their beloved Barnhart.
"Today was the byproduct of us thinking we can come back from anything." - Joey Votto after blowing a 10-1 lead and holding on for the 12-11 win on 8/25/2010.
CarolinaRedleg (03-25-2021),MoneyInTheBank (03-25-2021)
Stubbs was never a star or even above average player, but he was a solid, league average CF for many years. He put up 11.6 fWAR over 6 full seasons, and averaged 2 fWAR per 550 PA’s. Most of that production was as a Red.
He was a successful #1 pick, even if he never busted out like many had hoped.
Hoping to change my username to 75769023
Just saw this and thought it was kind of funny:
On September 15, 2012, Stubbs was involved in MLB history when his batted groundball was bobbled by Marlins SS Jose Reyes; that would turn out to be MLB's 500,000th error.
What would you say.....ya do here?
Stubbs was miscast as a leadoff hitter though, just because he had WR speed. Because of his low OBP, he should have been used as a low-OBP power hitter who happened to be very fast, and planted in the #6 spot in the batting order. I think he would have had more success in that role.
I still think that somewhere in his past he chose the wrong sport, though. A 6'3", 205 lb. kid from Texas who ran a 4.5 40 and had good hands? I can only guess that he didn't like contact (which his baseball career also bore out).
Eric Stratton, Rush Chairman. Damn glad to meet ya.
757690 (03-25-2021)
Big Klu (03-25-2021)
If the Reds are out of it by the ASB, Barnhart won't even finish the season with CIN - he'll be traded to a contender. No point worrying about the option at this point.
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