2022 Armshare GM

[#13]

You are exactly correct. This type of trade/roster management is why this team is in its current situation. The Shogo and Moose free agent contracts along with the ill timed Suarez extension is killing this team right now. The Reds need to pick a lane and stay in it.The Rays and A's model of roster management is the way to approach this off season and beyond.

[Bourgeois Zee]

You are exactly correct. This type of trade/roster management is why this team is in its current situation. The Shogo and Moose free agent contracts along with the ill timed Suarez extension is killing this team right now. The Reds need to pick a lane and stay in it.The Rays and A's model of roster management is the way to approach this off season and beyond.

Tampa signed Yoshi Tsutsugo in 2020, the same season the Reds signed Shogo.

The year before that, they signed Charlie Morton to a three-year, $45M contract.

Kevin Kiermaier is still on their books and making pretty hefty coin after an early-career contract extension.

This is the Tampa model-- the only difference is that the Reds haven't yet built up the stockpile of cheap talent that Oakland and the Rays seem to develop year after year.

[#13]

The Rays are not signing any free agents to long term contracts and very few extensions to current rostered players. The Rays have been trying to unload Kiermaier and his contract for the last two years. A three year $45m contract for a front of the rotation starter is not going to break their bank because of the constant turnover in roster when players become free agents within a couple of years. I agree that the Reds have not stocked piled the young talent....yet, but trading Castillo is a step in the right direction. If the Reds would have traded Bruce, Votto, Chapman, Phillips, Frazier, Cueto, etc at premium value they would not be in this continual cycle or rebuild, reboot, all-in, fire sale, that they are in now. As of right now, India would be my "face of the franchise" and market it that way. Ride the wave of his minimum salary and do not extend him. Winker would also be on the trading block as well, no need to extend him. He is a DH/1B at best...if the NL adopts the DH, his stocked go way up. If the Reds can stay true to this plan and they find their "Wander Franco" then maybe they can afford to break the bank and keep him.

[RedsManRick]

The Rays are not signing any free agents to long term contracts and very few extensions to current rostered players. The Rays have been trying to unload Kiermaier and his contract for the last two years. A three year $45m contract for a front of the rotation starter is not going to break their bank because of the constant turnover in roster when players become free agents within a couple of years. I agree that the Reds have not stocked piled the young talent....yet, but trading Castillo is a step in the right direction. If the Reds would have traded Bruce, Votto, Chapman, Phillips, Frazier, Cueto, etc at premium value they would not be in this continual cycle or rebuild, reboot, all-in, fire sale, that they are in now. As of right now, India would be my "face of the franchise" and market it that way. Ride the wave of his minimum salary and do not extend him. Winker would also be on the trading block as well, no need to extend him. He is a DH/1B at best...if the NL adopts the DH, his stocked go way up. If the Reds can stay true to this plan and they find their "Wander Franco" then maybe they can afford to break the bank and keep him.

Agreed.

If the contracts of Moose, Suarez, and Shogo miraculously disappeared, the 2022 Reds would have roughly the same payroll as the 2022 Rays.

The reason the Reds are not the Rays is not that they have spent money unwisely. It's that they haven't made shrewd signings, capitalized on trades, nor developed talent the way the Rays have. But I think the most underappreciated aspect of what the Rays do is this: they don't play bad players.

The 2021 Reds used 13 pitchers with below 0 WAR, totaling 201 IP and -2.3 WAR. They used 8 position players with below 0 WAR, totaling 690 PA and -2.3 WAR. That's -4.6 WAR total. (In 2019 it was -1.5 and -3.4 for -4.9 total)

That's basically a SP spot and a full-time position player producing nearly 5 WAR worse than what should be freely available for the league minimum. That's not about money. That's about talent evaluation, player development, and coaching.

By contrast, the Rays had 8 pitchers below 0 WAR, totaling 65 IP and -1.5 WAR. They used 3 position players below 0 WAR, totaling 282 PA and -1.3 WAR. The Rays were two wins better solely among the dreck of the roster. (In 2019 they were -0.4 and -1.4 for -1.8 total).

For all the hemming and hawing we do around here about the Reds being cheap, the Reds are basically flushing 30 million dollars worth of FA production down the drain at the back end of the roster relative to the Rays. When you're doing everything else right, you can complain about not going the extra mile. But before I get my panties in too much of a twist about payroll, I want to see them doing the other things right. Runs are runs and runs lead to wins. A random win in August doesn't care whether it comes from a pricey FA hitting his 30th bomb or a 5th OF slapping a single to RF in his 30th PA of the season.

[HokieRed]

Agreed.

If the contracts of Moose, Suarez, and Shogo miraculously disappeared, the 2022 Reds would have roughly the same payroll as the 2022 Rays.

The reason the Reds are not the Rays is not that they have spent money unwisely. It's that they haven't made shrewd signings, capitalized on trades, nor developed talent the way the Rays have. But I think the most underappreciated aspect of what the Rays do is this: they don't play bad players.

The 2021 Reds used 13 pitchers with below 0 WAR, totaling 201 IP and -2.3 WAR. They used 8 position players with below 0 WAR, totaling 690 PA and -2.3 WAR. That's -4.6 WAR total. (In 2019 it was -1.5 and -3.4 for -4.9 total)

That's basically a SP spot and a full-time position player producing nearly 5 WAR worse than what should be freely available for the league minimum. That's not about money. That's about talent evaluation, player development, and coaching.

By contrast, the Rays had 8 pitchers below 0 WAR, totaling 65 IP and -1.5 WAR. They used 3 position players below 0 WAR, totaling 282 PA and -1.3 WAR. The Rays were two wins better solely among the dreck of the roster. (In 2019 they were -0.4 and -1.4 for -1.8 total).

For all the hemming and hawing we do around here about the Reds being cheap, the Reds are basically flushing 30 million dollars worth of FA production down the drain at the back end of the roster relative to the Rays. When you're doing everything else right, you can complain about not going the extra mile. But before I get my panties in too much of a twist about payroll, I want to see them doing the other things right. Runs are runs and runs lead to wins. A random win in August doesn't care whether it comes from a pricey FA hitting his 30th bomb or a 5th OF slapping a single to RF in his 30th PA of the season.

Agree. What we have needed is depth of competence, solidity through the whole roster. But I'm not sure there's much of a distinction between your suggestion the Reds haven't "spent money unwisely" and the claim they "haven't made shrewd signings." I'd say they've spent money unwisely precisely by failing to understand what are and what are not shrewd signings--and, at the top of the list of those incompetent, unwise signings are the Moustakas and Akiyama deals. That's why I wasn't particularly distressed by Krall's comments about needing to bring payroll into line etc.--if that means we're not going to enter into disasters on the Moustakas and Akiyama scale, then I'm all for it.

[RedsManRick]

Agree. What we have needed is depth of competence, solidity through the whole roster. But I'm not sure there's much of a distinction between your suggestion the Reds haven't "spent money unwisely" and the claim they "haven't made shrewd signings." I'd say they've spent money unwisely precisely by failing to understand what are and what are not shrewd signings--and, at the top of the list of those incompetent, unwise signings are the Moustakas and Akiyama deals. That's why I wasn't particularly distressed by Krall's comments about needing to bring payroll into line etc.--if that means we're not going to enter into disasters on the Moustakas and Akiyama scale, then I'm all for it.

Re: Moustakas and Akiyama, my argument would just be that it's the player, not the salary, that's the problem. If they cost nothing but a roster spot and playing time, they'd still be a part of the problem. So I'm not convinced that not having the money would produce better outcomes somehow. I think of it this way, money gives you a broader range of players to choose from. On average, a player that the market values will be better than one it doesn't. But what sets teams like the Rays apart is their ability to consistently beat the market. So we shouldn't pretend like that the Reds would make better choices with less money. If you aren't very good at evaluating hitting talent (which they Reds don't seem to be), then you aren't very good at evaluating hitting talent. Spending less only makes you even more reliant on spotting what others miss, which is precisely what the Reds have not been able to do on the position player side of things.

Crucially, what I think a lot of people underappreciate is that the spread among teams in their ability to identify and develop talent is much, much broader than the spread in their ability to pay for it. The Reds could add $70M in payroll in 2022 and they'd still not project to be a 90 win team. Bad contracts hurt, but they aren't the problem.

[HokieRed]

Re: Moustakas and Akiyama, my argument would just be that it's the player, not the salary, that's the problem. If they cost nothing but a roster spot and playing time, they'd still part of the problem. So I'm not convinced that not having the money would produce better outcomes somehow. I think of it this way, money gives you a broader range of players to choose from. On average, a player that they market values will be better than one it doesn't. So we shouldn't pretend like that the Reds would make better choices with less money. If you aren't very good at evaluating hitting talent (which they Reds don't seem to be), then you aren't very good at evaluating hitting talent. Spending less only makes you even more reliant on spotting what others miss, which is precisely what the Reds have not been able to do on the position player side of things.

Agree. Moustakas and Akiyama's being on the roster is the problem, even if they cost zero. But the problem is complicated by their being paid what they are, and yet, as you say, if the Reds could redeploy the money going to them and did it with a similar degree of astuteness, the result would be just as bad. What I'd really like to do is to change the ballpark configurations so that better evaluations of the hitting talent might become more likely. Since that won't be done, I'd be delighted by better deployment of salary money, and, in fact, I'd be happy to take the chance that they wouldn't spend it as stupidly on a second go round as they did on Moustakas and Shogo.

[RedsManRick]

Agree. Moustakas and Akiyama's being on the roster is the problem, even if they cost zero. But the problem is complicated by their being paid what they are, and yet, as you say, if the Reds could redeploy the money going to them and did it with a similar degree of astuteness, the result would be just as bad. What I'd really like to do is to change the ballpark configurations so that better evaluations of the hitting talent might become more likely. Since that won't be done, I'd be delighted by better deployment of salary money, and, in fact, I'd be happy to take the chance that they wouldn't spend it as stupidly on a second go round as they did on Moustakas and Shogo.

I don't think ballpark configurations are the problem. Guys who don't chase pitches out of the zone and do put pitches in the zone into play on a line with authority have inordinate amounts of success everywhere they play. Those are not park dependent skills. All that park effect stuff is on the margins once you control for the fact that everybody has to deal with it. The Reds are not "optimizing the location of their barreled balls" away from a much better offense.

That said, my biggest complaint about their development/evaluation goes back to pitching, especially the bullpen. Since 2016, Reds RP have the 2nd worst BB rate and worst HR rate in baseball (SP are 3rd and 4th worst, respectively). K rate is average. BABIP is average. GB/FB is average. From a pitch value standpoint, they've been absolutely and utterly destroyed on fastballs, close to average or better on all other pitch types. To me, that all suggests too much focus on velocity and strikeouts and not enough on location/command. I'm not saying pitch to contract. But no pitch leaves the yard like a poorly located fastball behind in the count. I'm quite worried we're going to see Hunter Greene become Homer Bailey 2.0 in this regard.

[HokieRed]

Bill James argued years ago that a reason for the Cubs' long weakness was that Wrigley may have caused them to overrate their offensive talent. I think the same is perhaps possible with Reds' management, and, additionally, the ballpark's home run tendencies may cause them to overvalue players perceived to be able to take advantage of the dimensions--possible e.g. Moustakas. Ballpark dimensions may also be a factor in bullpen tendency to be "utterly destroyed [sounds Biblical] by fastballs." I don't seriously think the owners will modify ballpark dimensions; that's way too radical for Cincinnatians to undertake.

[TNRED]

I don't have a specific trade in mind but I am in favor if dumping Suarez, Moose and Shogo contracts. Pay half of it if you have to. Maybe even two thirds. Get some good prospects thrown into the deal. Maybe all of this can save 10 million. Take that money and hire absolutely the best pitching, hitting and position coaches you can find. be prepared to pay big money. Send them to the minors to properly develop these young players. Small market teams cant spend their way to winning so they need to have very strong farm systems.

[herbdizzle]

I'll propose another one. Reds trade with Rockies who they have history of trading with:

CIN gets:
Austin Gomber LH SP

Rockies get:
Eugenia Suarez (and $15 million)
TJ Friedl
Andrew Abbott

Reds get a solid BOR lefty to replace Miley with multiple years of control. Rockies get a couple solid prospects and a solid flier on Suarez bounce back at 3/18. He could kill it in Coors.

[MoneyInTheBank]

I don't have a specific trade in mind but I am in favor if dumping Suarez, Moose and Shogo contracts. Pay half of it if you have to. Maybe even two thirds. Get some good prospects thrown into the deal. Maybe all of this can save 10 million. Take that money and hire absolutely the best pitching, hitting and position coaches you can find. be prepared to pay big money. Send them to the minors to properly develop these young players. Small market teams cant spend their way to winning so they need to have very strong farm systems.

Paying 1/2 to 2/3 of those 3 contracts would be paying $40-60M now to save $35M this season and $29M next year. I don't know if that's worth it to me

[SomeCallMeTim]

Tried a pun-- "sharing" the GM title and armchair GMing.

Good…. I thought Uber and Lyft was getting into another market…. :-)

[Bourgeois Zee]

Good…. I thought Uber and Lyft was getting into another market…. :-)

Would that mean they, like Dr. Richard Kimble, were chasing after the one-armed man?