Hunter Greene

[mth123]

The thing that always gets mentioned is a pitcher going to AAA to work on their stuff, and I'm not sure how true that really is.

Do minor league players really look at AAA as an opportunity to not worry about winning, and just work on their game in preparation for the next level? Is Hunter Greene really going to throw his off speed pitches X amount of time because he needs the work if his fastball is working just fine? I just dont see that happening the way fans expect. You have a manager who's main goal is to win games to keep a job. You have a roster mostly of guys who will likely never get to the majors and if they do it's short lived. I mean most of the guys in the AAA clubhouse have made it as high as they realistically will go, and probably focus more on winning games and trying to win a minor league championship is more important to them than Hunter Greene throwing change ups. I'm not sure what the truth really is, the closest I have ever gotten to a AAA clubhouse was 5th row seats behind the dugout.

I say this as a fan of sending Hunter Greene down for a bit if it's good for his confidence. I'm a fan of it if the Reds are still able to keep an extra year of control over the player. I'm a fan of it if Derek Johnson really sees the opportunity for him to work on his stuff down there. I'm not against sending the guy down....I just don't know from a players perspective if he really gets a chance to work on his stuff the way we think. Is he going to be mandated to throw a change up to every hitter he sees? That gives me bad flashbacks to the Dan O'Brien hitters have to take at least one pitch rule.

Maybe I'm waaay off base here? I really dont know.

I've wondered this too. I'd send him down and tell him what he needs to work on to get back to the big leagues. I wouldn't be giving him a mandate to thorw x percentage of Sliders and Change-ups. If he knows he's not getting back to the big leagues until he's shown he can throw those off-speed pitches effectively for strikes in AAA, that should be the motivation to throw it.

[MoneyInTheBank]

I just disagree with the notion that sending Greene down so he can throw the pitches that he needs to develop in a AAA game equates to giving up on him.

He has a good fastball, but if hitters are sitting on it, its not as effective as it would be if he could keep those hitters "honest'"

He has a swing and miss slider that is deceptive and has a big break. Unfortunately, because it breaks so much. its frequently not a strike. decent big-league hitters aren't going to be fooled by that when facing him multiple times per game.

He's working on a secondary slider that breaks differently and is in the zone more often, but its a work in progress. He has a straight change up that isn't big league caliber, so he rarely throws. Just once or twice per game to "show it."

Occasionally, he gets the slider over the plate and is dominant. It just doesn't happen often enough. Greene is clearly, even as he is currently pitching, one of the best 5 the Reds have to run out there right now, but the goal is for him to be an Ace for the next 5 to 10 years, not the best of a bad lot for 2022.

I know we all have a different definition of "frequently" but I don't think your statement about Greene's slider is true. He throws it in the zone 44% of the time (compared to 52% for his fastball). That's really not bad.

[InsaneinthBrame]

Sticking by Hunter? That would be insane...

oh. wait.

Very misleading stats IMO by Nightengale. Castillo made his first 15 starts in 2017. Castillo has had periods of ups and down like the start to last year and 2018 which gave rise to the idea of cannot pitch in the cold.

[InsaneinthBrame]

This is very interesting, thank you for posting.

I do not recall, did Castillo have the change right out of the gates or did he develop it in response to the poor start to his career?

That was not his first 15 starts of his career he had 15 starts in 2017 Those were starts 16-30 of his career and he had the change up in 2017

[RED VAN HOT]

There are two factors to consider in sending him down. First, is his psyche. Will he learn or will he be demoralized by his failures at the big league level? IMO, he is a mature young man who will learn from his mistakes. The stuff is there; the command has a way to go. Sure he can work on command at AAA, but he can also get away with less command. At the MLB level he gets punished for poor command. Let him stay.

The second factor is team. Does he hurt the team's chances by keeping him in the rotation? If there ever was a year to let him learn at the MLB level, it is this one. Let him stay.

[mth123]

I know we all have a different definition of "frequently" but I don't think your statement about Greene's slider is true. He throws it in the zone 44% of the time (compared to 52% for his fastball). That's really not bad.

He throws it in the zone or he gets strikes because weaker hitters chase it? Huge difference. I really don't know the stats you are looking at, but if I'm a big-league hitter and I pick-up a breaking pitch coming from Greene, I simply leave the bat on my shoulder with less than 2 strikes no matter where it goes. If he gets it over 44% of the time, he's probably not going to strike me out looking. Sit on the fastball and kill it unless he has something else to deceive me. IMO, that's a straight change. It's thrown for a strike more often because it's not breaking out of the zone so much, but still deceptive enough to cause a swing and miss or weak contact.

Greene's ERA is over 6. Style points don't count. He reminds me of a guy who goes to the driving range and hits 350-yard drives straight down the middle, but has terrible scores because he can't putt or chip. You want to improve those scores, you need to work on putting and chipping. In his case off-speed pitches. He's not working on them if he's not throwing them.

[MoneyInTheBank]

He throws it in the zone or he gets strikes because weaker hitters chase it? Huge difference. I really don't know the stats you are looking at, but if I'm a big-league hitter and I pick-up a breaking pitch coming from Greene, I simply leave the bat on my shoulder with less than 2 strikes no matter where it goes. If he gets it over 44% of the time, he's probably not going to strike me out looking. Sit on the fastball and kill it unless he has something else to deceive me. IMO, that's a straight change. It's thrown for a strike more often because it's not breaking out of the zone so much, but still deceptive enough to cause a swing and miss or weak contact.

Greene's ERA is over 6. Style points don't count. He reminds me of a guy who goes to the driving range and hits 350-yard drives straight down the middle, but has terrible scores because he can't putt or chip. You want to improve those scores, you need to work on putting and chipping. In his case off-speed pitches. He's not working on them if he's not throwing them.

In zone %, not strike %. If your argument is that nobody is afraid of it or he needs a better change-up or just plain needs to be better, fine. I am just saying I don't think the assertion that he infrequently throws his slider for a strike is accurate.

[757690]

I have always believed that the main difference between a good pitcher and a not so good pitcher is not stuff, but the number mistakes pitches that they make.

Most pitchers makes smart, good pitches over 90% of the time. The best ones make mistakes around 1-2% of the time. As you go down the list to bad pitchers, they make them closer to 10% of the time. MLB hitters crush mistakes nearly 100% of the time, so those extra 5-10 pitches become loud hits nearly every time. 5-10 more loud hits turn a good outing to a bad outing.

I think Greene just throws too many mistake pitches, and the nearly all turn into home runs. When he doesn’t thrown too many of them, he’s nearly un hittable.

[UK Reds Fan]

The thing that always gets mentioned is a pitcher going to AAA to work on their stuff, and I'm not sure how true that really is.

Do minor league players really look at AAA as an opportunity to not worry about winning, and just work on their game in preparation for the next level? Is Hunter Greene really going to throw his off speed pitches X amount of time because he needs the work if his fastball is working just fine? I just dont see that happening the way fans expect. You have a manager who's main goal is to win games to keep a job. You have a roster mostly of guys who will likely never get to the majors and if they do it's short lived. I mean most of the guys in the AAA clubhouse have made it as high as they realistically will go, and probably focus more on winning games and trying to win a minor league championship is more important to them than Hunter Greene throwing change ups. I'm not sure what the truth really is, the closest I have ever gotten to a AAA clubhouse was 5th row seats behind the dugout.

I say this as a fan of sending Hunter Greene down for a bit if it's good for his confidence. I'm a fan of it if the Reds are still able to keep an extra year of control over the player. I'm a fan of it if Derek Johnson really sees the opportunity for him to work on his stuff down there. I'm not against sending the guy down....I just don't know from a players perspective if he really gets a chance to work on his stuff the way we think. Is he going to be mandated to throw a change up to every hitter he sees? That gives me bad flashbacks to the Dan O'Brien hitters have to take at least one pitch rule.

Maybe I'm waaay off base here? I really dont know.

Greene was 5-8 with a 4.13 ERA and a WHIP of 1.3 in 14 starts in 2021 at AAA.....how about just master a level in AAA before you promote him to MLB?

That would be a more rationale approach then wasting a year of service time at MLB with a 6+ ERA. And I'd assume he'd learn to master those secondary pitches along with better location of his fastball/slider. This year has been a way irrational approach by the Reds front office from the get go. We just wasted a year of service time for zilch reasons.

[TRF]

Many said before the season...Greene needed to dominate AAA before being given the MLB job. The Reds did this is save $$$ but it will bite us in the butt in the end.

1. Why not pick up Miley's option at $10M and pitch him vs. giving him away to Cubs?
2. That allows Greene to start in AAA...work on his secondary pitches and we don't burn a year of service time on a throw away year regardless and he's going to throw up an era over 5...so what is the point?

Reds are just run so poorly in so many ways....it's truly terrible how the franchise is handled all the way around.

Wade Miley has thrown 19 innings this year.

How exactly would that protect anyone?

[RedTeamGo!]

I do find it a little off when people say “send him to AAA??!? Why? So he can dominate it?” He didn’t the first try…

[TRF]

Does anyone here realize just how amazing it is that he's matching Luis Castillo at the beginning of his career? Because when Castillo made it to the Reds, he had thrown about 460 minor league innings. Greene doesn't even have half that.

I'm not saying I'm not worried about him. I'm saying his talent level couple with his professional inexperience makes him a unicorn.

I like unicorns.

[M2]

I have always believed that the main difference between a good pitcher and a not so good pitcher is not stuff, but the number mistakes pitches that they make.

Most pitchers makes smart, good pitches over 90% of the time. The best ones make mistakes around 1-2% of the time. As you go down the list to bad pitchers, they make them closer to 10% of the time. MLB hitters crush mistakes nearly 100% of the time, so those extra 5-10 pitches become loud hits nearly every time. 5-10 more loud hits turn a good outing to a bad outing.

I think Greene just throws too many mistake pitches, and the nearly all turn into home runs. When he doesn’t thrown too many of them, he’s nearly un hittable.

Fair enough way of viewing it. When you're leading MLB in HR allowed, you are definitely making your fair share of mistakes. It shouldn't be unexpected from a pitcher as raw as Greene. He'd be able to get away with more of those mistakes in AAA while sharpening his stuff (control, command and consistency), though the Reds aren't playing for anything and you can make the argument that maybe he'll learn quicker via punishment. I suppose the question as they move into the second half of the season should be is he actually learning anything?

The Reds have much more precise ways to measure that than we do, but sustained improvement should be the goal. If he just gets his head caved in all season long the only real win will be if he emerges from it healthy, and that's about as Pyrrhic as a victory gets.

[M2]

Does anyone here realize just how amazing it is that he's matching Luis Castillo at the beginning of his career? Because when Castillo made it to the Reds, he had thrown about 460 minor league innings. Greene doesn't even have half that.

I'm not saying I'm not worried about him. I'm saying his talent level couple with his professional inexperience makes him a unicorn.

I like unicorns.

Except he's not matching Castillo. He's matching a really bad stretch at the start of Castillo's second season. Now, if Greene pulls it together like Castillo did that season, then that would be pretty cool. Otherwise he's less of unicorn and more of a unicorn hamburger.

[TRF]

Except he's not matching Castillo. He's matching a really bad stretch at the start of Castillo's second season. Now, if Greene pulls it together like Castillo did that season, then that would be pretty cool. Otherwise he's less of unicorn and more of a unicorn hamburger.

fair enough, after reading that post better. But Castillo was handled with kid gloves in 2017 and promptly regressed in 2018. He was called up mid season and shut down early. One can certainly make the argument that both Greene and Lodolo needed to be at AAA until the ASB.

But the Reds didn't do that, and IMO they may as well bolster their confidence by saying 2022 is development at the MLB level. 2023 is when the fun for them should start. Honestly, I just want to see them and Ashcraft progress. Each are potential TOR guys. Williamson may join them by year's end.

I'm less concerned about Greene than I am the fact that the 2023 starting lineup has only 2 guys for the future on the team right now in India and Stephenson, and the rest is dreck and Votto playing out his contract.