Originally Posted by
mth123
Its because the Reds have consistently rushed them to save money. It ended up costing them a lot more money in the long run by ruining the young cheap foundation they were developing. I also think the degree of readiness is based on the situation, I think Greene is OK to come up this year, but its much more risky having him come-up in a rotation with Vlad and whichever other question mark is in the rotation alongside him. Castillo, Mahle, Gray, Miley and a Greene would have been the perfect way to develop him. Vlad as a spot starter, injury fill in (probably still would get 20 starts).
Its not like the Reds have had a lot of solid pitching prospects to begin with and they certainly haven't had success just throwing these guys in there. I think Greene is a generational prospect, so he may be an exception (though the prospect ranking guys can't even put him in the top 20) but Lodolo, Williamson, Ashcraft are no more highly regarded than Reed, Stephenson, Finnegan and Garrett were a few years ago. (Ashcraft is more similar to Sal Romano than any of the guys who were top 100 prospects). We saw how that turned out, Reed still has the yips after being left in to take the shellings he did. To a lesser extent, the same thing happened to Garrett. Finnegan was ridden way to hard at too young an age in a rotation where he was about the only reasonable arm and he's been toast ever since. Stephenson had no control of his pitches and was an obvious fail before he even was promoted, but they did it anyway because they needed bodies. Sal Romano, who at the time was very comparable to Ashcraft, battled hard and was actually more successful than the others for a while, but he didn't have the pitch assortment to adjust to big league hitters once they caught on to him. Had he been left in AAA for a while to develop his change-up, maybe it would have been different, but he came to the big leagues and stopped throwing it. (I actually doubt more time would have helped much, he still doesn't have a change-up).
So you want a timeline, Greene now, Lodolo at the All Star break, Williamson or Ashcraft next opening day (I'm still guessing Ashcraft ends up in the bullpen and will thrive there). 2023 Castillo, Mahle, Greene, Lodolo, Williamson with Vlad as the sixth starter.