The futility thread.. 100, 102 loss watch

[GAC]

The young pitching covers how many innings in a five-day stretch of, say, 45 innings? Greene and Lodolo, like 12-13 innings total? Diaz, 2 or 3?

Ashcraft is worth keeping but no sure thing.

You can’t win covering less than half your innings with bright young pitching talent. I’d add pitching to your list.

How about if I say our pitching is in a little bit better shape - at least shows more potential - then our offensive unit, which is made up of who again? How many established players, no question marks, are filling those other 8 positions on that playing field?

The Cincinnati owner(s) show the fans how not to run an organization .... while at the northern end of the state the Cleveland owners seem to get it right [other then picking a suitable name for their team] lol It's night and day.

I guess I should feel relieved, or maybe grateful, that I could only see a handful of games this year due to not having cable or satellite. What little I saw I didn't like.

[foster15]

I remember the 1982 Reds. League average pitching staff, dead last in offense. 101 loses. That is where I see this team going without any additions.

Irrelevant for a few reasons. Teams carried less pitchers, they let their starters pitch through 7 to 9 innings when they deserved to. There were 6 less teams and less reasons to try to squeak an extra year of team control from players which means more teams has quality staff from top to bottom because they used a smaller amount of pitchers throughout the league which means there was more quality and less filler.

And most of all, the players that I was referring to, Deitrich, Scooter and Drury types, they excel when they get to the Reds due to the bandbox we play in now, not Riverfront Stadium.

[membengal]

They did it. And they did it in spectacular fashion.

Well done, Castellini family. You are truly American classics.

getting there w/ a 15-2 loss was really quite something.

[Kinsm]

The Reds need everything for 2023. However, they need offense most.

If the Reds added two more solid starting pitchers, and two more solid relievers, with this offense, would still lose between 90-100 games.

If the Reds added two middle of the lineup bats, with this pitching staff, would be close to a .500 team.

The offense would be one of the worst in the majors, maybe the worst. The pitching staff would be decent.

You add 2 solid starting pitchers and 2 proven relievers and this is a .500 team next season even with a bottom 5 offense.

You add 2 good bats and no pitching and this is a 70 win team at best next season.

[Falls City Beer]

You add 2 solid starting pitchers and 2 proven relievers and this is a .500 team next season even with a bottom 5 offense.

You add 2 good bats and no pitching and this is a 70 win team at best next season.

Add two MVP bats and this is a 70 win team, unless those bats somehow provide world-historical great defense.

[Kinsm]

Add two MVP bats and this is a 70 win team, unless those bats somehow provide world-historical great defense.

I'm pretty sure 75 is just penciling in Lodolo, Greene, and Ashcraft to pitch 200 innings of 3 ERA ball next season.

[757690]

You add 2 solid starting pitchers and 2 proven relievers and this is a .500 team next season even with a bottom 5 offense.

You add 2 good bats and no pitching and this is a 70 win team at best next season.

Last year, the Marlins had an above average pitching staff, ranked 11th in ERA, and the second worst offense in the majors. They lost 95 games. Plenty more examples of teams with decent pitching, terrible offense and 90+ losses. I already mentioned the 1982 Reds which were similar and lost 101 games.

The Reds will easily have one of the worst offenses in the majors next season if they don’t add anything. Really hard to find a team with one of the worst offenses that ends up .500 or better.

[Ky Fried Redleg]

How many consecutive seasons will the Reds trot out a bottom 5 or bottom 10 bullpen?

If they do nothing else... PLEASE PLEASE let it be that they buy some decent bullpen arms!!!! It is so demoralizing to take a lead into the late innings only to see three dozen or so leads melt away in innings 6-9. A lot of those bullpen arms this year shouldn't have even been on a Major League roster.

[foster15]

Last year, the Marlins had an above average pitching staff, ranked 11th in ERA, and the second worst offense in the majors. They lost 95 games. Plenty more examples of teams with decent pitching, terrible offense and 90+ losses. I already mentioned the 1982 Reds which were similar and lost 101 games.

The Reds will easily have one of the worst offenses in the majors next season if they don’t add anything. Really hard to find a team with one of the worst offenses that ends up .500 or better.

I already gave a couple reasons why 1982 Reds are irrelevant. What I didn't do was check your statement that the Reds had good pitching rankings. That's absolutely false. The were ranked about 10th in the national league out of 12 teams in just about any meaningful category. I don't know what you're looking at but all I can assume is you're looking at their individual pitching stats and using today's numbers to say they were good. They were not compared to 1982 National League standards(American League is totally irrelevant since they didn't have interleague play).

Anyway, we're not talking about putting together a slightly above average pitching staff, we're talking about setting the goal as to putting together one of the best and well balanced pitching staffs. Being slightly better than middle of the pack in one major aspect of the game while being at the bottom of all others is certainly going to produce a ton of losses. But being middle of the pack in most categories isn't going to get you anywhere of significance anyway. But again, if you have one of the best pitching staffs(not slightly above average) you are not going to lose 90 games.

[757690]

I already gave a couple reasons why 1982 Reds are irrelevant. What I didn't do was check your statement that the Reds had good pitching rankings. That's absolutely false. The were ranked about 10th in the national league out of 12 teams in just about any meaningful category. I don't know what you're looking at but all I can assume is you're looking at their individual pitching stats and using today's numbers to say they were good. They were not compared to 1982 standards.

Anyway, we're not talking about putting together a slightly above average pitching staff, we're talking about setting the goal as to putting together one of the best and well balanced pitching staffs. Being slightly better than middle of the pack in one major aspect of the game while being at the bottom of all others is certainly going to produce a ton of losses. But being middle of the pace in most categories isn't going to get you anywhere of significance anyway. But again, if you have one of the best pitching staffs(not slightly above average) you are not going to lose 90 games.

In 1982 the Reds put up a 3.66 ERA. League average ERA was 3.60. If you go by more advanced stats, Fangraphs ranked them 4th in NL in pitching WAR in the NL.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.as...ter=&players=0

[foster15]

In 1982 the Reds put up a 3.66 ERA. League average ERA was 3.60. If you go by more advanced stats, Fangraphs ranked them 4th in NL in pitching WAR in the NL.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.as...ter=&players=0

Applying advanced stats when it didn't even exist is garbage as far as I'm concerned. The name of the pitching game is to allow as few of runs as possible and ERA is the stat that reflects how well a pitching staff is doing that. And they were below average (meaning higher ERA than average) and that certainly contradicts you saying they were above average. If a team gives up more earned runs per 9 innings pitched than other teams, what aspect can you blame for that other than the pitchers? The stadium, okay, but Riverfront was a pretty normal stadium for back then. To dig deeper as to a possible reason they were the 5th worst ERA all you have to do is look at their WHIP which was the 2nd worse.

And as I said before, having a very good pitching staff back then was not as key to dominating as it is now. There were 10, maybe 11, pitchers per team back then for 24 teams. There are now about 13 for 30 teams. That's close to 400 pitchers now vs 250 then. That means that there were less filler spots on rosters which meant there were more quality pitchers to go around for all teams which meant the difference between the best and worst staffs were much less back then than now.

Anyway, if you have a very good to great all around pitching staff, you will not lose 90 games. Not then and certainly not now. And a good hitting team with a lousy pitching staff will lose more games than vice versa every time.

[757690]

Applying advanced stats when it didn't even exist is garbage as far as I'm concerned. The name of the pitching game is to allow as few of runs as possible and ERA is the stat that reflects how well a pitching staff is doing that. And they were below average (meaning higher ERA than average) and that certainly contradicts you saying they were above average. If a team gives up more earned runs per 9 innings pitched than other teams, what aspect can you blame for that other than the pitchers? The stadium, okay, but Riverfront was a pretty normal stadium for back then. To dig deeper as to a possible reason they were the 5th worst ERA all you have to do is look at their WHIP which was the 2nd worse.

And as I said before, having a very good pitching staff back then was not as key to dominating as it is now. There were 10, maybe 11, pitchers per team back then for 24 teams. There are now about 13 for 30 teams. That's close to 400 pitchers now vs 250 then. That means that there were less filler spots on rosters which meant there were more quality pitchers to go around for all teams which meant the difference between the best and worst staffs were much less back then than now.

Anyway, if you have a very good to great all around pitching staff, you will not lose 90 games. Not then and certainly not now. And a good hitting team with a lousy pitching staff will lose more games than vice versa every time.

If you go by ERA, they were 0.06 runs below league average. That’s margin of error territory. They were league average. If you dig deeper, there were above average.

Everything you said about the difference between now and then is true, but it was true for every team. It doesn’t change the fact that the Reds had at the very least, a league average pitching staff.

As for your last point, I don’t think that if the Reds add two starting pitchers and two relievers, that they would have a very good to great pitching staff. That would get them to about league average, imo. The Reds are very far away from being very good to great at anything.

[David Cubbedge]

What did the Reds do following that dreadful 1982 101 loss season?

Released Bob Shirley to free agency
SP 8-13 3.60 ERA

Released catcher Clint Hurdle
.206/.270/.235 in 19 games

Released outfielder Larry Biittner
.310/.369/.413

Traded Tom Seaver 5-13 5.50 to the New York Mets for Jason Felice (minors), Lloyd McClendon and Charlie Puleo 9-9 4.47

Traded Bench bat OF Mike Vail to the San Francisco Giants for Rich Gale 7-14 4.23

Traded Catcher Mike O'Berry to the Angels for bench bat John Harris

Drafted OF Tracy Jones in the first round.

Needless to say, the team didn't do much to help themselves after that season. 1983 Reds Record = 74-88.

[foster15]

[QUOTE=757690;4477520]
Everything you said about the difference between now and then is true, but it was true for every team.

/QUOTE]

Let me try this one more time. In 1982, the difference in the quality of pitching staffs between the best to the worst was much, much more minimal than it is now. This means that the the big tip of the scales would take place on offense. So, if you're the back then a terrible offensive team that sits in the middle of pitching stats would lose a ton of games. Especially if your starting pitching was the weakest link. In 2022, the gap between best and worst pitching is much larger. That means that offenses aren't going to tip the scales as much. And back then if you had a mediocre starting corp and a strong relief corp, you were still screwed. Now starters are a little less important while relievers are much, much more important.

Back then, a bad offense didn't get as many opportunities to tee off on minor league quality pitchers as they do today. In a four game series now, you're almost guaranteed that both teams are going to have at least 6, 7 or more innings of bad pitching to tee off on. Back then, a quality starting pitching staff could damn near shut a team out for 4 straight games when things lined up nicely.

[GAC]

Well spoken by the GM of a 100 loss, last place, team .... LOL

"We've struggled in certain areas this year, and we still need to make improvements." .... "Across the board, we need to get better in a lot of different areas. I don’t think it’s just one area here or there," Krall said. "We ended 6-20. That’s not acceptable. Starting 3-22 is not acceptable. We’ve got to be better." .... "Coming in with every one of your position players trying to win a spot is first and foremost. Losing is not acceptable"

This past season, you never know whose going to be in the lineup day-to-day (other then the starting pitcher). LOL

I can see a nucleus being formed with the young arms/rotation. But going aroud the horn with your position players - who has established themselves and won the job? Stephenson at Catcher. India, who had an off-year due to injury, missed almost 2 months, at 2B? Votto, in his final year, will man 1B. After that, what?

No. I am not optimistic for '23. Way too many holes and question marks at critical positions. Will they make any moves in the off-season to address some of those needs?