How are the Reds really better in 2023 than in 2022?

[TNRED]

All of the trades and rookies and retreads starts to get jumbled up in my head. People want to be optimistic right now coming off of a 100 loss season but I am a hard time buying it. I know there were alot of injuries last season but guess what? There will be more this year. Maybe not as many but who knows? All I can think about is the Reds lost two very good pitchers last year. Hopefully the big three will continue to improve but i dont see that offsetting the loss of two veteran starters. No free agents added other than dumpster dives. Maybe one of these new guys will suddenly blossom and surprise us but a veteran might have a horrible year to counter it. OVERALL, on paper, how is this team better than last year's team?

[cumberlandreds]

They aren't better. They are the same for bascially the reasons you stated. The only way they could be a little better is if some of those "prospects" in the minors come up and are really good. Other than that I see another 100+ loss season ahead.

[IndyRedsFan97]

I think in general people see that we played better after that 3-22 stretch to open the year and think this team will be better. The team was bad last year, don’t get me wrong, but they had awful stretches to open and close the year but were competitive for stretches through the bulk of the year.

I think people are hoping some young players overachieving can help this team take a step, even if it’s not exactly a step to being a good team.

The optimistic fan will look at young guys like India, Fraley, Benson, Stephenson, Steer etc. and hope they’ll be starting level MLB players and guys like Greene, Lodolo, and Ashcraft develop into what we hope they can be.

Will that happen for all of them? Probably not, but that’s the hope.

[j.u.FAIRFIIELD]

IMHO, it's not if the Reds are better at times but whether they can beat teams that have in the past been better.
I'd say the whole of the NL-C is stronger now than it was in 2022, which still puts the Reds in a spot where climbing into 3rd place is going to be a slog.
The offense is probably better but is still not a strong spot in places. It's not as bad as the year they started with Matt Kemp in left field. I think the bullpen is underrated, rotation overly optimistic and bench depth nothing short of a flaming joke.
If they can patch together a couple of 15-win months before August, there's hope. They can't go 8-20 for a month. The saddest outcome here is that Nick Senzel is likely the player the Reds needed to come through and I don't see that happening. Prediction that Spencer Steer hits 30 dingers and CES becomes the new Mister July.

[Ron Madden]

Charlie Goldsmith
@CharlieG__

Jonathan India: “It’s a different vibe. Everyone connected really quickly here because of the mindset we had early in the spring on the field. It’s been going really well. It’s competitive. Hard core. We want to win.”

[757690]

First, they don’t have to be better on paper. Last year, the Reds experienced an extreme amount of bad luck, especially with injuries. If they just experience a normal amount of bad luck, they should win more games.

But they are better on paper. They lost Castillo and Mahle, but they only had Castillo for 85 innings last year. That’s basically what one gets from a reliever. Those 85 innings will mostly be covered by increase in innings from Greene, Lodolo and Ashcraft. Mahle put up a 4.40 ERA. That is what Cessa or Weaver or even Overton are projected to produce. So they pretty much have covered losing Castillo and Mahle.

Where they should be improved mostly is more games and PA’s from India and Stephenson. That should be a huge increase in production. More games and PA’s from Fraley and Friedl should also lead to increased production.

But for me, the biggest improvement is the lack of terrible players. They don’t have many very good players, but they shouldn’t have nearly as many negative WAR players this season. The Reds added depth everywhere, at least in terms of adding replacement level or better players. Last year, they couldn’t even find replacement level players to fill in holes.

None of this adds up to a massive increase, but it should keep them away from 100 loses again.

[InsaneinthBrame]

All of the trades and rookies and retreads starts to get jumbled up in my head. People want to be optimistic right now coming off of a 100 loss season but I am a hard time buying it. I know there were alot of injuries last season but guess what? There will be more this year. Maybe not as many but who knows? All I can think about is the Reds lost two very good pitchers last year. Hopefully the big three will continue to improve but i dont see that offsetting the loss of two veteran starters. No free agents added other than dumpster dives. Maybe one of these new guys will suddenly blossom and surprise us but a veteran might have a horrible year to counter it. OVERALL, on paper, how is this team better than last year's team?

Did we really lose two really good pitchers last year? Mahle and Castillo combined made 33 starts which is the workload of one spot in rotation and Mahle did not have a good year 19 starts with 4.40 era. (same as Cessa as a starter)
In the end this starting staff should have better performance barring injuries to big 3
We had 17 players start games last year with 43 starts from players that had negative war. If we can get 5.5 era from 4-5 stops this team will be way better off than last year.

As a starting staff 809 ip 4.97 era. That is a bar I think they should be able to beat.

As far as position players they had a 5.2 war total. Four out of 8 had negative war.
Catcher should be way better Casali/Maile way better than Robinson/Romine/Okey/Papierski/Garcia/Kolozsvary (-2.1 fwar)
2B India should be better than last year.
I like the OF better than last year

So many areas were terrible last year if it can improve to being just bad takes us from 100 losses to 90 losses easily

.

[westofyou]

They are luckier

Count on it, last year was pure schleprock. They have to be luckier

[Wayne Krivsky]

Time will tell if they are actually better.

Opening day last season gave us a starting rotation of Mahle, Sanmartin, Gutierrez, Greene, and Lodolo.

Obviously, had we gotten the good version of Mahle from the start and a healthy Castillo this is a much different conversation. With that said though I think the trio of a 2nd year Green/Lodolo/Ashcraft could make for better production than they got out of their top 3 starters a year ago. Then while I'm not super optimistic on Cessa/Overton the bar is pretty low because of how bad the back end was for the Reds a year ago.

The lineup is where I think the Reds can truly be a step above to avoid 100 losses again, and possibly even keep things interesting for a bit. Odds are in favor of India and Stephenson being better due to health alone. I'm hesitant to lump Votto into that category as we truly dont know what condition he might be in currently, but the argument is there for a Votto rebound. Meyers is a legitimate addition and Fraley seems like a popular pick to improve on his season totals from a year ago. Brandon Drury is the only legitimate bad that needs to be replaced. Moose is addition by subtraction, Pham has spurts, but overall was a dud. Then factor in that the Reds could have multiple legitimate top prospects in their lineup by mid season and yeah I would say this is a reason to be optimistic....as long as we dont confuse optimism for world series contenders.

The bullpen is the place where I have no idea what to expect. The "Good" news is that the bullpen was so bad last year that it almost has to be better by default. Art Warren and Tony Santillan were mega disappointments. Lucas Sims was stuck on the IL. The only tough parts to improve the bullpen from a year ago is it may be tough for Diaz to replicate his 2022 success and they lost Cessa to the rotation.

Overall I would say absolutely the Reds will be better in 2023 and show that on paper. I think a lot will have to go wrong for them to lose 100 games again. Lose a Lodolo or Greene to injury early on and things can get ugly fast. Post deadline there is a good chance we see some guys like Meyers moved for a lottery pick prospect. If a CES, McClain, EDLC are underperforming and not ready to take his spot in the lineup the starting 9 could get ugly fast too. The depth just isnt there really for any unit on this team. Still with the bar being set so low I like the chances of this team being closer to 90 losses instead of 100.

[j.u.FAIRFIIELD]

Castillo is the ace of any staff that has more than one decent rotation guy and something that resembles an offense to get him 3 or 4 runs by the 4th inning. Like most pitchers, his job is to pitch, not win the game.

I thought Mahle peaked out. He had a good start here and there, and a lot of the time he wasn't even up to Mike Leake standards. That trade was pure gold.

[redsfan9988]

At least for now, Barerro, India, Stephenson, and Fraley are healthy. If those guys get hurt, they’ll be replaced by guys like CES, EDLC, and McLain rather than Albert Almora and Colin Moran. Benson and Myers are nice additions. They may not be world-beaters, but I bet they can out-produce Tommy Pham and Aristides Aquino.

The Reds gave a TON of MLB at-bats to non-MLB players last year. I think that will happen less in 2023.

This pitching is going to be bad on the aggregate, and could get ugly if any of the big 3 misses significant time. I think the goal should be to go .500 or better in games started by Greene, Lodolo, and Ashcraft. The other roughly half of the games? I’m not confident. Still, if the big 3 start 80 games and we win half of them, we’ll probably limp our way close to 70 wins.

[JCM11]

For me it's the young players with upside on this team and on the way that makes 2023 more exciting than last year. I think we'll know by late July what this team really looks like when guys like EDLC, McLain, and CES are in the big leagues playing alongside India, Stephenson, Steer, Barrero, Fraley, and Benson. Once we see that group together we'll have a good idea of what 2024 will look like. IF the big 3 SP take a step forward and the bullpen isn't all time bad we should avoid another 100 loss season though I think avoiding 90 will be tough.

[JarrodOnVinyl]

I don't think we are accounting for the catching situation being key to the Reds success. Look who we ran out there consistently last year...Robinson, Garcia, Papierski. These were guys hitting under .200 with no power. A healthy Stephenson, Casali and even Maile are all drastic improvements. Thats got to count for a few wins

[Ron Madden]

Optimism abounds for every team in the offseason. The Reds are no different. The presence of Greene and two other young starting pitchers who pitched well last season, Nick Lodolo and Graham Ashcraft, feed the positive attitude entering the 2023 season.

"The chemistry is great," Green said. "We've been able to have some great conversations as a group, as a unit. Now it's time to put it all to work and show the world. I think that's the most exciting part."

Lodolo will start the second game of the season at 4:10 p.m. Saturday against the Pirates. Ashcraft gets the ball at 1:40 p.m. Sunday.

Reds manager David Bell said the three returning starters did everything right last season, had a great offseason and came to spring training ready to go.

"As spring training went on, little things would come up that they had to work through, and they did a great job of that," Bell said.

"Their spring trainings couldn't have gone any better. Now we start the season, and it counts, but from a process standpoint, from day one of last season, I don't know that we could have designed it any better with their success, some challenges they've had and just how they've handled everything.

They continue to get better almost each time they go out, and for young pitchers, it's really important."

https://news.yahoo.com/greene-younge...183800912.html

[MikeS21]

You have two choices. You can choose to be pessimistic and be miserable all season long. Or you can choose to be optimistic and look for the positives and actually enjoy the season.

No one is expecting this team to win the World Series. But it seems as if the annual “dumpster diving” took place in a little better neighborhood than in previous years. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that has-beens like Strickland and Pinder were cut, seeing as how they would have unquestionably made this team in past seasons. Plus, despite the fact that Spring Training records don’t mean a whole lot, these guys really didn’t look as clueless this year as they have in recent spring trainings. It’s a whole lot easier to root for this group of players.

I have made a choice to enjoy this season. In order to do that, I need to let go of all the “could’ve’s” and “should’ve’s” and “what-might-have-beens.” I loved watching Luis Castillo as a Red, but he’s no longer here, and it’s time to start living in the present. This is where we are now, and I can choose to either enjoy it, or stay angry and miserable. Even if this team falls apart before Mother’s Day, it’s going to be a fun minor league season for Reds fans. It’s a choice, and I choose to enjoy this team.