The time for moving good established MLB players for multiple excellent prospects is over, so what’s next?
Take what’s offered, or just blow up for blow up’s sake?
May the Lord bless
True, but I wonder if that too is a product of that modest mindset we’ve all been used to. Would we feel that way if the Reds owners were deploying this stash that we’re convinced they have? Top free agents almost by definition are seeking long-term contracts. If not the guys I named, then who should the Reds owners free the stash for that we don’t now allow ourselves to think they can afford?
This team is roughly .500 by runs scored and allowed (a better estimate of talent than W-L) and is among the youngest rosters the sport. Better luck in 1 run games and we'd still be talking about sneaking on in. The only "bad" contract at this point is Votto. I don't see any logic in an active teardown.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
I don't buy the "ifs and buts" evaluations. It's not just luck that there are ten NL teams with a better record. Our Reds have played sub .500 ball in every month except for May when they went a whopping 15-13. That's consistency. They are consistently a sub .500 team. It's not that they stumbled into bad luck in one run games and that bad luck happened to find them every month
As for blowing it up, I don't think I'd call it that but I would say that no player is untouchable. I'd shop offers for any player
REDREAD (09-09-2019)
My biggest concern going into next year is having Bell and Ward in the dugout.
Months an arbitrary grouping. And just as they have "consistently" been sub .500 they have "consistently" scored as many runs as they've allowed. That doesn't change the fact that past run production and prevention is a better predictor of future performance than past W-L record. That this seems to offend your instincts based on its distribution doesn't make it less true.
In any event, the conclusion about no player being untouchable and shopping around should be the case whether you're a 60 win team, a 100 win team, or anywhere in between.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
Seems obvious to me that they should blow the team up every time they lose a close game or get blown out. Sometimes when they win, that's a sign, too.
It is on the whole probable that we continually dream, but that consciousness makes such a noise that we do not hear it. Carl Jung.
Old school 1983 (09-08-2019)
There’s obviously some kind of disconnect between the run differential and the W-L record for the Reds. Something happened that flew under Pythagoras’ radar. We can try to reverse engineer it and end up with something anecdotal, but something happened.
Maybe it was a result of having an excellent but not-deep-into games starting staff, a bullpen prone to meltdowns, and an offense capable of turning some of those meltdowns into one-run losses, and when everyone is healthy can create a few blowouts.
So, stabilize the bullpen, strengthen and deepen the offense, and turn the one-run losses into wins.
I'm at the game, sitting two rows behind the visitors dugout, with my daughter who's home from Germany on leave. That defensive play by Dietrich in LF just now was one of the worst displays of defense I have seen in quite some time. That ball should have been caught. He just flung himself against the wall lol
"In my day you had musicians who experimented with drugs. Now it's druggies experimenting with music" - Alfred G Clark (circa 1972)
REDREAD (09-09-2019)
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