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Hitting coach buh-bye.

Quote:The Reds announced Tuesday that hitting coach Turner Ward is out after one season. A replacement has not been named.

Ward, 54, was named to manager David Bell’s coaching staff on Nov. 6, 2018, after he had spent three seasons as the Dodgers’ hitting coach. It was considered a coup of sorts to have plucked him from a Los Angeles club that was the two-time defending National League champion.

“As an organization and a Major League team, we’re just at a point where we need a clear plan for the aligning of our offensive approach,” Bell said. “We identified that we weren’t where we need to be with that.”

The Reds were 12th in the NL in hitting and runs scored this season, as they dropped from a .254 team batting average in 2018 to .244 in ’19. They scored five more runs this season, 701, but were overtaken by four other clubs to slip from eighth in that category from a year ago.

The advanced metrics also weren’t flattering, as FanGraphs had the Reds ranked 25th in the Major Leagues in wRC+, 21st in WAR and 26th in wOBA.

Behind the team’s dip in offense were several individual players who had subpar seasons. Joey Votto, a .307 career hitter, had his second straight sub-.300 season while batting .261/.357/.411 with 15 home runs. Votto, Tucker Barnhart, Nick Senzel and Jesse Winker were among several players who altered their stances and hitting approaches during the season. Yasiel Puig, who, like Ward, came over from the Dodgers, struggled for the first portion of the season before heating up in June. Puig was traded to Cleveland on July 31 in a three-team deal that brought starting pitcher Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati.

Turner Ward Out

(09-26-2019 04:35 PM)Bearhawkeye Wrote:  

(09-26-2019 03:01 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 06:54 AM)crex043 Wrote:  I'm quite skeptical that the Reds will be competitive to the extent that the front office is suggesting next year. Keep in mind that it had been suggested that 2020 was an all-in year. Outside of pitching, the only position where the collective WAR was above average was 3B. Everything else was below average. That's a lot of players to replace to get to the playoffs, miss less the World Series. We basically need upgrades for catcher, a whole new middle infield, at least two outfield starters, and we need to fix our rickety bullpen. That means leaning heavily on free agency to obtain 4-5 new starters, mortgaging a significant portion of the future to trade prospects for established starters MLB ready prospects, or depending on performance from our own prospects.

It just feels like we're too far away. I would be happy to wait for steady growth as I see our minor league prospects getting better. I don't want to see an "all-in" 2020 where the Reds hobble into a wildcard playoff or get dismantled by the Dodgers in the division series and then suck for the next three years.

Our key to long term success is building a competent and unified player development system and drafting better players internationally. Not going all-in in 2020 depending on backups to suddenly become the next Scooter.

Yeah.

If you had told me in March that Suarez would hit 49 HR, Iglesias would hit .290, acquiring Puig would end up looking like a good deal, three rookies would look like everyday players through the end of August (Senzel, Aquino, and Van Meter), Castillo & Gray would make the All-Star team, and the rotation would only have 1 guy get injured...... what would be your over/under on this team's record?

Everything has gone right for the team this year (well, until the last weekend in August, when they stopped hitting). But here we are in late September and they're still in 4th place, 13 games under .500.

And you were doing so well in the Castilo v. Gray debate. smh .C'mon. Yeah, everything went right except:
- Their highest-paid and presumed best player had the worst full season of his career.
- Arguably their second-best offensive player of the past few years entering his free agent season got hurt for much of the year and was among the worst hitters in the league upon his return before being dealt for a PTBNL who I believe they never even bothered naming.
- In terms of actual market value of performance coming in, their key pitching acquisition and only LHSP was hurt most of the year and ineffective in his few starts before getting shut down again.
- Which influenced them to acquire a consensus Cy Young contender type starting pitcher midseason who suddenly was frequently hit like he was pitching batting practice.
- Both heads of their two-headed catching platoon got hurt leaving them with a starting catcher for a time who struggled to hit much over .200 in the minors
- Both of their extremely reliable veteran free agent relievers from last year suddenly became extremely unreliable this year and were released.
- Arguably the best Reds hitting prospect of the last few years seemed to regress and yes of course also got hurt ending his season.
- The alternative best Reds hitting prospect of the last few years and best overall prospect had a merely OK rookie season before, you guessed it, he got hurt which ended his season.
- Matt Kemp goes from a fairly nice All-Star season in LA (121 OPS+) and seemingly primed to thrive in GABP as trade bait to an utterly worthless entity (OPS+ of 26 ) whose career is probably over.

So other than that stuff (and a few others I left out edit: Raisel Iglesias for crying out loud!) it's incredible how "right" everything went for the Reds this year.

By the way, like you mentioned, I agree some things went better than expected. And I'm not saying the Reds were the only team to encounter adversity by any means. And clearly other teams fought through it much better than they did. I'm just saying it's crazy to argue that everything "went right" for the Reds this year.

I think you were engaging in wishful thinking if you expected a lot out of Scooter, Kemp, and Bauer.


There's a reason that the Reds weren't giving Scooter a long-term deal.

There's a reason that the Dodgers were so eager to get rid of Kemp that they threw in Puig and took on Homer Bailey's salary.

There's a reason that a contending team was looking to trade one of their front-line starters.


And about injuries.... every team has injuries. The Reds actually had fewer than most teams. Here's a graph of the expected Wins Above Replacement that each team lost to injuries in 2019 (using ZIPS preseason projections for WAR). Only 3 teams had fewer injuries that the Reds this year:



Source: https://siff.shinyapps.io/mlb_il/
Explained here: https://medium.com/@jordansiff97/doing-t...863ea865a3

(10-07-2019 01:05 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(09-26-2019 04:35 PM)Bearhawkeye Wrote:  

(09-26-2019 03:01 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 06:54 AM)crex043 Wrote:  I'm quite skeptical that the Reds will be competitive to the extent that the front office is suggesting next year. Keep in mind that it had been suggested that 2020 was an all-in year. Outside of pitching, the only position where the collective WAR was above average was 3B. Everything else was below average. That's a lot of players to replace to get to the playoffs, miss less the World Series. We basically need upgrades for catcher, a whole new middle infield, at least two outfield starters, and we need to fix our rickety bullpen. That means leaning heavily on free agency to obtain 4-5 new starters, mortgaging a significant portion of the future to trade prospects for established starters MLB ready prospects, or depending on performance from our own prospects.

It just feels like we're too far away. I would be happy to wait for steady growth as I see our minor league prospects getting better. I don't want to see an "all-in" 2020 where the Reds hobble into a wildcard playoff or get dismantled by the Dodgers in the division series and then suck for the next three years.

Our key to long term success is building a competent and unified player development system and drafting better players internationally. Not going all-in in 2020 depending on backups to suddenly become the next Scooter.

Yeah.

If you had told me in March that Suarez would hit 49 HR, Iglesias would hit .290, acquiring Puig would end up looking like a good deal, three rookies would look like everyday players through the end of August (Senzel, Aquino, and Van Meter), Castillo & Gray would make the All-Star team, and the rotation would only have 1 guy get injured...... what would be your over/under on this team's record?

Everything has gone right for the team this year (well, until the last weekend in August, when they stopped hitting). But here we are in late September and they're still in 4th place, 13 games under .500.

And you were doing so well in the Castilo v. Gray debate. smh .C'mon. Yeah, everything went right except:
- Their highest-paid and presumed best player had the worst full season of his career.
- Arguably their second-best offensive player of the past few years entering his free agent season got hurt for much of the year and was among the worst hitters in the league upon his return before being dealt for a PTBNL who I believe they never even bothered naming.
- In terms of actual market value of performance coming in, their key pitching acquisition and only LHSP was hurt most of the year and ineffective in his few starts before getting shut down again.
- Which influenced them to acquire a consensus Cy Young contender type starting pitcher midseason who suddenly was frequently hit like he was pitching batting practice.
- Both heads of their two-headed catching platoon got hurt leaving them with a starting catcher for a time who struggled to hit much over .200 in the minors
- Both of their extremely reliable veteran free agent relievers from last year suddenly became extremely unreliable this year and were released.
- Arguably the best Reds hitting prospect of the last few years seemed to regress and yes of course also got hurt ending his season.
- The alternative best Reds hitting prospect of the last few years and best overall prospect had a merely OK rookie season before, you guessed it, he got hurt which ended his season.
- Matt Kemp goes from a fairly nice All-Star season in LA (121 OPS+) and seemingly primed to thrive in GABP as trade bait to an utterly worthless entity (OPS+ of 26 ) whose career is probably over.

So other than that stuff (and a few others I left out edit: Raisel Iglesias for crying out loud!) it's incredible how "right" everything went for the Reds this year.

By the way, like you mentioned, I agree some things went better than expected. And I'm not saying the Reds were the only team to encounter adversity by any means. And clearly other teams fought through it much better than they did. I'm just saying it's crazy to argue that everything "went right" for the Reds this year.

I think you were engaging in wishful thinking if you expected a lot out of Scooter, Kemp, and Bauer.


There's a reason that the Reds weren't giving Scooter a long-term deal.

There's a reason that the Dodgers were so eager to get rid of Kemp that they threw in Puig and took on Homer Bailey's salary.

There's a reason that a contending team was looking to trade one of their front-line starters.


And about injuries.... every team has injuries. The Reds actually had fewer than most teams. Here's a graph of the expected Wins Above Replacement that each team lost to injuries in 2019 (using ZIPS preseason projections for WAR). Only 3 teams had fewer injuries that the Reds this year:

Yes there absolutely was a reason for the deals and no deals you cite and it happens to be the same reason as to why a lot of things happen in life: MONEY! All 3 of those situations you cited were much more about money than current performance. Saying there were meager hopes and expectations for Scooter, Kemp and Bauer is simply revisionist history.

Scooter's OPS+ in 2017 was 123. in 2018 it was 125 and he averaged about 148 games played each year. In this, his free agent season at age 29, I think a similar OPS+ was a very reasonable expectation based upon the previous two seasons. But in 2019 he played in 21 games for the Reds and had a horrific OPS+ of 28 in them. Yeah, that's a HUGE difference that did NOT "go the Reds way."

Kemp was an All Star in 2018 with a 121 OPS+ who nearly everyone thought needed a change of scenery and was about to go from a pitchers' to a hitters' ballpark. Like Scooter this was a critical free agent year for him. And like Scooter he gave the Reds a similarly horrific OPS+ of 25 in 20 games. Even if you didn't have the highest expectations for Kemp, that's another HUGE dropoff that did NOT "go the Reds way".

Bauer was also a 2018 All-Star who finished 6th in the Cy Young voting with an ERA+ of 196 for crying out loud. He was a major midseason acquisition that was the talk of baseball at the time and having another good year for Cleveland. But with the Reds he had an ERA+ of 71 and only gave us 10 starts. That especially hurt because Wood (see above) was our only other LHSP to combat RH centric lineups. Yeah, that's another HUGE dropoff that nobody predicted and clearly did not "go the Reds way".

And I didn't even get into Raisel Iglesias who probably had the most engimatic disappointing season of them all.

I'm not sure what makes you think I thought the Reds were the only team with injuries especially when I noted that every team faces adversity and that other teams handled it better than the Reds. But to claim that "Everything has gone right for the team this year (well, until the last weekend in August)" is simply absurd as reinforced by the facts cited above.

(10-02-2019 08:26 PM)UCGrad1992 Wrote:  A 36 year old pitching guru?

Quote:The Reds' rotation made big advances in 2019, in both performance and how it embraced analytics and data. On Tuesday, the club hired one of the industry leaders in harnessing information to improve upon its pitching success.

Kyle Boddy was named the Reds' director of pitching initiatives/pitching coordinator. Boddy, 36, is the founder and president of Driveline Baseball, a data-driven baseball performance center near Seattle that’s been embraced by many big leaguers, including Cincinnati starter Trevor Bauer.

“The Reds are getting someone with a deep understanding of how to integrate data science with player development, and do so very quickly,” Bauer said. “He has an established process based heavily on measurable qualities that will benefit many players and coaches immediately. He’s used to running a fast-moving company and managing many employees. It’s rare to come by that skill set in one individual.”

The club said that Boddy will work closely with the Major League pitching department to ensure the pitching philosophies and protocols are consistent throughout the organization. Much of his time for the Reds will be spent working with their Minor League pitchers.

Reds Moneyball?

Everybody has basically been playing Moneyball for quite a while now - albeit some better than others. That's why almost nobody (well aside from maybe a poster or two around here) cares very much about a pitcher's W-L record or a batter's batting average (including the legendary magical .260 batting average threshold - haha) at least as compared to OBP anymore and we see different defensive shifts sometimes from pitch to pitch.

The stuff Boddy is doing, at least as far as I understand it at this point, is really next-generation stuff. Up until very recently, it's been about using sabermetrics and technology to figure out what skills to value and how to utilize them strategically. Boddy, and the like, are completing the circle: using technology to measure and develop the valuable skills that make better ballplayers.

I don't know how well it will all work out, but it's some fascinating stuff and a logical next step. So I think it's a very worthwhile gamble for an organization like the Reds to try to get ahead of the curve on.

(10-07-2019 02:13 PM)Bearhawkeye Wrote:  

(10-07-2019 01:05 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(09-26-2019 04:35 PM)Bearhawkeye Wrote:  

(09-26-2019 03:01 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 06:54 AM)crex043 Wrote:  I'm quite skeptical that the Reds will be competitive to the extent that the front office is suggesting next year. Keep in mind that it had been suggested that 2020 was an all-in year. Outside of pitching, the only position where the collective WAR was above average was 3B. Everything else was below average. That's a lot of players to replace to get to the playoffs, miss less the World Series. We basically need upgrades for catcher, a whole new middle infield, at least two outfield starters, and we need to fix our rickety bullpen. That means leaning heavily on free agency to obtain 4-5 new starters, mortgaging a significant portion of the future to trade prospects for established starters MLB ready prospects, or depending on performance from our own prospects.

It just feels like we're too far away. I would be happy to wait for steady growth as I see our minor league prospects getting better. I don't want to see an "all-in" 2020 where the Reds hobble into a wildcard playoff or get dismantled by the Dodgers in the division series and then suck for the next three years.

Our key to long term success is building a competent and unified player development system and drafting better players internationally. Not going all-in in 2020 depending on backups to suddenly become the next Scooter.

Yeah.

If you had told me in March that Suarez would hit 49 HR, Iglesias would hit .290, acquiring Puig would end up looking like a good deal, three rookies would look like everyday players through the end of August (Senzel, Aquino, and Van Meter), Castillo & Gray would make the All-Star team, and the rotation would only have 1 guy get injured...... what would be your over/under on this team's record?

Everything has gone right for the team this year (well, until the last weekend in August, when they stopped hitting). But here we are in late September and they're still in 4th place, 13 games under .500.

And you were doing so well in the Castilo v. Gray debate. smh .C'mon. Yeah, everything went right except:
- Their highest-paid and presumed best player had the worst full season of his career.
- Arguably their second-best offensive player of the past few years entering his free agent season got hurt for much of the year and was among the worst hitters in the league upon his return before being dealt for a PTBNL who I believe they never even bothered naming.
- In terms of actual market value of performance coming in, their key pitching acquisition and only LHSP was hurt most of the year and ineffective in his few starts before getting shut down again.
- Which influenced them to acquire a consensus Cy Young contender type starting pitcher midseason who suddenly was frequently hit like he was pitching batting practice.
- Both heads of their two-headed catching platoon got hurt leaving them with a starting catcher for a time who struggled to hit much over .200 in the minors
- Both of their extremely reliable veteran free agent relievers from last year suddenly became extremely unreliable this year and were released.
- Arguably the best Reds hitting prospect of the last few years seemed to regress and yes of course also got hurt ending his season.
- The alternative best Reds hitting prospect of the last few years and best overall prospect had a merely OK rookie season before, you guessed it, he got hurt which ended his season.
- Matt Kemp goes from a fairly nice All-Star season in LA (121 OPS+) and seemingly primed to thrive in GABP as trade bait to an utterly worthless entity (OPS+ of 26 ) whose career is probably over.

So other than that stuff (and a few others I left out edit: Raisel Iglesias for crying out loud!) it's incredible how "right" everything went for the Reds this year.

By the way, like you mentioned, I agree some things went better than expected. And I'm not saying the Reds were the only team to encounter adversity by any means. And clearly other teams fought through it much better than they did. I'm just saying it's crazy to argue that everything "went right" for the Reds this year.

I think you were engaging in wishful thinking if you expected a lot out of Scooter, Kemp, and Bauer.


There's a reason that the Reds weren't giving Scooter a long-term deal.

There's a reason that the Dodgers were so eager to get rid of Kemp that they threw in Puig and took on Homer Bailey's salary.

There's a reason that a contending team was looking to trade one of their front-line starters.


And about injuries.... every team has injuries. The Reds actually had fewer than most teams. Here's a graph of the expected Wins Above Replacement that each team lost to injuries in 2019 (using ZIPS preseason projections for WAR). Only 3 teams had fewer injuries that the Reds this year:

Yes there absolutely was a reason for the deals and no deals you cite and it happens to be the same reason as to why a lot of things happen in life: MONEY! All 3 of those situations you cited were much more about money than current performance. Saying there were meager hopes and expectations for Scooter, Kemp and Bauer is simply revisionist history.

Scooter's OPS+ in 2017 was 123. in 2018 it was 125 and he averaged about 148 games played each year. In this, his free agent season at age 29, I think a similar OPS+ was a very reasonable expectation based upon the previous two seasons. But in 2019 he played in 21 games for the Reds and had a horrific OPS+ of 28 in them. Yeah, that's a HUGE difference that did NOT "go the Reds way."

Kemp was an All Star in 2018 with a 121 OPS+ who nearly everyone thought needed a change of scenery and was about to go from a pitchers' to a hitters' ballpark. Like Scooter this was a critical free agent year for him. And like Scooter he gave the Reds a similarly horrific OPS+ of 25 in 20 games. Even if you didn't have the highest expectations for Kemp, that's another HUGE dropoff that did NOT "go the Reds way".

Bauer was also a 2018 All-Star who finished 6th in the Cy Young voting with an ERA+ of 196 for crying out loud. He was a major midseason acquisition that was the talk of baseball at the time and having another good year for Cleveland. But with the Reds he had an ERA+ of 71 and only gave us 10 starts. That especially hurt because Wood (see above) was our only other LHSP to combat RH centric lineups. Yeah, that's another HUGE dropoff that nobody predicted and clearly did not "go the Reds way".

And I didn't even get into Raisel Iglesias who probably had the most engimatic disappointing season of them all.

I'm not sure what makes you think I thought the Reds were the only team with injuries especially when I noted that every team faces adversity and that other teams handled it better than the Reds. But to claim that "Everything has gone right for the team this year (well, until the last weekend in August)" is simply absurd as reinforced by the facts cited above.

My point was not merely that "everything went right."

It's that no matter what went wrong, a TON of things DID go right. Yes, Votto and Raisel Iglesias underperformed. But that was more than made up for by Castillo and Lorenzen overperforming.


By the way, Kemp's preseason projected WAR was 0.1. Scooter's was 2.2. Bauer wasn't on the opening day roster. So you can't say those three doomed us. If those three had met expectations, the Reds still would have been 9-10 games under .500.

Did the Reds underperform oroutperform expectations this year?

Projected ZIPS WAR in 2019 versus actual
(for projected & actual major contributors, because ZIPS projections inflate expectations from many minor contributors because it assumes they'll get a starting job and play the full season)

Missed due to injuries
projected 2.4 , actual 0.7 - Barnhart
projected 2.1 , actual -0.2 - Wood
projected 2 , actual 0.7 - Senzel (0.7 is pretty good for a rookie who only appeared in 104 games due to injury)

The Reds missed about 5 expected wins due to injured players (although actual time missed was only about 3 wins, the rest was due to players playing through injuries and having worse stats). This is much lower than the rest of the league, which averaged about 7 wins missed due to injuries.

Position Players

Underperformed Expectations - loss of 11.5 WAR
projected 2.2 , actual -0.4 - Gennett
projected 1.8 , actual -0.6 - Peraza
projected 0.1 , actual -0.8 - Kemp
projected 1.6 , actual -0.6 - Schebler
projected 4.1 , actual 0.7 - Votto

Met Expectations
projected 2.7 , actual 0.6 - Puig (in half a season)
projected 1.4 , actual 1.6 - Jose Iglesias
projected 1.6 , actual 1 - Winker (projection was high due to ZIPS projecting him as a starter)
projected 4 , actual 4.5 - Suarez
projected 1.2 , actual 0.6 - Ervin (had half as many plate appearances as ZIPS projections, even though he was never projected as a starter)
projected 1.8 , actual 0 - Galvis (midseason acquisition)


Good Surprises: - gain of 2.1 WAR
projected 0.5 , actual 1 - Casali
projected 0.6 , actual 1.1 - Dietrich
projected N/A , actual 0.2 - VanMeter
projected N/A , actual 1 - Aquino



Pitchers

Underperformed Expectations - loss of 2.3 WAR
projected 0.5 , actual -0.2 - Romano
projected 0.4 , actual 0.1 - Reed
projected 0.2 , actual 0 - Hughes
projected 0.4 , actual -0.4 - Duke
projected -0.2 , actual -0.7 - Peralta

Met Expectations
projected 4.3 , actual 0.6 - Bauer (projection was for full season, only had 10 starts for the Reds, and he had severely underperformed in Cleveland)
projected 0.4 , actual 0.3 - Bowman
projected 0.7 , actual 1.1 - Iglesias (yes, he actually outperformed ZIPS expectations)


Good Surprises: - gain of 10.0 WAR
projected 2 , actual 4.4 - Gray
projected 2.2 , actual 4.1 - Castillo
projected 0.7 , actual 2.4 - DeSclafani
projected 1.3 , actual 1.9 - Roark (exceeded that in only 21 starts!)
projected 0.8 , actual 1.4 - Mahle
projected 0.2 , actual 1.2 - Lorenzen
projected 0 , actual 0.4 - Garrett
projected -0.1 , actual 0.9 - Stephenson
projected N/A for Reds , actual 0.4 - Gausman (midseason acquisition who had one of the worst performances in baseball for the first half, so he really should have been a zero expectations)


So overall, Reds everyday players underperformed expectations by 9.5 wins and pitchers outperformed by 7.5 wins. In addition, the Reds outperformed expectations by 2-4 wins higher than the rest of the league due to missing the injury bug.

So overall, the Reds met their preseason expectations this year.

(10-08-2019 10:27 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(10-07-2019 02:13 PM)Bearhawkeye Wrote:  

(10-07-2019 01:05 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(09-26-2019 04:35 PM)Bearhawkeye Wrote:  

(09-26-2019 03:01 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Yeah.

If you had told me in March that Suarez would hit 49 HR, Iglesias would hit .290, acquiring Puig would end up looking like a good deal, three rookies would look like everyday players through the end of August (Senzel, Aquino, and Van Meter), Castillo & Gray would make the All-Star team, and the rotation would only have 1 guy get injured...... what would be your over/under on this team's record?

Everything has gone right for the team this year (well, until the last weekend in August, when they stopped hitting). But here we are in late September and they're still in 4th place, 13 games under .500.

And you were doing so well in the Castilo v. Gray debate. smh .C'mon. Yeah, everything went right except:
- Their highest-paid and presumed best player had the worst full season of his career.
- Arguably their second-best offensive player of the past few years entering his free agent season got hurt for much of the year and was among the worst hitters in the league upon his return before being dealt for a PTBNL who I believe they never even bothered naming.
- In terms of actual market value of performance coming in, their key pitching acquisition and only LHSP was hurt most of the year and ineffective in his few starts before getting shut down again.
- Which influenced them to acquire a consensus Cy Young contender type starting pitcher midseason who suddenly was frequently hit like he was pitching batting practice.
- Both heads of their two-headed catching platoon got hurt leaving them with a starting catcher for a time who struggled to hit much over .200 in the minors
- Both of their extremely reliable veteran free agent relievers from last year suddenly became extremely unreliable this year and were released.
- Arguably the best Reds hitting prospect of the last few years seemed to regress and yes of course also got hurt ending his season.
- The alternative best Reds hitting prospect of the last few years and best overall prospect had a merely OK rookie season before, you guessed it, he got hurt which ended his season.
- Matt Kemp goes from a fairly nice All-Star season in LA (121 OPS+) and seemingly primed to thrive in GABP as trade bait to an utterly worthless entity (OPS+ of 26 ) whose career is probably over.

So other than that stuff (and a few others I left out edit: Raisel Iglesias for crying out loud!) it's incredible how "right" everything went for the Reds this year.

By the way, like you mentioned, I agree some things went better than expected. And I'm not saying the Reds were the only team to encounter adversity by any means. And clearly other teams fought through it much better than they did. I'm just saying it's crazy to argue that everything "went right" for the Reds this year.

I think you were engaging in wishful thinking if you expected a lot out of Scooter, Kemp, and Bauer.


There's a reason that the Reds weren't giving Scooter a long-term deal.

There's a reason that the Dodgers were so eager to get rid of Kemp that they threw in Puig and took on Homer Bailey's salary.

There's a reason that a contending team was looking to trade one of their front-line starters.


And about injuries.... every team has injuries. The Reds actually had fewer than most teams. Here's a graph of the expected Wins Above Replacement that each team lost to injuries in 2019 (using ZIPS preseason projections for WAR). Only 3 teams had fewer injuries that the Reds this year:

Yes there absolutely was a reason for the deals and no deals you cite and it happens to be the same reason as to why a lot of things happen in life: MONEY! All 3 of those situations you cited were much more about money than current performance. Saying there were meager hopes and expectations for Scooter, Kemp and Bauer is simply revisionist history.

Scooter's OPS+ in 2017 was 123. in 2018 it was 125 and he averaged about 148 games played each year. In this, his free agent season at age 29, I think a similar OPS+ was a very reasonable expectation based upon the previous two seasons. But in 2019 he played in 21 games for the Reds and had a horrific OPS+ of 28 in them. Yeah, that's a HUGE difference that did NOT "go the Reds way."

Kemp was an All Star in 2018 with a 121 OPS+ who nearly everyone thought needed a change of scenery and was about to go from a pitchers' to a hitters' ballpark. Like Scooter this was a critical free agent year for him. And like Scooter he gave the Reds a similarly horrific OPS+ of 25 in 20 games. Even if you didn't have the highest expectations for Kemp, that's another HUGE dropoff that did NOT "go the Reds way".

Bauer was also a 2018 All-Star who finished 6th in the Cy Young voting with an ERA+ of 196 for crying out loud. He was a major midseason acquisition that was the talk of baseball at the time and having another good year for Cleveland. But with the Reds he had an ERA+ of 71 and only gave us 10 starts. That especially hurt because Wood (see above) was our only other LHSP to combat RH centric lineups. Yeah, that's another HUGE dropoff that nobody predicted and clearly did not "go the Reds way".

And I didn't even get into Raisel Iglesias who probably had the most engimatic disappointing season of them all.

I'm not sure what makes you think I thought the Reds were the only team with injuries especially when I noted that every team faces adversity and that other teams handled it better than the Reds. But to claim that "Everything has gone right for the team this year (well, until the last weekend in August)" is simply absurd as reinforced by the facts cited above.

My point was not merely that "everything went right."

It's that a TON of things DID go right. Yes, Votto and Raisel Iglesias underperformed. But that was more than made up for by Castillo and Lorenzen overperforming.


By the way, Kemp's preseason projected WAR was 0.1. Scooter's was 2.2. Bauer wasn't on the opening day roster. So you can't say those three doomed us. If those three had met expectations, the Reds still would have been 9-10 games under .500.

Well, "everything went right" is what you said and that is the part I am completely disputing for its absurdity. Castillo was our opening day pitcher. He was expected to be our ace and best starter even after adding key targets like Sonny and Wood. He may have pitched even a little better than we expected but he wasn't some surprise out of nowhere. That's the kind of improvement you are looking for from a 26-year-old experienced starter with his stuff. Lorenzen was good for a reliever, but that's all. Aside from the novelty of him playing the OF, he didn't do anything special. I'm OK with saying he met expectations, but he sure didn't blow them out of the water or anything so I don't know what you are talking about with him.

I'm not going to run down everybody's WAR, but it's a controversial stat that almost everybody agrees isn't anywhere near as exact as many use it as. "EXPECTED WAR" is even more controversial in that it's just one method's guess. In fact, there are multiple ways to calculate WAR so it is customary to cite which method you are using. But even if I accept your expected WAR for let's say Scooter, you are doing it wrong. Not only did he not end at 2.2, he didn't even end at 0. He was at -.7 for the season (not split for 2 teams) per B/R. Similarly, Kemp was -.9 You conveniently ignored Bauer as if the Reds had no expectations for guys they get or give in midseason trades which makes no sense especially when you are talking about impact on final record as you are. And of course, you ignored all the rest of things that didn't go the Reds way from my original post. But if we just take Scooter there's about 3 games of WAR value not received (-.7 - 2.2) and another from Kemp (-.9 - .1) so let's say 4 games. Reds went 75-87. Add 4 wins and it's 79-83, not the 9 or 10 below .500 that you claimed. And again that's a questionable method to use which more importantly ignores Bauer and all the other things that "didn't go right" that I cited which you refuse to address.

Regardless I NEVER said EVERYTHING went wrong for the Reds (in fact I noted in my OP that "I agree some things went better than expected"), just that your claim that EVERYTHING went right was ridiculous and easily disproved on many counts.

(10-08-2019 11:21 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Did the Reds underperform oroutperform expectations this year?

Projected ZIPS WAR in 2019 versus actual
(for projected & actual major contributors, because ZIPS projections inflate expectations from many minor contributors because it assumes they'll get a starting job and play the full season)

Missed due to injuries
projected 2.4 , actual 0.7 - Barnhart
projected 2.1 , actual -0.2 - Wood
projected 2 , actual 0.7 - Senzel (0.7 is pretty good for a rookie who only appeared in 104 games due to injury)

The Reds missed about 5 expected wins due to injured players (although actual time missed was only about 3 wins, the rest was due to players playing through injuries and having worse stats). This is much lower than the rest of the league, which averaged about 7 wins missed due to injuries.

Position Players

Underperformed Expectations - loss of 11.5 WAR
projected 2.2 , actual -0.4 - Gennett
projected 1.8 , actual -0.6 - Peraza
projected 0.1 , actual -0.8 - Kemp
projected 1.6 , actual -0.6 - Schebler
projected 4.1 , actual 0.7 - Votto

Met Expectations
projected 2.7 , actual 0.6 - Puig (in half a season)
projected 1.4 , actual 1.6 - Jose Iglesias
projected 1.6 , actual 1 - Winker (projection was high due to ZIPS projecting him as a starter)
projected 4 , actual 4.5 - Suarez
projected 1.2 , actual 0.6 - Ervin (had half as many plate appearances as ZIPS projections, even though he was never projected as a starter)
projected 1.8 , actual 0 - Galvis (midseason acquisition)


Good Surprises: - gain of 2.1 WAR
projected 0.5 , actual 1 - Casali
projected 0.6 , actual 1.1 - Dietrich
projected N/A , actual 0.2 - VanMeter
projected N/A , actual 1 - Aquino



Pitchers

Underperformed Expectations - loss of 2.3 WAR
projected 0.5 , actual -0.2 - Romano
projected 0.4 , actual 0.1 - Reed
projected 0.2 , actual 0 - Hughes
projected 0.4 , actual -0.4 - Duke
projected -0.2 , actual -0.7 - Peralta

Met Expectations
projected 4.3 , actual 0.6 - Bauer (projection was for full season, only had 10 starts for the Reds, and he had severely underperformed in Cleveland)
projected 0.4 , actual 0.3 - Bowman
projected 0.7 , actual 1.1 - Iglesias (yes, he actually outperformed ZIPS expectations)


Good Surprises: - gain of 10.0 WAR
projected 2 , actual 4.4 - Gray
projected 2.2 , actual 4.1 - Castillo
projected 0.7 , actual 2.4 - DeSclafani
projected 1.3 , actual 1.9 - Roark (exceeded that in only 21 starts!)
projected 0.8 , actual 1.4 - Mahle
projected 0.2 , actual 1.2 - Lorenzen
projected 0 , actual 0.4 - Garrett
projected -0.1 , actual 0.9 - Stephenson
projected N/A for Reds , actual 0.4 - Gausman (midseason acquisition who had one of the worst performances in baseball for the first half, so he really should have been a zero expectations)


So overall, Reds everyday players underperformed expectations by 9.5 wins and pitchers outperformed by 7.5 wins. In addition, the Reds outperformed expectations by 2-4 wins higher than the rest of the league due to missing the injury bug.

So overall, the Reds met their preseason expectations this year.

All the one-sided "adjustments" to your alleged met expectations section alone refutes your claim that "everything went right for the Reds" But even if we ignore that and accept the rest of your flawed methodology, your conclusion completely refutes the claim that "everything went right" for the Reds. Common sense says if "everything went right" for the Reds, they'd have exceeded expectations and you wouldn't even have an "Underperformed Expectations" section.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/players/pl...mer-bailey

i didn't realize he was an athletic. nice to see him get some momentum. 2012 was a special season. i was at milton's outside smoking a cigarette and this dude wanted a light and i said to him, well mister first you're going to have to tell me if the reds won. and he was all, homer bailey threw a no hitter! and then that playoff game. damn