Whoo. That was a good one, especially for the Reds player development department. Mike Leake (1st round, 2009) did a great job to quiet the newly vocal Mike-Leake-skeptics. Much like a Homer Bailey start, Leake wasn’t exactly ‘dominant’, but he allowed only 1 ER (out of 3 R) in 6 innings, and though he allowed 7 hits, only one of them was for extra bases – a double by Ike Davis. And that was more of a lucky shot, just down the first base line, but hit hard enough to get over into the corner. In fact, here’s a chart of where all the Mets’ balls in play fell – and none of them got much of anywhere – Leake certainly didn’t need the capacious Citi Field to help him keep it in the park tonight.

On the offensive end, Leake himself was 2-2 with a sac bunt. Perhaps Dusty should consider hitting him leadoff? His .603 OPS in his 139 career plate appearances  is pretty impressive. Todd Frazier(1st round, 2007)  did a lot of the rest of the work, driving in 3 of the Reds’ 6 runs, via two home runs – one of which was to straight center field, which, in Citi, is a ways out there, and the other of which mysteriously made its way past Lucas Duda at the right field wall.

But let’s not forget the contributions of  Zack Cozart (2nd Round, 2007), 1 for 5 with a double, Jay Bruce (1st round, 2005), who hit a pinch hit go ahead sac-fly RBI in the seventh inning before Frazier added the go ahead runs, and Drew Stubbs (1st round, 2006) was 2 for 5. Of course, we can never overlook Joey Vott0, who was 1 for 3 with a walk and a double, which just adds to his lead in both categories for all of baseball. 17 doubles with 36 games played roughly projects (haha, yes, yes) to 76 doubles for the season, which would, as unrealistic as it is to project these things, would  blow away the current single season record of 67, set in 1931. The modern record, held by Todd Helton in 2000, is slightly more achievable at 59.

Time for the update of the C-ing Red… something something, whatever I called that hotness index originally. Again, all caveats apply, but it’s actually holding my interest, so I figured I’d go ahead and share. Pretty much every is just cold right now. Votto and Heisey are hitting well, comparatively; Hanigan, Phillips, and Rolen are maintaining. Everyone else, is sucking a bit, hence the excessive amount of blue on the right side of the blog.

Votto though, is something else. A minor amount of comment has been made about Joey Votto’s slight lack of HRs, which was of course, more than made up for by his OBP and doubles power, and secondly, somewhat remedied by Sunday’s stellar performance. But Joey Votto’s name has come up in bright red nearly every-time I look at who’s hot right now.

Take a look at this graph of Joey Votto’s OPS over the course of this season.

Outside of the very small sample sizes at the beginning, and maybe like, one down week in mid-April. Mr. Votto has been on the up and up for the whole last three weeks, which is pretty awesome. Of course, this last jump is based on one phenomenal game, so even if Joey OPS’s 1.000 for the next month, that’s still technically a drop, but that just shows you how good Joey’s been thus far.

Also note that even though the offense has been pretty cold, we’ve won 3 out of the 5 games that the index covers, so it just goes to show, that a couple hot hitters, solid pitching, and a little luck can go a long way.

As far as turning things around tonight, Tim Hudson has looked vulnerable this year, but that’s only in 3 starts. He still boasts a pretty respectable ground ball rate, and for some reason, no current Red has been particularly good against him. Somewhat oddly, this will be the third time that Cueto faces off against Hudson – I noticed that with 4 PA against Hudson, Cueto has the sixth most PA against Hudson among all active Reds. Weird.

Photo by Wknight94 at wikimedia commons)

This is not a masterful win for the Reds, but it’s a win. I think Homer Bailey’s put up a couple of starts now that feel like this. He wasn’t great, but he got great results, at least in the box score. 6 2/3 innings with only 1 run scored is pretty great, right? But it took him a lot of pitches, and he didn’t strike out very many guys. He also had just 7 ground outs to 8 fly outs. Some of them were bizarrely hard hit pop ups, but I think it does mean he may have gotten a little bit lucky.

It was also another great performance for the bullpen, who kept the Reds ahead, even in a close game. 4 base-runners in 2 1/3 innings still isn’t the most dominant performance – it felt like the Braves were almost in it once or twice, but you can’t complain about what they’ve been doing this year.

Offensively speaking, the Reds were back to their low-scoring ways after last night’s Joey Votto fueled run explosion. Heisey broke his trend of being not-so-good when not-so-pinch-hitting by starting and going 3-3 with two doubles. Everyone else? Less good. But we won! And considering tomorrow night’s game is Johnny Cueto versus Tim Hudson, I feel mildly optimistic of our chances of winning this “series”.

(Photo by Blevine37 at the english language wikipedia)

I’m pretty sure Reds fans wouldn’t be making the case for Dusty Baker in the Hall of Fame, or Cubs fans either. Dusty does have a pretty good reputation as a manager, especially when it comes to looking out for his players. But looking at the numbers,  Baker should definitely be in the discussion.

Managers in the Hall of Fame is a confusing prospect. There aren’t too many – only 19, and before 2008, only 17. Identifying great managers by numbers is near impossible – wins are useful, but more based on how good the team is. Then again, managerial skill should get you a job with the best teams. Right? Maybe?

The procedure for electing managers to the hall of fame also obscures the system – until 2003, they were selected by closed sessions of the Veterans Committee, which did a fine job, but there’s very little data to suggest why some managers got in and some didn’t. Then, special elections were held in 2003 and 2007 by the VC for managers, with a complicated system for deciding who got balloted. There were also elections in 2008 and 2010, and now, from 2011 going forward, managers will be considered every year on the VC ballot, with qualifying players, executives and umpires.

The managers already in the hall of fame are not particularly consistent, and a lot of the bare data on them has to be understood from a historical perspective. For instance, Wilbert Robinson, who was selected by the Old Timers Committee of 1945 (so who knows), has 1399 wins, and a .500 winning percentage, which doesn’t seem particularly impressive, but apparently at the time 1399 was third all-time among NL managers. (I’m using winning percentage not because I necessarily think the VC looks at it, but it’s a decent estimate of how many good teams vs bad teams a guy managed. Most of the managers in the HOF have good winning percentages.) There’s also Bucky Harris, who has an impressive 2158 wins, and a less impressive .493 winning percentage – but his induction may also have to do with his solid play at second base as a player-manager, and his stint as the Boston GM, where he integrated the Red Sox for the first time.

Dusty’s case is not a particularly clear one. As I mentioned before, his 1500 (now 1500+) wins put him at 20th all time. The 19 men with more include 11 HOF managers, 1 HOF player, 5 either active or recently retired….and Gene Mauch and Ralph Houk. Mauch has at least been on a VC ballot, even if he didn’t get much support, but Houk’s only been on the pre-consideration ballot ballot. 8 HOF managers have fewer wins.

Those five recently retired/active managers are probably the biggest issue. If you’ve read  Bill James’ Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame, or Politics of Glory, or whatever the kids are calling it these days, timing is a pretty big issue with the Hall of Fame. Now that mostly applied to players and the BBWAA, but I think it’s very important now given the new system for electing managers. It’s going to be fairly difficult to even get on the ballot, not to mention mustering up votes. This is especially true with guys like Cox, Torre, LaRussa, Piniella (all ahead of Dusty in the wins category) retired recently. Who knows how much long Dusty will manage – or how long Leyland will manage? Or how many wins guys like Sciosia and Manuel will have when they retire and when that will be?

It seems a lot of the HOF qualifications come from legend and reputation – and I think Dusty may be a little low on that end. Compare Dusty to, say Bobby Cox, who has 8 Sporting News manager of the year awards, and 3 MLB awards. Dusty has 2, and 3 respectively, which is actually pretty good – he clearly had a much stronger reputation as a manager when he was in San Francisco. World Series wins also probably play a pretty big role, and most all of the other candidates have at least 1.

On the other hand, I think Dusty may have a few advantages. First, there’s the race aspect. There are no African-Americans inducted into the HOF as managers, though, of course, Frank Robinson is in the HOF and was a manager for many years. Cito Gaston might become a candidate, as he’s the first African American manager to win a world series, but he doesn’t have quite the longevity and record that Dusty does. Depending on when he retires, Dusty’s 1500+ wins and three manager of the year awards may be enough.

Second, Dusty does have a boost in his playing career. Not like Joe Torre, who has a solid HOF argument as a player alone, but Dusty was a good ballplayer for 19 years – his career OPS+ is 119. He was on deck when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. He may have helped invent the high-five. Can you imagine baseball today without the high five? It’s crazy! I don’t even want to think about it.

So there you have it. The case for Dusty is not particularly strong, but I think it’s still plausible. I still think his biggest issue may be VC voter fatigue with managers – as Cox, Torre, and La Russa are almost certainly going to make it in the next few years. If Dusty can hang on a few years past that, he may  increase his chances – especially if he gets his win number up around 1700-1800, and especially, especially if he can win a world series.

Here's hoping this guy finally allows some dingers. (Photo by muohace_dc/Flickr)

The Nationals are an interesting story this season. Back when we first faced them, we didn’t know yet where the season was going. Now, 20 games later, the Nationals’ storyline is set – upstart younglings with the best winning percentage in the NL East, while we’re floundering to keep pace with the Cardinals.

They also have the Bryce Harper storyline, which, whether you like him or not, you have to appreciate the fact that by age 19, both the stories of his badassery and jackassery have taken on a mythical, urban legend type quality (I heard Bryce Harper’s runny eyeblack is made from Elizabeth Taylor’s mascara).

The real story of the Nationals has been the pitching. The staff in Washington boast a by-far league leading ERA of 2.70, and while they do have a very low BABIP, they’re also striking out a lot of guys, and walking very few. The only weakness I can see is that they have an extremely low HR rate, but their groundball ratio isn’t particularly good.

Take Gio Gonzalez, for example, who will face off against Mike Leake tomorrow night. So far, he’s allowed zero home runs – that’s crazy. Gonzalez has reasonably low HR rates over his career, but that’s coming from the Athletics and a home park that definitely suppresses HRs. Gonzalez is good, but he walks a fair number of guys and he will give up home runs – and why not in a place which critics with a taste for dumb puns like to call “Great American Small Park”. (Return of Light Tower Power? Please? Also, Jay Bruce)

The other two starters, Jordan Zimmermann and Edwin Jackson look similarly due for a little regression to the mean (very low BABIPs), but have different peripheral profiles: fewer strikeouts (and in Zimmermann’s case much fewer) and fewer walks.

The offense on the other hand, is not particularly great. At 3.40 R/G, they’re well towards the bottom of the NL.

Of course last time, the series into a closely fought, soul killing extra innings affair, but, for both our bullpens, here’s hoping that doesn’t happen again.

(Photo by Blevine37 at the english language wikipedia)

First and foremost, congratulations to Dusty, who for all the crap he gets, has been a major league manager for a long time, and as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t screw it up too badly. 1500 wins is a lot – there are only 20 other managers who have done it all-time, and only one of them is still active (I mean, depending on whether you think LaRussa is going to rise from retirement like the cryptkeeper or something).  Most of those guys are also in the Hall of Fame or will be, so, good on ya, Johnnie B. Baker.

This was mostly on the shoulders of Johnny Cueto, who didn’t have the most dominant performance in the world, but overcame Zack Greinke shutting down the Reds lineup by posting 7 scoreless innings of his own, relying mostly on groundouts and either clutch or lucky pitching with men in scoring position. Of course, the Reds also benefited from Dusty’s somewhat unorthodox move of removing closer Sean Marshall in the 9th after Marshall had allowed a run and then put men on base with two outs. It looked ridiculous after the Brewers put in a pinch hitter and Ondrusek walked the first batter, but Logan got the out, and here we are.

This win is no thanks, to home plate umpire C.B. Bucknor who called what felt like a ridiculous zone the whole game. Brooks Baseball has a pretty handy strikezone tool that attempts to normalize the called strikezone for the reported pitchfX batter height, and it doesn’t look like a particularly consistent strikezone. But pitchfX isn’t perfect, the normalization isn’t perfect, and calling balls and strikes is really a hell of a job, so, just look for yourself and come to your own conclusion.

(Photo by sideonecincy on Flickr)

Reds Awesome! Ok, that doesn’t work.

But you know what does work? Our bullpen. That’s right. Even withstanding the loss of the magnificent Ryan Madson and his spectacular changeup (I like to think of Ryan Madson and his oevre as an early 20th century magic act), the Reds bullpen has really come into its own recently. Partially this is because we put Chapman in the bullpen, and Aroldis has been really really good. But Ondrusek’s been great, Hoover’s  been good in his short callup, and even Alfredo Simon’s been pretty steady after his initial struggles. Not bad, considering that we’ve had no value from Madson, Masset, or Bray , who we assumed we’d be relying before the season. As noted on twitter and elsewhere, the Reds bullpen is building on a 20+ inning scoreless inning streak, which is not too shabs.

Here’s how the bullpen stacks up in various stats around the league, not counting tonight’s games.

• ERA: NL 1st, MLB 4th
• WHIP: NL 2nd, MLB 6th
• K/9: NL 1st, MLB 1st
• BB/9: NL, 10th, MLB, 23rd (I guess we have to be bad at something)
• HR/9: NL, 7th, MLB, 9th
• xFIP: NL, 2nd, MLB, 3rd
• WAR: NL 3rd, MLB, 6th

Yeah, that’s pretty great.

Latos K'd 11, the Reds scored 5 runs. 11 times 5 = 55. Brilliant!(Image from BaseballBacks on Flickr)

Today was a pretty good game, all-in-all:

• It was a win
• It won us the series, which means it’s the fifth straight series we’ve either won or tied.
• It put us back above .500
• It was a shutout
• Latos struck out 11. While I was interested to find out that this doesn’t really measure on any record board for the Reds no matter the time period, it’s still impressive. I think only Cueto and Harang are very recent Reds pitchers to match or exceed that number
• The bullpen was badass. Hoover, Chapman and Simon combined for three scoreless innings with six Ks, no walks, and one hit. Our bullpen is awesome
• Stubbs proved me wrong (and we all know that deflating my ego can only be good for me) by being awesome – going 3-4, with a home run.
• Todd Frazier was also awesome – hopefully awesome enough to keep him on the roster.
• Jay Bruce extending his hitting streak. Wheeee!

Pretty much everything you could want, if you don’t count a couple of sketchy defensive plays. Still. Today was a good day.

Today, the Reds hit the road again for a weekend series with the Pirates at PNC Park in cloudy Pittsburgh, PA. The Reds rotation will feature Cueto, Leake, and Latos, against the Pirates’ Correia, McDonald, and Morton. Beating the Pirates is probably an important step on the way to get back to ‘being just good enough to win the NL Central’, so let’s take a look at the pitchers we’ll be facing.

Kevin Correia (Photo by djh57 on wikimedia commons)

Kevin Correia: 1-1 2.42 ERA

Correia is a familiar face to many of us,since he first appeared in the NL in 2003, and has been a regular since ’05. He hasn’t been very good though, in a long time, which is why his current 2.42 ERA is a little surprising. So far, Correia is boasting an impressively low .197 BABIP, which is the key to his current success, as well as his exceptionally low HR/9 and HR/FB rates. These may be related to the fact that he’s made most of his starts in pitchers parks so far. Of course, we’ll also be facing Correia in a pitcher’s park, but hopefully, our pair of power lefties will change those numbers a little.

Correia profiles a little like Arroyo, in that he doesn’t throw very hard, but will throw from a variable arm angle, and has a lot of pitchers in his repertoire, including a four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball, changeup, slider, curve, and a very occasional cut-fastball. Like many, Correia relies heavily on his changeup to face lefties. He’s been locating it well, which has helped him achieve this season’s success, but it’s easy to see what happens when his control falters – like in his last start against the Braves, where he lasted only 4 1/3 innings, walking 5 along the way.

» Continue reading “Asian Country, Fast Food, Salt: Scouting The Reds’ Weekend Opponents”

THE HILLLLLLLS ARE ALIIIIIIIVE WITH THE SOUND OF GROUUUUUUNDBAAAAAAAALLLLS. (Photo by Keith Allison on Flickr)

It doesn’t quite fit the meter, and in any case, I can’t see Walt and Dusty wearing matching habits, but I think Drew Stubbs is starting to cause some Julie-Andrews-level frustration in the Reds fandom (given, that’s not so much a demerit  as a badge of pride occasionally). It’s not that he’s the team’s biggest problem right now, but he and Scott Rolen have the lowest OPS’s of all the current starters.

Scott Rolen, at least, is a problem that makes sense, logically. An infielder in his 30s who is struggling to produce at the plate isn’t a surprise, it’s a cliche. Stubbs on the other hand, is just 27, and should be entering the prime of his career. He should be improving, and so far, he was worse in 2011 than in 2010, and so far he’s been worse in 2012 than in 2011. He’s also too old to send away from the convent to AAA. At this point, you’d have to put him on waivers, risking him falling in love with a member of the Austrian nobility and running away to Vermont to escape the Nazis.

The well-worn, and well-justified, adage at this point in the season is ‘small sample size’, but when have I ever let that stop me?

» Continue reading “What Do You Do With A Problem Like Drew Stubbs?”