I’ll miss you, Scott and Miguel. But not too, too much. (Photos by Keith Allison/Flickr)

It’s a strange thing – though generally the Reds had very low turnover this offseason, the opening day roster will still feel very “new look”, thanks to the lack of Scott Rolen and Miguel Cairo. Neither player will be suiting up for the Reds in the 2013 season. Miguel Cairo has taken a position with the Reds, as a Special Assistant to the GM. While Scott Rolen has not said what he’ll be doing, he won’t be attending camp with the Reds, and it’s hard to see him joining the team midseason without significant injury to the current roster. Rolen’s ambivalence this off-season suggests that he’s not ready to leave baseball just yet. It’s not impossible for him to end up with some team in 2013, but I think it’s more likely that he’ll end up taking some time off, and maybe gradually inching into management positions – but he’s said he wants to spend more time with his family.

Cairo and Rolen haven’t defined the recent Reds teams, but they’ve been a mainstay since 2010 – as part of Walt Jocketty’s Veteran Presence Former-Cardinals Initiative. (It’s like the Avengers Initiative, but with less pecs and more shoulder injuries.) Rolen was brought in to provide a more stable presence (offensively and defensively) at third base in a trade that sent Edwin Encarnacion, Zack Stewart (who?) and Josh Roenicke (who?) to the Blue Jays, while Cairo came in as a free agent in the following offseason.

2010 was definitely the best year for CaiRolen – Rolen was great everywhere, at the plate, in the field, in the the clubhouse, and Cairo was pretty excellent for a bench player. 2011 went a little haywire: Cairo still provided league average offense, but had an increased responsibility, thanks to Rolen’s injury problems. That was only one of the multiple failures with the 2011 team, but it surely showed us one of the potential drawbacks of older players. 2012 was a bit of a return to form for Rolen, but the 37-year-old was still subpar, especially with a young fun like Frazier knocking down the door. Meanwhile, Cairo sank into the pit that was the 2012 Reds bench.

Here is Rolen’s final line with the Reds:

And Cairo’s:

By the numbers, at least, Rolen and Cairo won’t be hard to replace. Rolen was worth about 1.1 WAR last year, while Frazier was worth 2.8 (in more playing time, overall). More time will exacerbate Frazier’s slightly below average fielding, but then again, settling into one position might improve Todd’s defensive skills. Still, the projections see Frazier as about a 3 win player in 2013, and I agree.

Cairo was rated as worth -1 wins last year. Infield bench replacements look likely to be Jack Hannahan, and Jason Donald. Hannahan was worth about 0.5 wins (~300 PA, 750 innings) with the Indians last year, and Donald was worth -0.4 wins (~130 PA, 300 innings). Neither are spectacular options, but bench guys rarely are. In any case, they can almost certainly match the work of Valdex and Cairo last year.

Of course, the line on both Cairo and Rolen has been their role as veteran clubhouse leaders. While I, like most interneters, have no direct knowledge of this, the stories do suggest that this was of some importance. I certainly appreciated their ability to not be involved in scandals, and even to not say anything that caused too much of a stir. A team of 25 of those guys might be a little boring, but a couple of solid presences is always appreciated.

In 2013, though, the team has changed in substance. Joey Votto is not promising youngster – he’s an MVP who’s been to the post-season twice, and overcome multiple struggles. Brandon Phillips is now a part of the fabric of this team, you have guys like Bruce and Hanigan who have been around for awhile. There are still older, experienced players around – like Arroyo in the rotation, and Ludwick in the outfield. Mostly, though, when I look at this team, I see a team that has grown together. They know each other’s quirks and idiosyncracies. They’ve won and lost together.

Look! It’s so sunny, and palm-y and Brancusi-y. (Photo by Michael J. Mandeville, Flickr)

Even though a blizzard is just about to blow through the north-east, it’s really almost time for there to be pre-pre-baseball! Yup, it’s that’s time of year. A time of renewal, a time of “best-shape-of-your-life”, a time of grapefruits and cactuses, a time of …spring training statistics.

Look, I know you know spring training statistics are dumb and meaningless, but sometimes in the spring it’s easy to get caught up. I mean,  here we are, looking at news about Mike Leake avoiding arbitration, and stressing out about whether participation in the WBC is courting injury. And then, suddenly … there’s a baseball player! He’s holding a bat! Some other baseball player throws a ball at him, and some outcome occurs! And sweet baby jesus, someone records the result and puts it on the internet. I just want to love it and hug it and call it George.

But I shouldn’t. Because you know I know that spring training statistics are dumb. So as a reminder to myself, I went back to last year’s spring training statistics and compared them with the regular season marks. Et voila:

It’s like Votto and Rolen got into a crazy baseball-skills-switching device. But they couldn’t switch back, and then they had to find two extra people to have them get back in the correct bodies. Also,  Wilson Valdez looked like an acceptably horrible hitter. Stubbs looked liked he could hit a baseball! Oh, the magic of 20 meaningless plate appearances.

Pitchers can be a little different:

Well, and maybe it’s just our hitters, but clearly pitching CAN be bad for everyone across the board in ST. So there’s no need to worry about spring training numbers, just about how we’re going to handle Chapman pitching in the rotation. Hurray!

Photo by Keith Allison/Flickr

Fay’s blog post for today mostly focused on Jay Bruce volunteering to play CF after trading Stubbs for Choo (though the plan is apparently still to play Choo in center), but there is an interesting quote from Dusty Baker on Scott Rolen.

“It’s getting late. Life goes on and business goes on. Since we signed Hannahan, it’s getting crowded. Plus, (Todd) Frazier deserves a chance to play.”

Dusty also said that he hasn’t spoken to Rolen since before Christmas, and this quote really makes it sound like he’s not expecting Rolen back.  Obviously, Baker doesn’t sign the contracts, but Walt hadn’t heard from Rolen on his last update either.

January 12 may not seem late – opening day is a long ways away, and many teams are still putting a few final pieces in place. Still, as Dusty notes, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of room on the roster right now. (It’s also great that Dusty’s firmly pro-Frazier.) Plus, the position players are supposed to be reporting to spring training on February 15. That’s more than a month away – but my feeling is that Jocketty is going to want to focus strongly on signing the arb-eligble players (possibly to long term deals) during that time period. In a few weeks, we may not have the payroll flexibility to sign Rolen to even a very inexpensive contract.

There’s also the fact that we may just not need Rolen anymore. Scott was decent for the Reds. His numbers since being traded in here in 2009 are pretty bad, actually, but he was an important force behind our 2010 NL Central division title, and I think his presence has been important for young, but now maturing team. The lack of communication does kind of seem like Scott Rolen is ready to hang it up for a bit, anyway. He has played 17 years in the big leagues, and it definitely seems like the grind is wearing on him. I’m hopeful that maybe he’ll relax and annoy his kids for a year or two, and then come back and coach in the organization.

Of course, now that I’ve written this, tomorrow, Walt Jocketty is going to announce that Scott Rolen has signed a one year contract. We should know pretty soon – on January 3, Jocketty said he expected to know in a week or ten days, which is…. uh, pretty soon.

Photo by Keith Allison/Flickr

Well, a win is better than a loss. Right now, the Giants are beating the Dodgers, which would send the Cards to the wildcard game, but it’s a one-run game, and not particularly close to being over.

Overall, this puts the Reds and the Cardinals at an even 7-7 record on the year, so tomorrow’s game will decide once and for all, who wins the head-to-head matchup in 2012. Since the we’re not tied in any other shape or manner, it’s completely irrelevant. Hurrah!

Mat Latos was a bit more impressive today than Arroyo was yesterday. He had some minor problems in the first inning, allowing a leadoff double to Jon Jay, who would eventually score on a sac-fly. But that was all the Cardinals could muster. Latos would allow three more hits in his five inning, one of them another double, but would sneak out of trouble everytime. Latos would come out with the win, thanks to some excellent work by the Reds bullpen, once again. Lecure, Marshall, Broxton, and Chapman, came in for some lefty-righty-lefty-righty action, and pitched 4 innings combined, allowing only 2 hits, and one walk.

The bats, meanwhile had a slightly better day today, mostly on the strength of old man Rolen, and back-up back-up catcher Dioner Navarro. Meanwhile, Stubbs went back to the depths of the horror that has been Stubbs-2012. I really like Drew. I want him to do well, but it looks bad for him.

Tomorrow’s goal? Make the game last 25 innings, preferably while using minor league callups and Todd Redmon in extras.

(Photo by Keith Allison/Flickr)

Or, “The Search For Frazier’s Playing Time”

Today marked the first day of Joey Votto’s return to the Reds lineup. It was like Christmas, Chanukkah, Festivus, and Ramadan all rolled into one. As expected, he was fantastic, though the outcome of the game was not so great. A lot of angst has been put into the the fate of Todd Frazier, with good reason. Since Votto’s injury, Frazier has slotted in most often at first base, while Rolen has gone back to manning third almost full time.

Both before and after the injury, Frazier has been excellent, which has been highlighted by the fact that his playing time nearly doubled after the Votto Injury Watershed. Here’s a look at the offense, before and after 7/15, which was the last game (before today) that Joey Votto appeared in.

That really highlights how important Todd Frazier become to the Reds, as the player with the most plate appearances, after Joey went on the DL.  Unfortunately, the numbers demonstrate how difficult it’s going to be to get Frazier on the lineup as much he deserves in the next month. Thought Frazier started in the Reds system as a shortstop, right now, it looks like he can essentially be trusted to play first, third, and maybe a little left field. However, we’ve got Mr. MVP back at first base now, and both Rolen(.894) and Ludwick (1.051)  have hit very well with Joey out.

Obviously, I think that Frazier should take on more of the starts at third base. We won’t get much improvement over the last 30 games from that, as Rolen has hit so well in Joey’s absence – but it will probably be beneficial going forward, as Rolen may be wearing down at the end of the season. (Though I’m pretty confident that Dusty won’t sit Rolen as often as I would. Meh, c’est la vie.) Slotting Frazier in at first is probably also a good idea, as Joey certainly doesn’t need to be playing seven games a week, straight from coming off injury.  It’s tempting to throw Frazier into left – but 1) Ludwick is hitting well, and 2) considering defense, Heisey is probably the better sub.

It’s frustrating that we can’t shift Frazier to take on some of the weaker spots in the lineup, but unless he’s learned to catch, or play center field, our options may be limited. It’s also a shame to think that the return of Votto is only going to provide marginal improvement to our offense. I mean, Joey is the god-king-emperor of all creation and all, but his return would be more dramatic if Votto was going to essentially replace 5 Miguel Cairo plate appearances every game.

(Photo by sideonecincy/Flickr)

That was a good win, as the Cardinals look to win tonight, as well. Maintaining the gap, at a formidable 8.5 games right now is all we can ask for. I also heard from Mitch Williams of MLB Network (because everything he says is totally 110% correct) that the Phillies are the out-of-contention-spoiler team to fear the most this September. Beating them essentially makes us the awesomest, but we knew that already.

The game was won mostly on the play of two individuals. Jay Bruce clubbed his 31st home run of the year, turning a 1-0 loss into a 2-1 win, as Ryan Ludwick was on base. Bruce’s batting average and on base percentage aren’t great – but 31 home runs is pretty decent, especially with a month to play – it’s good enough for 2nd in the NL (though he lags behind Ryan Braun by quite  large margin).  Last year was his previous season record for homers, at 32, so he’s probably going to beat that by quite a margin.

Also, by my count, 18 of Bruce’s homers have come in a tie game, or with the Reds behind. That’s not a particularly reliable or in-depth analysis. But I think his 125 OPS+ shows that we’re definitely better off without him, even if his strikeouts are frustrating.

Mat Latos was also a big part of tonight’s win. Seven innings and one earned run is always good. Of course, he didn’t look great the whole way through – walking in a run is always a big flashing alarm. Two walks and a hit-by-pitch in the same sequence definitely looks like your control is gone. Latos has Stubbs to thank for getting out of that. Stubbs caught a sinking liner into center field on his feet, and got the ball back into the infield  for a double play.

Other than that inning though, Latos only allowed 3 hits and no walks. It was definitely nice to see a young guy like Latos buckle down after a rough inning and come back out for three more.

This game also featured a great defensive play by Bruce, Scott Rolen’s 2000th hit, and Aroldis Chapman’s 35th save. What it didn’t feature was Joey Votto. SOON.

This graphic (supposedly) represents the Reds defense in 2011. (The plays and balls in zone numbers are really basic numbers available from fangraphs. The playing time percentages are based on innings played.) That 2011 team sucked, but the defense was highly rated – ranking 2nd in overall UZR in the NL, and 4th in fielding percentage. We also topped the NL, and were second only to Tampa Bay in MLB, in defensive efficiency rating – the most basic rating of how many balls in play get fielded.

Fast forward to 2012, and it’s suddenly no longer the case. Hal McCoy and Dusty have commented on it recently: but mostly in terms of a error-licious Cubs series. But it’s more than just that. We’re actually still 4th in fielding percentage. But our team total UZR and DER have dropped to almost exactly league average. Here’s what the same graph looks like for this season:

» Continue reading “Why Is The Reds Defense So Much Worse In 2012?”

Tonight’s game was not fun, as losses pretty much never are, but it wasn’t quite up to the ‘heartbreaking’ levels of other losses. Nothing was surprising, no really outstanding performances were wasted, no ridiculously terrible performances were out there to be ridiculed.

I mean, yes, Leake’s six runs in three innings meltdown was pretty bad. But, really, Leake may just be  an saverage pitcher (which is fine), and average pitchers are going to have a couple outings like this every year – and at least it wasn’t an epic blowout – like Yovani Gallardo allowing 10 runs in 2 innings to the Cardinals tonight. It did feel worse in the ninth inning when Jay Bruce and Devin Mesoraco’s solo home runs brought us within 2, but I’m pretty confident that had we not been 4 runs behind, we wouldn’t have been facing Fernando Abad.

Ludwick and Rolen were also pretty bad, each going hitless. I’m getting closer to losing hope with both these guys, but at least it’s not at all surprising. Ludwick seems to get by with a clutch hit every now and then, just often enough to escape being entirely useless-seeming. And at this point Rolen is a big part of this team’s personality, and management loves his leadership and overall veteranocity. That would be fine if we got some offense out of left field.  Hey, I hear the Angels released Bobby Abreu?

In better news, Stubbs made up for a fielder’s-choice-picked-off combo by getting an actual hit and only striking out once, Bruce was pretty awesome, Frazier’s pinch-hit triple was bad-ass, and the bullpen was excellent. We haven’t seen a lot of J.J. Hoover, but I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be a pretty good return for Juan Francisco. Even much-maligned Alfredo Simon did quite a job mopping up after Mike Leake.

So now it’s up to the Reds to win the next two games to win their second series in a row, and come back to .500 on the year. The pitching matchups are Cueto vs.  Lucas Harrell and Mat Latos vs. Bud Norris.  That’s probably a solid advantage, and a good chance, so I don’t think it’s out of the question at all.

I'm not sure how I feel about being on the same side as Ernest Hemingway.

With a pristine 1-0 record, tomorrow night, the Reds look to keep the loss column empty against the still winless (after 2 games, gasp, they’re doomed!) Marlins. The Marlins will look pretty similar to Thursday’s team. One major exception is that LOMO will be back in action in left field, as the Marlins started Chris Coghlan on Thursday, in order to give Morrison’s healing knee a bit of a break, as it was a day game after a night game. Lomo’s not a particularly game-changing offensive presence, but he’s definitely a run-scoring upgrade over Coghlan.

Right hander Ricky Nolasco will be starting for the Marlins. Nolasco isn’t exactly terrible, but he’s certainly not very good. At this point he seems like the anti-Arroyo: his K and BB numbers aren’t too bad (although his strikeouts really dropped last season), but he’s been well-worse of his FIP for three straight seasons now. Nolasco had a drastically increased groundball rate last season, but still managed to get worse, as he also allowed 24% line drives. Nolasco tends to throw a lot of pitches – four-seam and 2-seam fastballs at about 90 mph, a slider, a curve, and also throws a changeup and splittter almost exclusively to lefties. It hasn’t been doing him a lot of good, though, as left handed batters OPSed .835 against him last season.

This will also be our first chance to see Mat Latos in a Reds uniform. Latos actually profiles pretty similarly to Cueto – young right-hander who throws about 92-93, with a sinker/2-seamer, a change, and a slider- with the big differences being that Cueto has more movement on his fastballs, and Latos relies less on his changeup, favoring a nice, 12-6 curve .

Neither pitcher has enough at-bats against the opposing lineup to be at all significant, not that it’ll stop managers from making somewhat questionable decisions. This is especially true of Latos, who has only been in the league for a couple years. Hanley Ramirez, unsurprisingly, has had some success against him, and Josh Johnson is hilariously 2-2, though of course, we probably won’t see Johnson at the plate anytime tomorrow. Nolasco has a bit more of a track record, having pitched in the NL for awhile. Votto is surprisingly not as good against Nolasco as you might expect (still pretty good though, natch), but Bruce, Stubbs, and Rolen have all had a lot of success against him.

In any case, I expect the lineup to hit well off Nolasco, and for Latos to be at the verrrry least, extremely competent, and get the Reds a win tomorrow.

As the Reds duck back below .500 again, we can take hope from the forthcoming arrivals of some key players. The first, timewise-not-importance-wise, is Mr. Fred Lewis who was  activated  today to provide another outfield-bat. Lewis will replace Hermida who, although he had a nice homer against his former team, the Marlins, was pretty terrible – only 2-18 in his time with the Reds. Lewis should provide a nice bat off the bench – and I wouldn’t mind seeing him spelling Gomes against RHP.

Homer Bailey, finally back after a long shoulder impingement rehab, will get the start Thursday, the postponement of Monday’s game. Homer has been excellent in 3 AAA starts – allowing only 1 run in 16 2/3 innings. Although this isn’t exactly predictive – afterall, Bailey’s dominated AAA before, only to falter at the major league level – it certainly is somewhat comforting.

Cueto, Bailey’s partner in spring training injury, is also coming back, and will start Sunday night’s game against the Cubs. Johnny hasn’t been as good as Homer in his 4 rehab starts, but has been pretty decent since his April 21 8-run 1 2/3 inning meltdown. Now, as Bailey and Cueto rejoin the rotation, Mike Leake and Sam Lecure are the odd men out as the rotation returns to the original plan. John Fay’s most recent report sends Mike Leake to the bullpen, but other reports say that Sam LeCure will be moved to the bullpen. I’d rather send Leake to AAA where he can get work as a starter, rather than rotting in the pen as a long reliever.

Lastly, in the far, hopefully not so far, away category, team leader Scott Rolen reportedly took some illicit practice swings this week. Ok, Scott. We really, really, really really want you to come back soon. This whole Miguel Cairo-Edgar Renteria business is just not working for us full-time. But, for the love of baseball gods, please, please don’t re-injure yourself again. Please, please, please. (Please.