A Year Too Early?

John Fay reported today that Dusty Baker and the Reds would discuss his contract status in early August.  This leaves me with some mixed emotions.  On the one hand, Baker has done a pretty good job this year, I think.  He's made some very good moves (like dropping Stubbs in the lineup and moving Phillips up), but also some not-so-good ones (like sticking with Orlando Cabrera and failing to get Chris Heisey in the lineup more).  Prior to the season, my big complaint about Baker was a fear that he would overwork the talented young pitchers that the Reds have.  He's done a good job there, seemingly having learned something from his past transgressions.  I suspect he'll get an extension, and I think it's probably a good move.

That said, this runs in contrast to how I saw the season playing out.  At the beginning of the season, I thought the Reds would need one more year before they could become a contender.  I felt the Reds needed this year to do the following things:

• Fire Dusty Baker,
• Move on from the fixation with Johnny Gomes and let Chris Heisey or Todd Frazier become the everyday LF,
• Trade Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo at the deadline for a few more quality prospects, and
• Get rid of Orlando Cabrera in anticipation of Zack Cozart being ready for 2011.

The Reds success this season has changed things a bit.  First, as I said, Dusty Baker has had a good year, so I'm cautiously optimistic that extending is a good thing.  It seems to me that we'd still be better off with Chris Heisey in LF than Johnny Gomes (although Todd Frazier isn't looking so hot right now).  Skipping the pitchers for a second, Orlando Cabrera has been a train wreck, and Cozart and Paul Janish ought to have a decent battle for the shortstop spot next spring. 

The pitching is the interesting item.  The Reds position as contenders would seem to make dealing Harang and/or Arroyo extremely unlikely despite the starting pitching depth that the team possesses.  Although I still suspect that the team would be better off in the long run dealing at least one of their "innings eaters", moving a prominent veteran player at the trade deadline suggests that the team is throwing in the towel on the season.  This tends to negatively impact both team and fan morale, and for a team in contention, the short-term win or two that could be lost may well be the difference between going to the playoffs or not. 

On the other hand, the Reds are a team currently constructed for the rigors of the regular season, not for playoff baseball.  They lack the top of the rotation starters that teams need to rely on in the postseason.  I've written plenty about them having plenty of pitching depth but little in the way of an ace, so I won't belabor that here.  The point is, in a short series, the Reds don't have the pitching to match up with a team like the Cardinals who can throw Carpenter and Wainwright at you for four games.  On top of that, the Reds don't seem to hit good pitching all that well.  Maybe that's just my perception, but the Reds have been shut out  a lot for a team among the best in the NL in hitting.  They've been shut down by Johan Santana, Cliff Lee, Felix Hernandez, Roy Halladay, and Cole Hamels (among others) over the last month or so.  That's the kind of pitching the Reds will face in the playoffs.

I'm loving the Reds resurgence this season.  I'm hoping that they catch lightning in a bottle and tear through the playoffs.  Deep in the back of my mind though, I'm wondering if exercising a bit of patience and grabbing a few more prospects at the deadline could ultimately lead to a greater number of playoff appearances in the coming years, and greater success once they get there.

Crowded in the Middle

I can't really recall a situation like the Reds face right now with their starting rotation.  In my mind, they've got ten decent starters, both for the remainder of this year and in future years, but none of those guys really stand out as top of the rotation kind of guys.  What should they do?  Let's look at what they've got to work with.  Several of the pitchers have some striking similarities, which, in my opinion, only makes it more difficult to figure out what to do.

The Veterans

Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang are the first guys to discuss.  They've been around the block, and we know pretty well what we're getting with them.  Both are free agents after this year, provided the Reds don't pick up their $13M options.  (Cot's Baseball Contracts has some nice salary information which helped me put this together.)  To this point, Arroyo has been worth 1.2 WAR and Harang 1.0 WAR this season, so they're not exactly living up to their current contracts at the moment.  Despite that, they continue to give the Reds more or less average production, as they have for several years.  They don't overpower guys; their stuff is basically average.  In fact, Arroyo's fastball only clocks in at 88.0, which is faster than only a dozen or so qualified starters in the majors.  Harang's is a more respectable, but still below average, 90.5.  

I've always thought of each of them as "innings-eaters", but after looking at the stats, I can see that's only really true of one of them.  Arroyo is working on a streak of five straight 200+ inning seasons and appears likely to get there this year as well.  In looking at the stats, I was surprised to find that Harang hasn't been so reliable these last few years.  Depending on how long his current back injury keeps him out, he could be looking at his third straight year of failing to hit 200 innings.  I tend to think that Harang is more likely to give you a big game, while Arroyo is more consistent and less likely to throw out a stinker.  The bottom line is, of all the guys on the staff, these two are the known quantities.  They're basically average pitchers who are going to give you six innings and keep you in the game more often than not.  Harang's inability to stay healthy at this stage of his career appears to make Arroyo the better bet going forward, both this year and in the future.  I think it is pretty safe to say that Harang's option will be declined next year.  I wouldn't be surprised to see the Reds try to bring Arroyo back on a two-year $16-18M contract or something like that.

I'm Back...

I've been out of town for while at my brother's wedding, so I haven't posted anything in a while.  I missed the atrocious string of heartbreaking losses to the Phillies, the near-perfect game by Travis Wood, the Cliff Lee trade, the All-Star Game, all the second-half previews and first-half reviews, and the seemingly endless break where nothing was going on.  There were a few posts worth making there, but it didn't happen.  I'm back now though.

To kick things off after the break, Bronson Arroyo pitched a great game, leading the Reds to a 3-2 victory over the Rockies.  Arroyo was dominating early, giving up only a single that Brandon Phillips usually fields cleanly through the first 6 innings.  He allowed a run in the seventh on a Jason Giambi RBI double (that I'd bet Chris Heisey would have caught if he'd been in for Gomes), but the wheels didn't come off until the eighth.  Miguel Olivo led off with a homer, but it was questionable enough to require a replay.  That could have been it for Arroyo.  At that point in the game, the Rockies were starting to get a read on Arroyo, and the break for review may have had an impact too.  In any case, Baker left Arroyo in, allowing him to walk Ian Stewart and give up a single to Clint Barmes.  If not for another awesome performance by Arthur Rhodes, Arroyo could well have been saddled with a loss in this game.  Baker could have prevented that possibility from ever coming up, but Arroyo only threw 93 pitches.  Even though the situation probably dictated that it was time for a change, I understand why Baker would have wanted to give him a chance to keep going.

Of course, Arroyo did get the win, and he can think Arthur Rhodes for that.  Rhodes walked the first batter he faced to load the bases with no one out and a one run lead.  He got Dexter Fowler (who earlier in the game robbed Jay Bruce of a three-run homer that would have made this situation moot) to fly out to Jay Bruce.  Ian Stewart wasn't about to try to run on Bruce.  Rhodes then struck out Jonathan Herrera and Carlos Gonzalez to end the threat and lead the Reds to victory.

On the offensive side, the Reds scored two of their three runs in the third inning.  I was watching the game on the iPod Touch, and I was amused by the Reds TV crew's description of what happened.  Brandon Phillips doubled to lead off the inning, and then "stole" third when he was caught going too far on Orlando Cabrera's bunt attempt.  (Why bunt in that situation?  It's the third inning!  The leadoff man is on second, the heart of your lineup is coming up, and you play in Great American Ball Park!  Start a rally, don't play for a single run.  But I want to rant on the TV guys, not Dusty, so back to it...)  With Phillips on third and no one out, Cabrera grounded out weakly to second.  The TV guys lauded Cabrera for professional hitting and making sure to get the run in, as if he shouldn't even have tried to get a hit in that situation.  What a load of bull.  Joey Votto doubled just after that play, and later came around to score on a Johnny Gomes single.  Had Cabrera got a hit, instead of a weak ground out, perhaps the Reds would have scored more.  With the recent power outage against the Phillies, giving away outs at the top of the lineup ought to be a definite no-no.  When you keep penciling Cabrera in up there though, you can't really avoid it.  (I don't even care that he had a RBI double later.  He needs to be moved down in the lineup, if he plays at all.)

OK, venting done, let's turn the page.  Edinson Volquez makes his first 2010 start tonight against the Rockies.  Here's hoping that he becomes the ace we need, especially after losing out on Cliff Lee.  The Reds have a bunch of good but not great pitchers right now.  They've got to figure out who their starting five will be going forward, and they'll need to figure out who they should be counting on if the playoffs roll around.  I'll work on getting my thoughts together about what they should do, but I've been struggling with it all week, and really have no idea what they should do.  It's a good problem to have right now.

Reds Win Again

I didn't get to follow tonight's Reds vs. Pirates game.  (I was out a bit late with my son's tee ball game, and I didn't have the luxury of following the game on my iPod Touch while getting the kids to bed since my daughter threw it in her grandmothers drink today.  Hopefully it will be all dried out and ready to go tomorrow.)  I see that Bronson Arroyo threw a beauty, and the Reds won 4-0 behind home runs by Miguel Cairo and Chris Heisey. 

As should be obvious by now, I like to pay attention to how many pitches Reds starters are throwing.  Arroyo threw 113, which is still a bit higher than I'd like to see.  I can kind of understand at this particular time though.  Tonight was game 13 of 20 in a row without an off day for the Reds.  During this most recent trip through the rotation, both Cueto and Bailey had to make early exits because of injuries, leaving the bullpen to pick up some extra innings.  When the Reds put Bailey on the DL, they quickly called up Enerio Del Rosario to help alleviate some of the bullpen workload.  The bullpen workload was enough of a concern that Harang was probably left in an inning longer than he should have been on Monday night.  Mike Leake was excellent last night and worked into the eighth, so that helped.  But with Arthur Rhodes ailing, Dusty probably still needs to rely more heavily on his starters at this point in time.

For what it's worth, at the same time I've been urging not to overwork the starting staff, redreporter has been looking at how the Reds' best relievers may be being overworked as well.  What's left?!  Well, there's actually an answer to that.  The Reds probably need to be using their lesser relievers a bit more.  The commenters correctly cited the fact that the Reds have been in a large number of one-run games and need bigger leads in order to get the lesser relievers opportunities that suit their skills (or lack thereof, I guess).  I'd argue that the way to do this is to avoid waiting until your starting pitcher starts to struggle to take him out of the game. 

Take Harang on Monday night as an example.  After six innings, he'd thrown 101 pitches and the Reds were comfortably in front 7-2.  Harang was even due to lead off!  It made perfect sense to tell him to hit the showers and let someone else get some work in.  Instead, Dusty sent him out to start the seventh.  According to the fangraphs game log, the LI (leverage index) was 0.33 when Harang went out to start the seventh.  I don't know much about LI, but I get that you want your best pitchers pitching when the LI is high (greater than 1) and your lesser pitchers pitching when it is low (less than 1).  Clearly this was a time when one of the lesser guys could have tried to get an inning of work in (and the Reds could have used a pinch hitter the inning before to boot).  Instead, Harang started the inning out, tired, and gave way to Del Rosario who entered the game to a 7-4 game with a runner on second and just one out.  The LI was 1.23 when Del Rosario took the mound.  Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to let Del Rosario try to avoid getting into trouble in the first place, instead of asking him to try to clean up the mess after Harang ran out of gas?  I certainly think so.