Reds August 2023 thread

[CJD]

(08-21-2023, 09:26 AM)bengalfan74 Wrote: Well, the Hunter Greene return was disappointing to say the least. I'm not sure I've ever seen a staff Ace hit so hard and so often? 5HR's 4 2B's 1 triple in three innings!

So where do we go from here? I'm not saying Greene is washed up, he's just 24 years old. But my hopes of somehow making the postseason this year have totally evaporated. It's gonna take some innings for him to get back on track.

Hunter Greene may end up being this generation's Homer Bailey.

Bailey had a career ERA of 4.56, a career WAR of 6.2, but he also threw 2 no hitters as well as multiple 10+ K games.

I think Greene's potential is much higher than Bailey's, as he has that 100+ mph fastball potential.

The problem is, despite how fast he can throw it, major league hitters don't seem to have any problem catching up to it.

I've long felt like a triple digit fastball is pretty much worthless unless one of these three are true:
1. It has incredible movement that is not predictable (basically, you have to be Mariano Rivera, granted his main pitch was technically a cutter).
2. The pitcher has a high quality change up that is ~10 mph slower and comes out of the same arm angle and arm action.
3. The pitcher has a wipeout breaking ball (usually slider, but sometimes a curve) that comes out of a similar arm angle.


Remember, Luis Castillo could hit 98 with relative ease, but what made him such a deadly pitcher was that his change up looks exactly like his fastball until it was too late.

As far as I can tell, Hunter does not have any of these three at the moment, so he will get high strikeout numbers when players struggle to catch up to his heater, but once the batters sync up to it, they can ignore the obvious breaking balls and just time up the fastball and let it ride.

It didn't help that the weather yesterday was basically prime home run weather. I've never seen a ball go out of the stadium at less than 90 mph before, but one left at just 87 mph yesterday (which I believe was a new record, either for the season or ever, I don't recall).

It's just a shame that the Reds hitters weren't able to capitalize on that...