07-31-2019, 01:43 PM
The move reeks to me of treading water and trying to keep everybody happy. They can look at the people who said they need to be sellers at the deadline and say "we flipped Puig!", while they can look at the people who wanted them to buy and say "we brought in Bauer!". They are trying without really trying IMO.
All these people bragging about how good the rotation is going to be next year, but how much has that helped them this year? Their pitching was a strength for the first half of the year and they've been floating about 7 games under .500 for pretty much all of it. It takes more than just a good-to-great staff to win, and while everyone wants to make every excuse in the world for the Reds ("look at their run differential!") they're not there yet. They've been mediocre *at best* all year long, and they're only propped up by the fact that they get a ton of leeway that the Bengals wouldn't (ie, "they're only 7 games under .500, they're right there!") while they've got Lance McCalister serving as the biggest homer this side of Geoff Hobson constantly selling them on the radio.
So now the Reds are going to ask everyone to buy into this great 2020 starting rotation before they trade them all away next July, probably for a few more short term rentals. Then we're right back to square one in 2021.
All these people bragging about how good the rotation is going to be next year, but how much has that helped them this year? Their pitching was a strength for the first half of the year and they've been floating about 7 games under .500 for pretty much all of it. It takes more than just a good-to-great staff to win, and while everyone wants to make every excuse in the world for the Reds ("look at their run differential!") they're not there yet. They've been mediocre *at best* all year long, and they're only propped up by the fact that they get a ton of leeway that the Bengals wouldn't (ie, "they're only 7 games under .500, they're right there!") while they've got Lance McCalister serving as the biggest homer this side of Geoff Hobson constantly selling them on the radio.
So now the Reds are going to ask everyone to buy into this great 2020 starting rotation before they trade them all away next July, probably for a few more short term rentals. Then we're right back to square one in 2021.
