The Reds who stunk in April and clinched LAST PLACE early. have just became much worse. The hype is they are reloading for The Future. However with 2 months left of baseball, there is no reason to watch or follow Reds one more second this season. I do have Lodolo on my Fantasy Team. Not sure who is going to score runs for him. I also have Mahle who could be better on The Twins.

Enough with the Awful, Awful, Awful 2022 Reds Season. ENOUGH. Bring on Bengals Preseason Football who were in Super Bowl earlier this year of 2022.

The Reds have blown up the team except for Joey Votto, Unless you are one heck of a Votto Fan, which I am not, there is no point watching The Reds go Wire To Wire in Last Place.

Reds Trading EVERYBODY means it is time for BENGALS PRESEASON FOOTBALL and the heck with the LAST PLACE REDS. If they were bad before, they will be worse the rest of the year now with their best pitchers and hitters traded. The Reds should take out an add saying : " We have 2 months left to play, Ownership suggests you please don't watch any of it ".

The Fat Lady has sung her opera final song in her Viking wardrobe, has left the stage, changed cloths, left the theatre, went to dinner, and back at home with her feet up sound asleep. She has sang The Reds off and the janitor is cleaning up, the show long over.

SO GO BENGALS.

The Reds are currently in third place in the NL Central ahead of the Cubs and Pirates. Not bad for a team with a horrible start this year. I will watch the Reds even though they will not be a contender. BTW can't wait for the Bengals to start.

Clinched last place early? Guess you never noticed they are currently 3rd in the division.

(08-03-2022, 01:11 AM)kevin Wrote: The Reds who stunk in April and clinched LAST PLACE early. have just became much worse.  The hype is they are reloading for The Future.  However with 2 months left of baseball, there is no reason to watch or follow Reds one more second this season.  I do have Lodolo on my Fantasy Team. Not sure who is going to score runs for him.  I also have Mahle who could be better on The Twins.  

Enough with the Awful, Awful, Awful 2022 Reds Season.  ENOUGH.  Bring on Bengals Preseason Football who were in Super Bowl earlier this year of 2022.  

The Reds have blown up the team except for Joey Votto,  Unless you are one heck of a Votto Fan, which I am not, there is no point watching The Reds go Wire To Wire in Last Place.

Reds Trading EVERYBODY means it is time for BENGALS PRESEASON FOOTBALL and the heck with the LAST PLACE REDS.  If they were bad before, they will be worse the rest of the year now with their best pitchers and hitters traded.  The Reds should take out an add saying : " We have 2 months left to play, Ownership suggests you please don't watch any of it ".

The Fat Lady has sung her opera final song in her Viking wardrobe, has left the stage, changed cloths, left the theatre, went to dinner, and back at home with her feet up sound asleep.  She has sang The Reds off and the janitor is cleaning up, the show long over.

SO GO BENGALS.  

   

I disagree with the bolded. I don't really care that we traded Naquin or Drury. They were rentals that did not have a future with the team. Same goes for Solano.

I also don't mind that we traded Castillo and Mahle. Both are set for big raises after next season, and we aren't projected to realistically compete for the playoffs until about 2024, when Marte, Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, Spencer Steer, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Levi Stoudt, Austin Hendrick and Connor Phillips are expected to start joining the team and Joey Votto and Mike Moustakas are coming off the payroll (opening up funds for some free agents to fill in the gaps).

So paying those two would not have been a good idea (Castillo will likely break the bank and Mahle will likely command 15 to 18 million per year), since we wouldn't be likely be competing for anything until they are already 2 to 3 years into whatever extension we signed with them. Trading them for incredible returns to bolster our farm system (We added our #1, 6, 7, 16, 17, 18 and 30th ranked prospects at the trade deadline, with our #5, 9 and 15th ranked prospects being added right before the season) was the right decision.

We have three intensely exciting rookies in our starting line up. 

Hunter Greene, widely considered a generational prospect (he even made the cover of several magazines) prior to the 2017 MLB draft, hits 100 mph with ease and has one of the most ridiculous wipe out sliders I've seen since Aroldis Chapman.

Nick Lodolo doesn't have nearly the stuff that Greene has, but he has that location and pitch selection awareness that I haven't seen since Bronson Arroyo.

And Graham Ashcroft also can touch 100 mph with his fast ball but it isn't a four seamer, it's a cutter. In fact, the reason he wasn't a top prospect until right before this season is because he couldn't throw his fastball straight to the point that people didn't even want to play warm up catch with him in spring training! But our coaches decided, rather than training him to throw the ball straight, why not teach him how to harness the curve of his fastball and turned it into a cutter and sinker (breaking in opposite directions)

Quote:Ashcraft’s fastball was approaching 100 mph, but he couldn’t throw the ball straight. So the Reds then-minor league assistant pitching coordinator Eric Jagers, who’s now the Reds’ big league assistant pitching coach, helped protect the rest of the minor league pitchers by playing catch with Ashcraft.  

At first, Jagers focused on straightening out Ashcraft’s fastball. While playing catch, one pitch would cut to Jagers’ left and another would cut the other way. Whatever Ashcraft tried, his fastball was all over the place.


Then, Jagers had a breakthrough when he framed the challenge in a different way.

“Is this a problem, or is it just really unique?” Jagers thought. “Can it be consistent? Can we own the cut? Can you harness that and be consistent? That’s what we were after.”

And now, that’s who Ashcraft is. The rookie has a 1.14 ERA through four starts in the Reds rotation, and he still isn’t throwing a straight fastball. Over the last three years with the Reds, Ashcraft polished a 100 mph cutter that can move as much as some pitchers’ sliders. And he developed a sinker that cuts in the opposite direction.

With those two pitches, Ashcraft can cover the entire strike zone and can consistently force soft contact on ground balls. 

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/mlb/reds/2022/06/12/cincinnati-reds-pitcher-graham-ashcraft-diamond-rough/7582478001/

Not many players in the majors have a 100 mph cutter or sinker, making Ashcraft one of the most unique rookie pitchers in the majors.


Add to that, we have the reigning NL Rookie of the year in Johnathan India who is coming back from an injury and is starting to play like he did last season (hit .290/.365/.527/.892 in July) and we're about to call up a bunch of high upside rookies like Jose Barrero (who has been considered the shortstop of the future for this team since 2020 until the most recent trades that brought in Marte, Arroyo and Acosta to compete with him, along with McLain and Elly De La Cruz), Brandon Williamson (who we got in the trade for Winker and Suarez) and a very, very small chance of seeing Noelve Marte (the main return for Luis Castillo) and Matt McLain, our 2021 first round pick, come up in September (they are moving fast, but the majors this season may be a year too fast).

We also have Tyler Stephenson, a 2nd year player who was hitting .319/.372/.482/.854 in 50 games played this season although, regrettably, he did get injured due to a foul tipped ball breaking his clavicle (We probably should move him to 1B to prevent these kinds of freak injuries from occurring again. He's also had some other injury concerns related to his playing catcher).

I think there's still a ton of stuff to be interested in about this Reds season.

Just, you know, not the actual wins and losses haha.

(08-03-2022, 11:12 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I disagree with the bolded. I don't really care that we traded Naquin or Drury. They were rentals that did not have a future with the team. Same goes for Solano.

I also don't mind that we traded Castillo and Mahle. Both are set for big raises after next season, and we aren't projected to realistically compete for the playoffs until about 2024, when Marte, Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, Spencer Steer, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Levi Stoudt, Austin Hendrick and Connor Phillips are expected to start joining the team and Joey Votto and Mike Moustakas are coming off the payroll (opening up funds for some free agents to fill in the gaps).

So paying those two would not have been a good idea (Castillo will likely break the bank and Mahle will likely command 15 to 18 million per year), since we wouldn't be likely be competing for anything until they are already 2 to 3 years into whatever extension we signed with them. Trading them for incredible returns to bolster our farm system (We added our #1, 6, 7, 16, 17, 18 and 30th ranked prospects at the trade deadline, with our #5, 9 and 15th ranked prospects being added right before the season) was the right decision.

We have three intensely exciting rookies in our starting line up. 

Hunter Greene, widely considered a generational prospect (he even made the cover of several magazines) prior to the 2017 MLB draft, hits 100 mph with ease and has one of the most ridiculous wipe out sliders I've seen since Aroldis Chapman.

Nick Lodolo doesn't have nearly the stuff that Greene has, but he has that location and pitch selection awareness that I haven't seen since Bronson Arroyo.

And Graham Ashcroft also can touch 100 mph with his fast ball but it isn't a four seamer, it's a cutter. In fact, the reason he wasn't a top prospect until right before this season is because he couldn't throw his fastball straight to the point that people didn't even want to play warm up catch with him in spring training! But our coaches decided, rather than training him to throw the ball straight, why not teach him how to harness the curve of his fastball and turned it into a cutter and sinker (breaking in opposite directions)


https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/mlb/reds/2022/06/12/cincinnati-reds-pitcher-graham-ashcraft-diamond-rough/7582478001/

Not many players in the majors have a 100 mph cutter or sinker, making Ashcraft one of the most unique rookie pitchers in the majors.


Add to that, we have the reigning NL Rookie of the year in Johnathan India who is coming back from an injury and is starting to play like he did last season (hit .290/.365/.527/.892 in July) and we're about to call up a bunch of high upside rookies like Jose Barrero (who has been considered the shortstop of the future for this team since 2020 until the most recent trades that brought in Marte, Arroyo and Acosta to compete with him, along with McLain and Elly De La Cruz), Brandon Williamson (who we got in the trade for Winker and Suarez) and a very, very small chance of seeing Noelve Marte (the main return for Luis Castillo) and Matt McLain, our 2021 first round pick, come up in September (they are moving fast, but the majors this season may be a year too fast).

We also have Tyler Stephenson, a 2nd year player who was hitting .319/.372/.482/.854 in 50 games played this season although, regrettably, he did get injured due to a foul tipped ball breaking his clavicle (We probably should move him to 1B to prevent these kinds of freak injuries from occurring again. He's also had some other injury concerns related to his playing catcher).

I think there's still a ton of stuff to be interested in about this Reds season.

Just, you know, not the actual wins and losses haha.

While all this is true, many (most?) fans don't care about watching players develop in a losing season.
They just want wins, and they'll tune out until the team actually turns around.

(08-03-2022, 04:30 PM)ochocincos Wrote: While all this is true, many (most?) fans don't care about watching players develop in a losing season.
They just want wins, and they'll tune out until the team actually turns around.

I totally get that and it sounds like Kevin is that type of fan. But he said there's no reason to watch the games now unless you're a Votto fan. I gave a very good reason to continue watching :).

(08-03-2022, 07:07 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I totally get that and it sounds like Kevin is that type of fan. But he said there's no reason to watch the games now unless you're a Votto fan. I gave a very good reason to continue watching :).

Absolutely, you did.
And there are people who value watching players develop.

It's the same as to why some people care to watch NFL preseason.

Winning or losing those games don't matter. It's about seeing how back-end players perform to determine who makes the roster or not, who might get a bigger role, etc.

One of the things that's so frustrating to us old, long time Reds fans is they're on their 27th rebuild since the 90 wire to wire season. They have a total of like 8 winning seasons (if you throw out the shortened seasons) since 90. And their 3 or 4 brushes with the post season in those 30+ seasons have ended with the Reds getting their mouths mashed in a hot hurry. They're in the Bengals area of long time irrelevance.

And I think a lot of fans are more frustrated here lately because it seemed they were trying to finally push over the top. Bauer, Moustakas, Castellonos, Miley and so on. They had Suarez, Senzel, Votto played way over his head. And then - rug jerked out from under all hope again.

(08-04-2022, 09:34 AM)bengalfan74 Wrote: One of the things that's so frustrating to us old, long time Reds fans is they're on their 27th rebuild since the 90 wire to wire season. They have a total of like 8 winning seasons (if you throw out the shortened seasons) since 90. And their 3 or 4 brushes with the post season in those 30+ seasons have ended with the Reds getting their mouths mashed in a hot hurry. They're in the Bengals area of long time irrelevance.

And I think a lot of fans are more frustrated here lately because it seemed they were trying to finally push over the top. Bauer, Moustakas, Castellonos, Miley and so on. They had Suarez, Senzel, Votto played way over his head. And then - rug jerked out from under all hope again.

I enjoyed the 2020 and 2021 seasons, but that "rebuild," if you want to call it that, always felt like a short term thing to me. We signed Castellanos to an under market deal (especially after his 2021 season) with multiple opt out opportunities (one of which he ultimately took) and we signed Moose to an over market deal to give us that extra juice to push to the playoffs. We traded a chunk of our farm system for 1 1/2 years (only 21 starts!) of Trevor Bauer (Kind of similar to what the Mariners did with Castillo) who we knew we weren't going to sign long term because he made it very clear early on in his career that he never wanted to sign a long term contract.

Going into the 2021 season, it felt like if we didn't make a World Series run, then the whole team would fall apart because it was not constructed with prospects under team control, it was constructed with fairly expensive veterans on expiring contracts, many of whom would soon expect a large raise (Castillo, Winker, Miley, Mahle and Gray were all free agents after 2022 or 2023 with Lorenzen, Disco, and Castellanos being free agents that we would have had to re-sign to big contracts and Bauer having left after 2020). When we failed to even make the playoffs in 2021 with all of those contracts looming large, the team had to make a decision:

Do you keep/re-sign these players for 1 more season (2022) to see if they can put it all together and make a run for the playoffs?

Or do you sell them when they still have an additional year of control left and get an actual return of prospects? You can see in the Castillo trade how valuable that additional year of control is in terms of what you get back for a player.

They chose the latter and got a TON of hate for it. I'm not going to lie, I was upset as well. It felt like they were giving up before they even tried. But now, after seeing what that extra year of control meant in terms of the return we got for Castillo and Mahle, I actually think they made the right decision to blow it all up.

The 2021 team, with the NL rookie of the year at second, Castellanos having a career year (which he has, emphatically, not reproduced this year in Philly), Winker actually staying healthy for a season (2 of his first 3 years, he was unable to stay on the field for more than 89 games) and living up to his potential as a .300 hitter, and Joey Votto having a resurgent year (3.3 WAR in 2021, the highest he's had since 2018) and we STILL didn't even make the playoffs, let alone go on a run in the playoffs. 

In retrospect, it would have been a mistake to push the chips into the middle of the table in one last hurrah to see if we could sneak into the playoffs. This was a very flawed team even before the trades, with Votto and Moose single handedly taking up over a third of the payroll while producing essentially nothing, it was going to be very difficult to go on a run in the playoffs.

If we did, we may be on the brink of the playoffs right now, which would be fun, but then we'd likely either narrowly miss the playoffs or get in, but get bounced by a true contender in the first round of the playoffs. Then, we'd be looking at trading Winker, Sonny, Castillo and Mahle all as rentals rather than players with an additional year of control. And we've seen what a difference that makes in prospects. 

Long story short, I think we're in a much better position right now than we would have been had we tried to make a run this season. All the veterans on expiring contracts have been converted into quality prospects and that feeling of the clock ticking and making the playoffs being a do or die scenario is gone (for now). 

We're building long term for the first time in at least 10 years (after so many failed trades where we held onto players too long, like Cueto, Frazier, Chapman, etc) and what they're setting up for is 4 to 5 years of realistic competition for the playoffs built around prospects that will be under team control for 6 full years (for the players in the minors. It'll be 5 years for Greene, Lodolo and Ashcraft and 4 years for Stephenson and India).

(08-03-2022, 08:41 AM)cinci4life Wrote: Clinched last place early? Guess you never noticed they are currently 3rd in the division.

This post aged well... Last place again. Of course only a half game separates 3rd last. Unfortunately, they're still out of it, 3rd place or not.

The good news is that it doesn't matter where we place this season. In fact, we're currently in line for the #5 overall pick in the 2023 MLB draft. The MLB draft isn't nearly as impactful as the NFL draft, because the players don't typically make a genuine impact on the major league team for anywhere between 2 to 6 years (2 years if they're a college player, 6 years if they're a high schooler). There are rare exceptions, but that's the general timeline.

I wouldn't "tank" for the MLB draft, because it just doesn't have an immediate or even guaranteed impact, as draft busts are infinitely more common in baseball (hence the old adage "There is no such thing as a pitching prospect," but it's still a nice little side benefit of losing.

I know Barrero fell off of the planet after the injury and the recent influx of shortstop talent, but he had himself a night last night.

If dude figured something out or is improving as he recovers from the injury, that's a huge deal IMO. He has supposedly been working with Zinter on shortening his swing to gain more power, and it didn't take long to pay off. He looks like he's being pitched to a lot like Aquino. If he can lay off sliders that are a bit off the plate, perhaps he can return to being a significant part of the team's future plans. It's all health and discipline IMO.

Some seem to think he needed to stay in AAA to get his swing back, but honestly, the team has nothing to lose bringing him up right now. They've done a crap job of getting him MLB at bats, even when he's been healthy, ie at the end of 2021. His play in the field looks like that of a natural shortstop when compared to Farmer, who's a terrific ballplayer, but IMO should have been traded to be a super utility man on a contender. His place should be at 3B for the remainder of 2022.

Bottom line and overly positive spin here: if Barrero can prove himself at the MLB level over the rest of 2022 and in at least early 2023 before some of the prospects are ready, then this team is going to be farther along than we previously expected. He could become a legit bat at the top of the lineup, rather than another of the endless amount of position players that hit at the bottom of the order because they just don't have what it takes.

His success would also allow the organization to start moving other prospects to more permanent positions of future need sooner. Marte is probably not going to be a SS, more likely a OF or 3b. de la Cruz is a shortstop currently, but he's absolutely huge in stature for the position. I think he's destined for a corner OF spot. Arroyo is probably the next best natural SS in the minors, but he's not close to the majors. It may appear that the Reds didn't acquire much OF talent in the tear-down, but it's there. It just hasn't been determined yet. Barrero's development will have a major impact on that outcome, one way or the other.

(08-07-2022, 11:43 AM)samhain Wrote: I know Barrero fell off of the planet after the injury and the recent influx of shortstop talent, but he had himself a night last night.  

If dude figured something out or is improving as he recovers from the injury, that's a huge deal IMO.  He has supposedly been working with Zinter on shortening his swing to gain more power, and it didn't take long to pay off.  He looks like he's being pitched to a lot like Aquino.  If he can lay off sliders that are a bit off the plate, perhaps he can return to being a significant part of the team's future plans.  It's all health and discipline IMO.

Some seem to think he needed to stay in AAA to get his swing back, but honestly, the team has nothing to lose bringing him up right now.  They've done a crap job of getting him MLB at bats, even when he's been healthy, ie at the end of 2021.  His play in the field looks like that of a natural shortstop when compared to Farmer, who's a terrific ballplayer, but IMO should have been traded to be a super utility man on a contender.  His place should be at 3B for the remainder of 2022.  

Bottom line and overly positive spin here: if Barrero can prove himself at the MLB level over the rest of 2022 and in at least early 2023 before some of the prospects are ready, then this team is going to be farther along than we previously expected.  He could become a legit bat at the top of the lineup, rather than another of the endless amount of position players that hit at the bottom of the order because they just don't have what it takes.

His success would also allow the organization to start moving other prospects to more permanent positions of future need sooner.  Marte is probably not going to be a SS, more likely a OF or 3b.  de la Cruz is a shortstop currently, but he's absolutely huge in stature for the position.  I think he's destined for a corner OF spot.  Arroyo is probably the next best natural SS in the minors, but he's not close to the majors.  It may appear that the Reds didn't acquire much OF talent in the tear-down, but it's there.  It just hasn't been determined yet.  Barrero's development will have a major impact on that outcome, one way or the other.

Barrero is huge to the Reds future.  It will be crippling blow if this injury ruins his career.

Reds tried him in the outfield last year.  I don't care where he ends up but we need him to develop.  His still has big star potential.

Last year combined in AA and AAA he hit .303/.380/.539 with 19 HR and 16 SB in just 330 at bats.

I see this as showcasing for a future trade. They picked up several SS while he was inches away from the bigs? If they're going to get someone to bite on a Moustakas deal, you're going to have to have something else to entice them.

(08-07-2022, 12:14 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Barrero is huge to the Reds future.  It will be crippling blow if this injury ruins his career.

Reds tried him in the outfield last year.  I don't care where he ends up but we need him to develop.  His still has big star potential.

Last year combined in AA and AAA he hit .303/.380/.539 with 19 HR and 16 SB in just 330 at bats.

I doubt it ruins his career.  He's a good enough defensive shortstop to justify patience with his plate performance.  If he can return to what he was pre-injury as an offensive player, then he's a star in the league.  

They have a lot of shortstops, but to me only Barrero and Arroyo have the defensive skills to hold the position down on a long-term basis.  Marte is still rumored to be growing into his body, and has lost some speed and quickness in the process per scouting reports.  de la Cruz is a freak athlete, but it's just hard to imagine a guy who's 6-5 being a long term shortstop, although the Pirates have a young SS that size at the MLB level right now, so who knows?  McClain has always seemed like a guy who would be moved to another position eventually.  

That's the rub with shortstop prospects.  They tend to be the best athletes on a given team at younger levels of baseball.  It seems that more often than not, these guys get weeded out in farm systems when they come up against other high end SS prospects with more refined defensive skills.  The good thing is that these guys usually have the arm and glove to play almost anywhere but catcher.  

it will all work itself out in time, but I'd like to see Barrero stick at short rather than be moved to an OF spot.  He looks really smooth out there.

(08-07-2022, 12:27 PM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: I see this as showcasing for a future trade. They picked up several SS while he was inches away from the bigs? If they're going to get someone to bite on a Moustakas deal, you're going to have to have something else to entice them.

I hope to hell not.  

The idea of packaging crap contracts with decent prospects to get payroll down is a shit way to do business at this point.  The goal is to accumulate as much young, controllable talent as possible.  Barrero is both of those things.

The payroll is down plenty, and it's going to be Oakland A's level low after 2023.  The Reds aren't going to turn around and spend Moose's money on improvements to the MLB roster.  They aren't likely to contend for at least another year, maybe 2.  The smart play is to wait and let the Votto/Moose deals expire organically, keep your young talent, then manage it as need demands once it proves out.  If you give away Barrero to bail that contract, you're just making yourself pay even more for the mistake of signing Moustakas to begin with.  

Kinda wish they would have traded Strickland. Gave up a leadoff homer in the 9th which tied the games and now going extra. Reds did however get screwed in the top of 9. Barrero was up with bases loaded and one out. Got to a 3-2 count and took the next pitch just below the knees according to the K Zone box but was called strike 3. Should have been another run there and who knows what happens after that.

(08-07-2022, 06:42 PM)cinci4life Wrote: Kinda wish they would have traded Strickland. Gave up a leadoff homer in the 9th which tied the games and now going extra. Reds did however get screwed in the top of 9. Barrero was up with bases loaded and one out. Got to a 3-2 count and took the next pitch just below the knees according to the K Zone box but was called strike 3. Should have been another run there and who knows what happens after that.

I doubt most teams want a closer with an ERA pushing 6.00. I understand your point though, he has no longevity with the franchise. I wish they'd just 100% hand the closer role to Diaz.

(08-08-2022, 08:57 AM)TecmoBengals Wrote: I doubt most teams want a closer with an ERA pushing 6.00. I understand your point though, he has no longevity with the franchise. I wish they'd just 100% hand the closer role to Diaz.

I think Diaz is their only real “high pressure situation” type reliever at this point and penciling him in as a closer would limit his usage and value to this team, THIS year. I like him as a “stopper” right now but would be fine with him and another guy battling it out next ST for the job though. I get your thinking though, as he’s been a lone bright spot in an otherwise Craigslist-purchased bullpen.


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(08-07-2022, 06:42 PM)cinci4life Wrote: Kinda wish they would have traded Strickland. Gave up a leadoff homer in the 9th which tied the games and now going extra. Reds did however get screwed in the top of 9. Barrero was up with bases loaded and one out. Got to a 3-2 count and took the next pitch just below the knees according to the K Zone box but was called strike 3. Should have been another run there and who knows what happens after that.

He gave up two runs the game prior, where I watched Senzel throw an absolute DUCK from shallowish R-CF to home plate. With all this moving around of players HOW has Senzel NOT been moved back to the infield? He makes some nice catches out there but his arm is not made for the range a CF needs to be! I guess I should just be happy he’s finally staying healthy but damn…