(10-24-2015, 11:20 AM)kevin Wrote: The Kansas City Royals have been in the last 2 World Series. They do it with contact hitting and very solid bullpen of relief pitching, per Pete Rose and all the baseball announcers with him after the game, and I trust their opinion. Royals also are in because that Cain was fast enough to score from first base to home on a hit up the first base line into right field. The third base coach sending him home was a big part of it. Good coaching comes into play.....That brings in Cubs Madden who has turned around the losing Tampa Rays and the losing Chicago Cubs with great managing and working on fundamentals such as bunting and defense. The Cubs were the worst team on fundamentals in 2014 and baseball announcers could only laugh at them, and Madden changed all that in one Spring Training.

So these things are the things the Reds should and could do.....We have a Cain type in Billy Hamilton and I can see him scoring from first to home on a single if needed. Teach him to bunt, and he becomes awesome. Teach him to hit, and he becomes Lou Brock or Rickey Henderson in our lead off spot......The Reds bullpen has not been play-off material. The Reds need 2 or 3 quality left handers in the bullpen, it is just the way the game is today. You can't bring in a righty to face these big left hand hitters, they will kill you. A good bullpen has 2 or 3 leftys, and I mean quality lefties that can get people out.  The Reds bullpen needs 3 solid left handers and 3 or 4 solid right handers. Of course you need your closer, set up man, middle relief and long relief. No stiffs, they must all be solid. You can't be afraid to bring in the bullpen, you need to want to bring in the bullpen, everybody in the bullpen. The days of starters going 9 innings are over. Team go to the bullpen early and often, and you darn well better have a bullpen you can trust, every man in that bullpen.  

That is where the Reds should start, build the best bullpen in the National League, from top to bottom. The days of putting your bad pitchers in the bullpen are long gone. These need to be your best pitchers. Look what the Nasty Boys did in 1990....The Royals are doing it with BULLPEN.....

Besides the bullpen, improve the managing and coaching. The Reds have to be able to bunt at will. The Reds have to make all the basic defensive plays and throw to the right base and run the bases correct. Some call it Small Ball. Really, it is Smart Ball. You can't win making stupid mistakes every game. This can be corrected in one Spring Training as Madden has shown with 2 teams, as Sparky showed with 2 teams. Work this team on the fundamentals all Spring, over and over and over.  The entire team needs to learn how to bunt, including power hitters and pitchers. You should not have to take out a pitcher for a pinch hitter to bunt, pitchers should get drilled in the art of bunting. That is the type thing that will put the Reds over the top. In the National League, no DH, so pitchers have to learn how to bunt.

Royals do it with contact hitters. The Reds could do the same thing and contact hitters would hit their share of homers in the home run friendly Great American Ball Park.  Reds already have some contact hitters.  Votto is a contact hitter, a very high priced one, but a contact hitter.  Bruce on the other hand is becoming more of an Adam Dunn type, home run or strike out, Dave Kingman. Bruce does have a good arm in right field, but those long batting slumps of his, ouch....

Reds also could use a couple Super Subs, bench players that can play every position, outfield and infield, like Pete Rose or Ryan Freel or Jim Stewart who Reds gave the name of Super Sub.  A couple players like this on the bench really make the managers job a lot easier, per Pete Rose. Pinch hitters who can play anywhere. 

The Royals and Madden or Rays and Cubs have the blueprint the Reds could use....Build a great bullpen....Great coaching working on the fundamentals over and over.....Every Red must be able to bunt....Given the choice between contact hitters or strike out power hitters, take the contact hitters.....Good pitching, good defense, smart play, timely contact hitting.....Jack McKeon pointed out that Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds hitting over 60 homers, their teams didn't win those years. Jack McKeon said the home run is over rated. The same Jack McKeon who got a not that good Reds team to a one game play-off game, and took over a last place Florida Marlins in May and had that team in the World Series in October. ....Managing and coaching isn't nothing, it is everything.

Well, that's it....The KC Royals have the blueprint.....It's there for the Reds to follow if the Reds really want to win.....Now if Reds bring back the same team and do things the same way, doing the same thing will bring the same results, last place....It's time to go back to the drawing board, and The KC Royals, Madden, Lou Piniella,  Jack McKeon, Captain Hook Sparky Anderson already have put together the blueprint for winning over the last decades. Fundamentals,  Relief Pitching, Starting Pitching, Defense, Contact Hitting, Bunting, Some Speed On The Bases, Solid Base Running, Good Coaching, Fundamentals...." You said Fundamentals twice "....." I like Fundamentals, Fans like home runs, but Fundamentals take teams to the play-offs ". 

PS : Watch these games like a manager, right handed pitcher on the mound and right handed hitter, Advantage Pitcher...Left handed batter, Advantage Hitter.......Reds need 3 solid left handers in the bullpen and since Chapman is  one of the best closers in baseball and a lefty, he shouldn't be going anywhere. We need him right here. His paycheck is worth more than any of the home run hitters in baseball. We need the best bullpen in the National League and Chapman gives us a good start as a great lefty closer, just as Franco and Randy Myers did as lefty closers. I wouldn't trade a good lefty closer for anything or anybody,  That lefty closer will win you more games. ...In 2015 Reds honored The Nasty Boys. In 2016 they need a good bullpen of 3 or 4 good rightys and 2 good leftys and add Chapman and that's 3 good leftys and 4 good rightys, modern day baseball. ....I'm also changing my attitude on dumping Votto's contract, he is a contact hitter as per KC Royals. Now Bruce is another story. Cain going from first to home and then Toronto bringing in a fast base stealer who stole second and third shows Billy Hamilton who plays great centerfield is a big part of the future, just needs some fine tuning at the plate. 

(10-25-2015, 02:39 AM)WildCat Wrote: this would be great if billy could get on base. besides the obvious Lo Cain Rios among others not to mention Terrance Gore are extremely quick on the base path. him sending Lo. Cain home wasn't at all very surprising. Joey Bats made a throw to 2nd based on what he thought hosmer was gonna do rounding first and he did it from his backfoot at the wall. even cutting off to the first baseman you were not going to get cain in base running. The Reds don't have these type baserunners other than billy and we can't even get him on base. You my friend have a lot more baseball to watch.......we don't have the speed on the base paths that the royals do.

(11-01-2015, 11:04 AM)McC Wrote: You would also have to get rid of the whiff artists the Reds have and basically develop a whole new philosophy.  This might take years.