Reds Month Of April Games Thread.

[grampahol]

(04-25-2019, 06:49 PM)psychdoctor Wrote: The "spark" will be adding Gennett and Senzel.  At least I hope. 

I think, and I could be wrong that when Scooter returns we might see the end of Duke. They have to be careful though. I know everyone wants Senzel in the lineup, but with both Scooter and Senzel in it means someone else has to go and they can ill afford to play thin in the bullpen even if both Duke and Hughes have been train wrecks in the making. I'm fine with bringing in someone else, but the roster has to be intact and the bullpen can't just dump off pitchers willy nilly. Right now they have 7 in the pen. Bringing up Senzel and Scooter , cutting Duke and possibly Hughes cuts the pen down to 5...pretty darn thin unless they cut Schebler or Ervin or Farmer. Farmer and Ervin would be easy, but Schebler is under contract for 625k.. OK, I goofed and thought he was making a lot more...easy to drop and replace with the unknown big league abilities of Senzel who has only had a total of 201 plate appearances in the past two seasons and mystery injuries out the wazoo.. I'm not knocking the kid and I think he has a bright future, but he's got to stay healthy and serviceable and prove he can hit big league pitching. Right now he's hitting .250 in Louisville coming off his ankle injury so it's perfectly understandable why he's in Louisville instead of Cincinnati right now.
I don't want to see them have a paper thin bullpen and we know that at any time any player can get hurt and leave us with yet another Louisville express.. Another question is who would replace Duke and Hughes if they go that route? I don't want to see a 5 man bullpen when starters are routinely getting pulled after 5-6 innings. I'm interested in Kuhnel, but he's never face big league hitting.. I have a hunch he can do it. Whether the Reds braintrust agrees might be another story.