Early thoughts on Bell

[Circleville Guy]

This guy is in way over his head. They say that a manager makes the difference in 3-4 games a year, It seems like Bell has already contributed in 3-4 Reds losses. His lineup changes daily and looks like it gets drawn from a hat, he usually burns up the bench way too early, his stupid 4 man outfield, he burns through his relievers and pitches them in wrong situations. His favorite reliever seems to be his worst pitcher that can’t get RH hitters out. The game was on the line last night and he lets the pitcher hit with the bases loaded basically conceding the game. If that wasn’t throwing in the towel enough, he handed the Dodgers another 2 runs by bringing in his favorite reliever. This manager is erratic and doesn’t seem to have much common sense. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, he’s been atrocious these first 2 weeks. I don’t fault the Reds for giving a newbie a shot but that 3 year deal is scary. He needs to improve and I mean drastically improve soon, he’s like a second opponent for the Reds. Yes, it is early but his moves so far are putrid. I want to root for the guy but man, I can’t see him lasting past this year if this is the managing style that he sticks with. Did I say horrible yet?

[grampahol]

He pretty much had to let Mahle hit for himself last night since nearly the entire bullpen was depleted.. Was he supposed to let Duke go out and pitch 6 innings? 
I didn't think so, but yeah, some of these lineup moves don't make any sense. They're relying it seems on nothing but analytics from a fan of another team who hates the Reds..

[Circleville Guy]

(04-17-2019, 12:29 PM)grampahol Wrote: He pretty much had to let Mahle hit for himself last night since nearly the entire bullpen was depleted.. Was he supposed to let Duke go out and pitch 6 innings? 
I didn't think so, but yeah, some of these lineup moves don't make any sense. They're relying it seems on nothing but analytics from a fan of another team who hates the Reds..

Bell was just on the radio today saying that the bullpen is in excellent shape today. It’s funny how they go from needing a complete game to having everyone available in 12 hours. Regardless of who pitched, that was the only chance the team had to win the game. Mahle didn’t pitch much longer anyways.

[Circleville Guy]

(04-17-2019, 12:29 PM)grampahol Wrote: He pretty much had to let Mahle hit for himself last night since nearly the entire bullpen was depleted.. Was he supposed to let Duke go out and pitch 6 innings? 
I didn't think so, but yeah, some of these lineup moves don't make any sense. They're relying it seems on nothing but analytics from a fan of another team who hates the Reds..

Btw, the Reds had a day off and then played 3 games before yesterday. The bullpen pitched 11 innings in those 3 games. What are there, like 8 relievers? If they’re tired with that few innings this early in the season then something is wrong. Wait till they have a long stretch of games without a day off and wait till they play some extra inning games. There should have been maybe 1 or 2 relievers not available yesterday.

[cinci4life]

Bell just got tossed for the second time this season and don't blame him either. There was a pitch that was on the outside corner called a ball to a Dodgers batter. A little later there was a very late Dodgers challenge of a play at second on the front end of an inning ending double play. Reds were in the dugout and it was in commercial but it was granted and runner was safe. It was the right call but still very late. But the final straw was a pitch to Iglasias that was clearly low but called a strike. Bell started yelling from the bench and after about a minute was tossed. He came out and got his money's worth eventually being held back by the 1st base ump and Freedie Benevides. Do love the passion.

[Circleville Guy]

(04-17-2019, 05:28 PM)cinci4life Wrote: Bell just got tossed for the second time this season and don't blame him either. There was a pitch that was on the outside corner called a ball to a Dodgers batter. A little later there was a very late Dodgers challenge of a play at second on the front end of an inning ending double play. Reds were in the dugout and it was in commercial but it was granted and runner was safe. It was the right call but still very late. But the final straw was a pitch to Iglasias that was clearly low but called a strike. Bell started yelling from the bench and after about a minute was tossed. He came out and got his money's worth eventually being held back by the 1st base ump and Freedie Benevides. Do love the passion.

I do like a manager that will stick up for the players. I don’t want him to do well, he just has a ton of learning to do. The hitting has been way bad too, you won’t win many games if you can’t score more than 2 runs a game.

[*bengalfan74*]

The bunt coverage play where Votto abandons 1st base 3 seconds before the pitch has to go ! You just give the runner 2nd base. Not sure if that's Bell's idea or not ?

[grampahol]

This has been a hell of a different kind of season. Both teams held to just 3 hits. Reds pitching for the most part has been great even if misused a bit . It's as if the pitching staff is going to have to toss back to back to back to back to back to....no hitters just to compete in the division much less the league and I'm no longer confident a no hitter is going to be sufficient to win games anymore with the complete lack of hitting. 12 total hits in a 3 game series isn't going to cut it. It wasn't that much better against the Marlins with the wins, but the marlins are an even worse team.. 
Give em credit though..the best last place pitching staff I can ever remember.

[Circleville Guy]

(04-17-2019, 07:42 PM)grampahol Wrote: This has been a hell of a different kind of season. Both teams held to just 3 hits. Reds pitching for the most part has been great even if misused a bit . It's as if the pitching staff is going to have to toss back to back to back to back to back to....no hitters just to compete in the division much less the league and I'm no longer confident a no hitter is going to be sufficient to win games anymore with the complete lack of hitting. 12 total hits in a 3 game series isn't going to cut it. It wasn't that much better against the Marlins with the wins, but the marlins are an even worse team.. 
Give em credit though..the best last place pitching staff I can ever remember.

Their team batting average is .1996 after today’s awesome Hama. I guess that it does round up to .200 so I guess that’s something to hang your hat on. Jay Bruce has close to as many HR’s as the Reds players combined. The pitching has probably been good enough to be a .500 team if the offense had been at least mediocre. Something has to give soon!

[*psychdoctor*]

I always thought baseball was about getting players into a routine. Baseball players tend to be creatures of habit. Bell mixes it up fairly often and I'm wondering if it's thrown off the players performance. But still it's early players seem to be excited they're just not displaying offense like they should. Sometimes when you tweak a batter or a pitcher it takes time. Let's give the new staff time.

[*bengalfan74*]

(04-17-2019, 10:34 PM)Circleville Guy Wrote: Their team batting average is .1996 after today’s awesome Hama. I guess that it does round up to .200 so I guess that’s something to hang your hat on. Jay Bruce has close to as many HR’s as the Reds players combined. The pitching has probably been good enough to be a .500 team if the offense had been at least mediocre. Something has to give soon!

I'd say better

With the pitching we've had the Reds with even average hitting should have 10 wins ! With anything even slightly above average they could easily reverse their record to 12-5. Castillo, Gray and Mahle all have sub 3.0 ERA's The Reds team ERA is 3.48 putting them 7th in all of MLB !

They simply can't keep wasting this excellent pitching, they need to take 3 of the 4 in San Diego......bad

[grampahol]

(04-18-2019, 05:59 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: I'd say better

With the pitching we've had the Reds with even average hitting should have 10 wins ! With anything even slightly above average they could easily reverse their record to 12-5. Castillo, Gray and Mahle all have sub 3.0 ERA's The Reds team ERA is 3.48 putting them 7th in all of MLB !

They simply can't keep wasting this excellent pitching, they need to take 3 of the 4 in San Diego......bad

Got really lucky last night with 3 HRs, but the bottom line was they only had 5 total hits in the game. That just can't continue. I have little faith that the starting pitching much less the bullpen will hold up enough to carry an anemic hitting team anywhere beyond second to last place and last is more likely with the current state of affairs in hitting.
Bell is beginning to look desperate to find the magic hitting button.. 

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

Bell does indeed appear to be in way over his head. He comes across with someone that doesn't know what to do until his charts tell him what to do. And if you're going to play four guys in the outfield, please make sure that Dietrich is not one of them. That is painful to watch. Bell's schizoid lineups are ridiculous and reek of a guy that still doesn't know his roster. I'll bet he had the "Start off with new slate, it's a new season" approach which actually translates to "I don't want to sit through watching games from last year to learn my roster, I'm smart enough to take it all in during Spring Training"

Also, It's not Little League. There is no rule that indicates that you have to use your entire bench every game. This is going to be a long, slow process watching this guy learn(or not learn) how to be a manager.

Other notes:
Schebler is useless. Move on. If you are down by one in the 9th and Casali gets a lead off double, you can be guaranteed that Schebler is going to strike out trying to hit a five run home run when all you need is a ground ball to second base. Chewing on that stupid mouth piece makes him look like a football player trying to learn how to play baseball while in MLB. Well, his stats tell that also.

This is going to piss some of you off . . . Get rid of Michael Lorenzen, he's a joke of a MLB player.
He's very inaccurate, mainly due to his insistence on not bending his back when he throws. This leads to him aiming the ball instead of throwing to a spot(big difference when pitching) and results in dumb crap like walking the #8 hitter or as recently shown against the Pirates, WALKING THE PITCHER. It also means that sometimes he's going to groove a fastball to a crusher when he meant to hit a corner of the plate. He is almost death to a team when he pitches after the 5th inning because it leaves such little time to come back from his screw ups. Vintage Michael Lorenzen? Walk #8 hitter, balk/wild pitch moves him to 2nd base, ground ball to first or fly ball to right moves him to third base, scores on a weak ground ball to second base.

Plain and simple, players like Schebler and Lorenzen don't play on winning teams.