Kyle Boddy

[grampahol]

The Reds pitching coaching staff, mostly Boddy was featured in the NYT sports section.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/sports/baseball/kyle-boddy-driveline-reds.html
Typically the NYT covers the Yankees and Mets, but the Reds and Boddy along with Derek Johnson are now getting national coverage. I'm very hopeful this all pans out big time for the club all the way from rookie ball, even the Dominican leagues all the way through..

Quote:"Last season, while the National League’s collective earned run average swelled by 36 points, to 4.38, the Reds’ E.R.A. dropped by 45, to 4.18. The Reds also led the N.L. in strikeouts, and only the Dodgers allowed fewer hits. Starters Luis Castillo and Sonny Gray were All-Stars, and Bauer — an All-Star for Cleveland in 2018 — arrived in a July trade.

Johnson’s top assistant, the former Reds and Yankees reliever Caleb Cotham, pitched for him at Vanderbilt and trained with Boddy at Driveline. As a staff, the Reds believe they can connect with pitchers raised with better access to more information than any generation before.
“You have to know what you’re talking about, and you have to know that they’re probably going to try to find out more about what you’re saying,” Johnson said. “So you’ve got to pull them towards the proper information, and also make sure we remember how to compete. It’s not always a cut-and-dried scenario like so often technology seems to be.”"

Reds pitching is no longer a laughing stock and has become well respected. About time!

[fredtoast]

I started to make a post about how the bullpen regressed last year, but the numbers (ERA, WHIP, save percentage, OPS allowed) are pretty much the same the same as 2018.

[grampahol]

(03-08-2020, 12:58 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I started to make a post about how the bullpen regressed last year, but the numbers (ERA, WHIP, save percentage, OPS allowed) are pretty much the same the same as 2018.

The worst thing about the bullpen last year was the downfall of two pitchers, Hernandez and Hughes and to a lesser degree, Duke. Had they remained just average instead of falling off the cliff the Reds bullpen would have been much stronger, maybe even top of the league, but Bell kept throwing all three out there game after game after game until they proved to be almost completely ineffective. They had to rely on Romano, Mella, Peralta and others.
I think this season we'll see a much better bullpen or at least I certainly hope so.