Reds March/April 2024 Thread

[Nicomo Cosca]

This White Sox defense.

[*bengalfan74*]

(04-14-2024, 03:55 PM)The D.O.Z. Wrote: Be happy he moved Candellario down. He is 2 for 2. Small blessings. Small blessings. [emoji41][emoji23]

And CES had 2 hits and 4 RBI's today sooo........

[guyofthetiger]

Reds win 11-4 today. White Sox must be a horrible team. Or the Reds are a good team. I hope for the latter.

[CJD]

The White Sox are a bad team.

So I'm taking this series sweep with a grain of salt.

But I really enjoyed watching baseball this weekend.

Lodolo is our best pitcher when he's healthy. That back foot curve is actually unhittable when he's on.

[*bengalfan74*]

(04-15-2024, 10:48 AM)CJD Wrote: The White Sox are a bad team.

So I'm taking this series sweep with a grain of salt.

But I really enjoyed watching baseball this weekend.

Lodolo is our best pitcher when he's healthy. That back foot curve is actually unhittable when he's on.

Yup

And the Mariners thus far haven't been all that either. We need to make some early hay playing these not so great teams out of the gate.

And yes a healthy Lodolo is probably our best pitcher. Montas looks like he's gonna give us some quality innings. Abbott and Ashcraft seem to be hitting their stride. So far Greene seems to be leaning hard towards our weal link. And it's the same old M.O. Strikes out a good bit of guys but gets touched up too much in-between !! To many HR's surrendered, puts to many guys on base (walks/hit batsmen) and just can't keep it together for more than an inning or two.

I'm hoping Greene can get it figured out soon.  

[cinci4life]

45 pitches for Montas in the first. Miracle they're only down 3-0.

[Nicomo Cosca]

Elly has cooled off at the plate, but that sliding catch in the outfield was crazy. Dude is a walking highlight reel.

[*bengalfan74*]

(04-15-2024, 11:14 PM)cinci4life Wrote: 45 pitches for Montas in the first. Miracle they're only down 3-0.

He came out of the gate on fire. He's cooled way off these last two games. Lets hope he'll warm back up.

I'm very interested in seeing what Greene does tonight.

[guyofthetiger]

Reds lose 2 in a row to Seattle. Reds are a hot or cold team. Sort of like last year.

[*bengalfan74*]

(04-17-2024, 02:06 AM)guyofthetiger Wrote: Reds lose 2 in a row to Seattle. Reds are a hot or cold team. Sort of like last year.

That seems to be the case thus far. They're either on fire or ice cold, young team woes I suppose?  I didn't watch the game just can't stay up that late, haha. Why did Greene go out after 4 innings ?

[CJD]

Greene labored through those 4 innings. I'm actually curious, is Greene the LEAST pitch efficient starter in MLB? I checked and ESPN does not list pitches thrown in their tables so I would have to open each individual player's page to see their pitch count over their season so far and divide it by their innings pitched to really know for sure. I wasn't willing to do that.

But luckily for me, MLB.com does have an expanded stats section to their stat pages and one of those stats is P/IP.
https://www.mlb.com/stats/pitching/pitches-per-inning?expanded=true

Right now, through 4 starts. Hunter Greene is throwing 19.45 pitches per inning, on average.

That's 2nd worst in the major leagues, behind someone named Patrick Sandoval for the LA Angels, who is throwing 20.02 pitchers per inning, on average.

And Frankie Montas isn't much better. He's throwing 18.38 pitches per inning, on average. That's good for 9th in MLB.

Hunter and Montas need to get their (stuff) together, and fast. We can't afford our #1 and #2 pitchers to be laboring like this every start.

[*bengalfan74*]

(04-17-2024, 09:08 AM)CJD Wrote: Greene labored through those 4 innings. I'm actually curious, is Greene the LEAST pitch efficient starter in MLB? I checked and ESPN does not list pitches thrown in their tables so I would have to open each individual player's page to see their pitch count over their season so far and divide it by their innings pitched to really know for sure. I wasn't willing to do that.

But luckily for me, MLB.com does have an expanded stats section to their stat pages and one of those stats is P/IP.
https://www.mlb.com/stats/pitching/pitches-per-inning?expanded=true

Right now, through 4 starts. Hunter Greene is throwing 19.45 pitches per inning, on average.

That's 2nd worst in the major leagues, behind someone named Patrick Sandoval for the LA Angels, who is throwing 20.02 pitchers per inning, on average.

And Frankie Montas isn't much better. He's throwing 18.38 pitches per inning, on average. That's good for 9th in MLB.

Hunter and Montas need to get their (stuff) together, and fast. We can't afford our #1 and #2 pitchers to be laboring like this every start.

Thanks CJD

I Knew Greene was bad but I didn't think he was that bad, wow ! Every game that goes by for him I get a little more worried he's going to be a flop. As a starting pitcher anyways. Like somebody said in another thread he may have to go to the bullpen? Closer or set up guy?? He might be way more effective only pitching one or two innings?

Montas has really fell off after those first two starts. Hoping he can turn it back around. And hoping Lodolo can stay healthy and pick us up some. 

[grampahol]

If Greene pitched to the hype every team in the league would be offering the Reds the earth, moon and the stars to trade for him.  Unfortunately he seems to have just his fastball and his secondary pitches are middle of the road at best. 

[The D.O.Z.]

Shoulda kept Greene a SS when he was drafted. Remember all the two-way hype surrounding him? When Ohtani came to the league and that was the talking-trend for awhile? From what I understand, he was super rangy with a quality bat. Now he's an overpaid bullpen arm with one (depending on the day) quality pitch MLB tier players can tee off on. He's Travis Wood. [emoji2369]

Our 1-2s are pitching like 4-5s and our 4-5s are pitching like 1-2s, so for now I'll take it. Toss in a hopefully finally healthy Lodolo, who has the highest upside and true #1 stuff, and I think we can weather the storm for the time being.

[CJD]

(04-17-2024, 02:01 PM)The D.O.Z. Wrote: Shoulda kept Greene a SS when he was drafted. Remember all the two-way hype surrounding him? When Ohtani came to the league and that was the talking-trend for awhile? From what I understand, he was super rangy with a quality bat. Now he's an overpaid bullpen arm with one (depending on the day) quality pitch MLB tier players can tee off on. He's Travis Wood. [emoji2369]

Our 1-2s are pitching like 4-5s and our 4-5s are pitching like 1-2s, so for now I'll take it. Toss in a hopefully finally healthy Lodolo, who has the highest upside and true #1 stuff, and I think we can weather the storm for the time being.

Drafting high school 2 way players is tricky because there's actually a ton of 18 year olds that are the best player in their town, so they obviously get played all over the place. It doesn't necessarily mean they will stick at that position in MLB, especially since so much of scouting high school players is projection anyway. Hunter Greene was an 18 year old was drafted at No. 2 overall because he could throw a ball 100 mph. He had no refinement as a pitcher nor did he have any particularly good secondary pitches. I generally dislike drafting high school players high for that reason, as they require so much projection.

Our best draft picks in recent history have been drafted out of college, where they're much closer to a finished product. Rhett Lowder, Matt McLain, Nick Lodolo, Michael Lorenzen, Jonathan India, Yasmani Grandal (Granted, we traded him, but he had a nice long MLB career), Brad Boxberger (same situation as Grandal), Mike Leake, Todd Frazier among them.

Joey Votto, Tyler Stephenson, Hunter Greene, Jesse Winker, Robert Stephenson, Devin Mesoraco, Jay Bruce, Homer Bailey, and Jay Allen were all high picks out of high school. The highs are definitely higher (Joey Votto, Jay Bruce), but the lows are definitely lower, especially after long, drawn out anticipation phases (Tyler Stephenson, Devin Mesoraco, arguably Homer Bailey, and now perhaps Hunter Greene).

[Goalpost]

Don't know if anyone saw what Jac Caglianone, 1B/LHP, did with Florida this week. He's a top 5 prospect, not quite refined as a pitcher...but throws over a 100 mph, who hit a 516 ft. home run this week. I'm sure with the Reds picking 2nd in the draft this year they are aware of him.

[cinci4life]

Really hate the west coast trips.

[*bengalfan74*]

Well, I guess the Mariners had their "get right" series. Our offense took a series off

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(04-17-2024, 07:42 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: Well, I guess the Mariners had their "get right" series. Our offense took a series off

I just wish that we lived in a world where dumb baseball players try to swing for the fence when they have two strikes instead of just trying to make contact . . . oh wait . . .

[*bengalfan74*]

(04-18-2024, 12:03 AM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: I just wish that we lived in a world where dumb baseball players try to swing for the fence when they have two strikes instead of just trying to make contact . . . oh wait . . .

I hate todays baseball a little more every year. 

We have 5 regular starting players batting .213 or below with a combined 94 strike outs. Our team batting average is .228 #22 out of 30, bottom 1/3 of the league. We have the 7th most strike outs as a team (179) top 1/3 of the league, uggh

I hope the batting coach gets them figured out. soon