Hope or Insanity?

[WvuDieHard]

Ok. We are slugging away through the 2015 season 12.5 games out from division leading Birdlins and 6 games under .500 but only 6 off the wild card. So don't write the season yet. But what would it take for this train wreck to compete for a wild card?
1) Bruce hitting over .220
2) DeJusus stepping in and playing everyday while hitting .300 or better
3) BP to continue hitting .300
4) BH to hit at least .250
5) Middle relievers start holding leads (Parra/Hoover is what you bank on there)
6) Get solid starts out of Lorenzon and Descalfani before they are shut down
7) Frazier must hit 40 HRs and drive in a 100.

But is there any reason to believe this rag tag group will change their ways? These problems are all too familiar:
1) Poor average with runners in scoring position
2) Bullpen can't hold a lead
3) Chapman has developed a wild streak or an attitude like he doesn't give a fuck
4) Bruce is still the most inconsistent hitter in the league. Even the poultry numbers he puts up are skewed with long hitless streaks filled with pop ups, strike outs, and DP's.
5) Price's use of pitchers is still mind boggling considering he was a pitching coach
6) Starting pitching is a disaster. Letting Simon and Latos go proved to be bush league shit
7) the Marlon Byrd experiment has not panned out as he whiffs like a 3year old on the playground and is now on the DL

So there may be hope being 6 games off the wild card but you would have to be living on LSD to believe this group of under performers would accomplish anything short of 90 losses. It is an almost impossible achievement to be a wild card team. The real issue here is that the players know it too.

 

[JohnU]

First, I don't think any illusions about a wild card are useful until Sept. If you aren't in the top 5 or 6 records at that time, there is no conversation. Getting to third place should be the goal now, as if that is ever a goal for anybody who gives a fuck.

I have observed over the years that hitting streaks and win streaks have more to do with who you are playing and when than anything. Some hitters just match up better against some pitchers. A break or two usually matters.

Individually, the guy who will break this team now is Chapman. What leads the Reds take into the 9th are too risky because Price is clueless about handling a bullpen. And I think he and his staff were always clueless about the capability of the people he made available. If you couldn't tell in August last year that Gregg had run out of gas ... I mean, really.

Badenhop was throwing flat 88s in March and Price evidently thought he would suddenly just get better.

Various scouting reports should have shown that Maikel Franco and Cody Asche can be gotten out. Reds dugout people apparently ignored it so far this year. The only time Franco was out last night was on a pitch he hit off the end of the bat -- 380 feet.

Bruce is patently either just bad or just lucky. His defense reeks.

This team whiffs too much to get a rally going. That's why they leave runners on base. They don't force the defense to do anything but stand there. The catcher has the liability to make sure strike 3 isn't a passed ball.

We are looking at batting averages, RBI and homers again ... nothing wrong with that. It's just not telling a story.

Leake last night got a break play to bail himself out with a guy on third and then on the next pitch, completely missed the sign and wild pitched the guys up a base. What the fuck?

DeJesus is our new left fielder? Wow, that makes ... 64 of them since 2008. And he was taken out for defensive reasons in the 9th!

Luck is finding the pea under the thimble. Stupid is what the Reds management does.

 

[Redsfan1507]

I never expect career years from old guys- so I'm not high on Byrd.

Phillips may hit .280-.300 this year, but he only had one .300 year, and he won't ever see many HR or SB or RBI again, IMO. Frazier, Votto and Bruce are all in their prime, so what you see is probably the best we'll get, until they start diminishing. That's scary for Bruce. He's not Paul O'Neill- a guy that reworked his stroke and became a better hitter in his mid-late 20's- Bruce has been consistently inconsistent at getting wood on the ball, and I see no change in approach being considered by him. If he can't hit 30 HR, he's a guy that should be platooned to avoid some of those month long droughts, not depended on to hit cleanup all season like he was paid to do. He might be trade bait, but on a Reds team that can't seem to get a deserving everyday OF to MLB more often than about every decade, he isn't pushed from within.

The Reds pitching staff is a mess.

 

[Redsfan1507]

A couple of overlooked things make me very pessimistic about the Reds prospects for over achieving with a diminished roster- not putting Chapman in the rotation looks like a reactionary compromise that not only reduced his impact, but made the Reds a lesser team. Mesoraco getting OF practice just to salvage a few of his AB's this year after his hip ailment, looks dangerously like they thought they could afford a cleanup hitter getting less than 400 AB, or the rest of this lineup was expected to do a lot more than they seem capable of. The pitchers they plugged in to replace disappointing ones in the bullpen last year, were largely complete misses. So many failures looks more like bad evaluation than bad luck to me. I can't really blame coaching for those guys...MLB "ready" shouldn't mean they aren't "ready" for MLB.

This looks like the GM has been asleep for the last couple years and just started random selections for roster coverage.

 

[Redsfan1507]

What this team needs...isn't hard to identify. How they can acquire what they need, is a lot more difficult.

They need a dominant LHSP to slow down all the NL lefty hitters. Oh, they have one, but he's the closer. The starting rotation has done ok, but no LHSP hurts them badly.

They need a leadoff hitter that can hit .300...isn't BP doing that ?

They need a 3 hitter that can hit .300 with some power and RBI ability, that draws some walks. There is Joey Votto.

They need a 4 hitter that can make it hurt to walk Votto. Frazier has hit a dozen homers...but left 4 dozen men on base. Mesoraco isn't in the lineup very often, and Bruce might as well have 2 strikes before he gets to the plate. Can one of these guys do the job ? Probably. Will they ? Not likely.

The Reds OF is hitting about .220 collectively. I'd appreciate the 50SB and 40HR they might collect a season a lot more. if it wasn't at the loss of about 100 hits a year that a normal hitting OF might get hitting .275 or .280. The miserable RISP team stat would be a lot different if these guys hit 50 points higher in general.

The bullpen blows. Take Chapman out of the bullpen and no lead is safe...leave him in the bullpen and no lead is safe until he pitches, meaning 75% of the games really don't need him...kinda like the post season. I never want my best arm to be the least often impacting the W/L. Just saying.

The problem isn't that Votto and Bailey make too much money, really. The problem is, too many players on this team aren't proficient at what they are paid to be proficient at.