Reds All-Stars ?

[Redsfan1507]

MLB requires every team to have at least 1 representative at the A-S game.

Who are the Reds All-Star worthy players this year...in their home park, no less ?

Chapman, probably. He may be the only one.

Frazier is among the leaders in HR, but otherwise pretty ho-hum, stat wise.

Cueto has pitched well, but couldn't tell by the W/L.

Votto is having a decent year, but not close to Goldschmidt or even Adrian Gonzalez.

Cozart is back to below .260 BA after a great start. Phillips has hit well, and is a magician at 2b, but Dee Gordon is hitting like a batting champ.

 

[Ojb81]

It'll probably be Chapman.

Sigh

 

[JohnU]

Chapman, Votto, Cueto are the only three who will get a shot at it. With Gonzalez and Goldschmidt in the running, Votto needs to be hitting about .359. That isn't going to happen. Cueto would probably beg off it anyhow with some sort of "injury".

 

[eburg5000]

Every baseball fan in the country wants to see Chapman throw that 100 + mph fastball. Even if he can't get it where he wants it.

 

[JohnU]

Three ways to approach this:

1. Vote for the people who are the best players in the league
2. Vote for the guys who are having the best half-season
3. Vote for the guys who can help the league win the game.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

There's a lot of closers having good seasons in the NL. Chapman is generally a lock....but the one player per team can play a role.

I think Frazier makes it as a reserve at 3B. He's the 2015 All Star spokesperson and leads the position in most power/ run production stats. He's seems to be the face of the Reds this year.

Phillips is having a very nice year...but there's several second baseman having just as good or better seasons.

Cueto the same as Phillips...several guys having stellar first halves.

Hard to imagine more than two from the Reds...could be just one. It'll be interesting to see how Bochy rounds out his roster. At least it's not Reds' hater Tony LA Russa...that'd make the one mandatory pick a lock.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Votto falls under the same category as Phillips...too many other guys having good or better seasons.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Is anyone else embarrassed about having such a crappy team in the year we host the A-S game ?

 

[JohnU]

Votto makes the team because, hey ... what a great option off the bench?
I can't recall where the previous ASG's were ... Minnesota had one and I know their team sucked.
All I am reading is that Frazier is likely to make the team for reasons that are fairly obvious.

I would recommend that a Reds relief pitcher throw out the first ball, just so a fan in the left field seats could get a souvenir.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Not necessarily- most first pitches by this bullpen are too far off the plate to swing at. I think other than Marquis and Badenhop and Gregg, and sometimes Mike Leake, who throw at a speed that is usually very hittable, most of the rest of the Reds pitchers get in trouble because they don't throw enough strikes, or at least close enough to get a hitter to chase or an umpire to call a strike once in a while. Most balls are obvious balls, and unfortunately, a lot of strikes are grooveballs. They usually get behind and then toss one or three, right in the wheelhouse.

 

[JohnU]

Come on ... Badenworse is better than that!

 

[Redsfan1507]

Possibly the only thing that allows guys like Marquis, Gregg, Badenslop to get any outs at all, is that the game is set up for hitters to fail about 65% of the time. Hitters can crush the ball right at a defender, or hit 1/4" off center and fly out at the wall. Sometimes, the hitters might miss completely because they are throwing so far below normal hitting speed. The more often hitters see these junkball hacks, the better their timing gets though. It doesn't work the same way with guys that can throw mid 90's, because hitters can't catch up to the fastball sitting on the 82 mph stuff...but they can time the underwhelming fastball guys at 85 and still get wood on 80 mph, or 88. A fastball isn't everything, but it's hard to live without one long in MLB.

I would never recommend pitching Marquis, Gregg, Leake and Gregg all in consecutive games. That would be like expecting the batting practice pitcher to go 18 innings...on the other hand, his ERA might not be any higher than those 4 combined are. It's not fair to throw Leake under that same bus, either he's up to 90 now, or they adjusted the gun to say he is. He does get much better results than the other 3, but he is IMO, the most hittable of the intended SP's.

I often dreamed about a healthy rotation of Cueto, Chapman, Leake, Bailey...and a youngster with upspeed upside. Dunno who would have closed, but Broxton might have been a good start. Those guys would have made the tweener bullpen look a lot better, and 3-4 runs would have gotten a lot more wins than the current team can.