Well Chris brought us a 21 game progress report for some of the players, 13% of the season is gone. Time to kick the teams tires too.
These things we know.
The bullpen is a bigger mess than the bathroom in your first apartment, Milton is racking up frequent flyer miles that likely redeem only at Eastern Airline affiliates and once again there are 4 players for the 3 outfield positions.
In honor of the yearly outfielder dilema I will list the last few years to keep you up to date.
They have been in order by the years for those of you counting.
2002 - Encarnacion, Dunn, Griffey, Kearns 2003 - Guillen, Dunn, Griffey, Kearns 2004 - Pena, Dunn, Griffey, Kearns
Just for kicks 1997’s outfielders
GAMES G 1 Deion Sanders 113 2 Reggie Sanders 85 3 Curtis Goodwin 71 4 Jon Nunnally 60 5 Mike Kelly 59 6 Lenny Harris 42 7 Willie Greene 39 8 Chris Stynes 38 9 Ruben Sierra 24 10 Eric Owens 18
Ughhhhhh… I remember ranting on my Netscape Browser 1.6 about that sad state of affairs. That outfield went the way of Cox Medias internet sport site fastball.com, either they faded into obscurity or they were bought up by other fools who over valued their skills and contributions.
So, here we are, 13% of the season gone… and yet it seems so familiar, like the background in a Yogi Bear cartoon, trees, rock, bush, tree, bush, tree, rock, etc.
If I had ever been here before
I would probably know just what to do
Don’t you?
Off days are either good days to forget about baseball and do something else, I used to watch Hockey during these early off days, but they took that away from me too… so I just decided today that I should really look at the team stats from the first month.
From there I decided to look at last years April and see if there was anything to pick at.
Pretty similar stuff; even with the new deckhands and usual slow starts.
It’s as though last April was cloned and just thrown out again this April, just with a larger payroll, and from the vitriol that I’ve seen around the net much larger expectations.
Some Similarities:
Both last April and this April had hitters with OPS’s over 1.100, Dunn of course is in both groups, last year it was Casey and his OB heavy OPS, this year it’s Pena and his SLG driven OPS.
The second tier of hitters is better this year than last years with Freel, Lopez and Randa all having OPS’s above .880. The offense this season has been spread around more that’s for sure and currently it looks a bit thinner because of it. Four players are poised to join Dunn and Randa in double digits in runs scored, however last year at this time there were five players with twelve or more runs scored.
Another oddity is that after a combined 168 ab’s Griffey and Casey have as many runs scored as Joe Randa. If you told me prior to the season that that is what would happen I would have most likely thought you daft.
2004’s team at this time walked more and this years team is walking considerably less and succeeding more, this is seen in the increase in batting average and that in turn has enhanced the teams slugging percentage. The drop in OB% from last April still places them above last years .331. Perhaps they can get above .340 for the first time since 2000.
Since the hits are falling more this season (so far) you’ll see that the hits are distributed a bit more this season than last, with 10 players having double digit hit numbers to last years 8.
Casey is once again the team hit leader with 22, last April’s 36 looks really good in comparison eh? Last year at this point Casey had 15 Extra Base Hits; currently he has only 3 doubles.
Dunn’s walk rate is half of what it was last year and believe it or not he was a .328 hitter last year after 22 games. His current OB% is closer to his targeted one than last years gaudy .538. He also has 5 more extra base hits than last year at this point.
Joe Randa leads the team in runs scored with 14, yes Joe Randa leads the team in runs scored last year at this time the Reds had 3 players with 14 runs scored. Randa who has scored over 80 runs three times in his career is on pace for 113 runs scored
Last year the Reds as a team walked an incredible amount in April 1 every 6.8 ab’s they finished the season at 1 every 9.2 ab, this year they are averaging 1 every 8.1. The April rate last year was fueled by Dunn’s 28 and Jimenez’s 17, with 2 other players with 10. This year Dunn and Joe Randa lead the team in walks with 14.
Currently the Reds are scoring 1/2 a run less than the 2004 team.
Think it’s the walks?
2005 NAME G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB BA OBP SLG OPS Sean Casey 21 79 9 22 3 0 0 5 6 .278 .322 .316 .638 K. Griffey Jr. 20 73 5 18 7 0 0 7 9 .247 .325 .342 .668 Joe Randa 20 72 14 20 4 0 4 14 14 .278 .402 .500 .902 D. Jimenez 20 64 9 14 2 0 0 3 9 .219 .315 .250 .565 Adam Dunn 20 64 12 20 9 1 6 15 14 .313 .450 .766 1.216 Rich Aurilia 15 59 8 13 4 0 2 8 3 .220 .258 .390 .648 Austin Kearns 17 57 9 13 2 0 2 8 8 .228 .328 .368 .697 Jason LaRue 17 51 2 11 2 0 0 4 9 .216 .375 .255 .630 Wily Mo Pena 17 43 9 14 6 0 5 11 2 .326 .370 .814 1.184 Ryan Freel 15 40 7 15 5 0 0 1 7 .375 .468 .500 .968 Felipe Lopez 9 26 3 7 1 0 2 6 3 .269 .345 .538 .883 J. Valentin 5 16 4 5 2 0 0 2 0 .313 .313 .438 .750 Jacob Cruz 14 13 1 4 1 0 0 2 1 .308 .357 .385 .742 Team Total 695 93 179 48 1 21 88 85 .258 .344 .420 .764
Strikeouts 174
RECORD 10-11
Reds have scored 5 runs 10 times
Reds Pitchers have given up 5 runs 12 times. More than 10 runs 2 times
2004 NAME G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB BA OBP SLG OPS Sean Casey 22 87 16 36 11 1 3 18 7 .414 .458 .667 1.125 D. Jimenez 22 85 13 20 4 0 2 11 17 .235 .365 .353 .718 K. Griffey Jr. 20 81 12 18 6 0 3 13 10 .222 .315 .407 .723 Barry Larkin 20 77 14 21 5 0 0 5 6 .273 .325 .338 .663 Ryan Freel 20 67 7 17 3 2 1 5 2 .254 .296 .403 .699 Adam Dunn 22 64 17 21 3 0 8 18 28 .328 .538 .750 1.288 Jason LaRue 16 57 7 12 4 0 1 10 5 .211 .292 .333 .626 Austin Kearns 17 51 7 7 2 1 2 5 10 .137 .290 .333 .624 Juan Castro 18 39 6 10 2 1 0 4 2 .256 .293 .359 .652 Wily Mo Pena 14 28 3 8 1 1 1 4 3 .286 .375 .500 .875 J. Valentin 14 16 2 1 0 0 0 0 2 .063 .167 .063 .229 Corky Miller 4 11 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 .000 .313 .000 .313 Paul Wilson 5 10 0 2 1 0 0 0 1 .200 .273 .300 .573 B. Larson 4 10 1 3 0 0 0 1 3 .300 .462 .300 .762 Team Total 725 107 181 43 6 21 97 106 .250 .353 .412 .766
Strikeouts 167
RECORD 12-10
Reds scored 5 runs 11 times
Reds Pitchers gave up 5 runs 10 times. More than 10 runs 3 times
PITCHING 2005 - 2004 W L Sv IP H ER HR BB SO K/9 P/GS WHIP ERA Reds 10 11 8 181.1 205 104 33 62 126 6.25 85.3 1.47 5.16 AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB BA OBP SLG OPS 2005 714 109 205 39 8 33 359 106 62 .287 .351 .503 .854 2004 W L Sv IP H ER HR BB SO K/9 P/GS WHIP ERA 12 10 10 191.0 221 105 31 61 130 6.13 82.2 1.48 4.95 AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB BA OBP SLG OPS 2004 760 113 221 45 9 31 377 109 61 .291 .348 .496 .844
Once again the pitching is in shambles, 1.13 hits an inning, whip the same HR’s the same, K Rate the same, OPS allowed the same.
Cookie Cutter Reds season so far, pure .500 ball, some offensive games from batters as well as pitchers.
The Reds are like that photograph of a guy holding a photo of a guy holding photo of a guy holding a photo.
Winding its way into infinity.
I think you just blew my mind. 😯
Applause all around – great work – Brian.
I’m still intrigied by an April not so long ago – with some of the same story lines – aging power hitter not getting “powered-up” , too many outfielders, wacked-out bullpen with old guys or rookies, slow starts, starting pitching had some holes.
While the outcome of that year wasn’t a happy ending – it sure was fun
The year? The abberation that was 1999.
I just tried to find some Reds stats from April of 1999. The Elias Sports Bureau receptionist is still laughing.
Brian – since you seem to be emperor of all things stats – see what the April of 1999 Reds – stack up against our April 2005 edition of Redlegs. That would be interesting reading – thanks for your work!
So once again, I’ll ask the age old question… In the words of Marty Brennaman, “How many outfielders *DO* a team need?” -B
Too bad Bernard Gilkey isn’t a Brewer. Nuxie’s back in the booth – look out for the fly balls hit to left-right field.
(I miss it, don’t you?)
Go Redlegs!
Here’s that 1999 April, that’s funny that you tried to call Elias, they are traditionally the hardest case when it comes to the data, have been for years.
You can get these stats by going to Yahoo and looking at the team stats, if you link to (say 2001) on splits for a
One note about the 1999 team, after 21 games they did have ONE more run scored than allowed, something neither of these last 2 teams can claim. And the staff had allowed less than 100 runs (in one of the biggest hitting years ever)
The Runs allowed in April of 1999 accounted for 13.5% of the runs allowed by the Reds that year. The runs scored 11.8%
Last years team scored 15% of the teams runs that season in April and the pitching gave up 12.45% of the runs in April.
The 1999 team started out with a slow offense and the pitching was not good, they reversed that by the end of the year. In comparison last years team had an offense playing way over it’s head (and brought down by the mean and injuries) and pitching doing mediocre as well, however the both got worse as the season progressed.
I see more offense than last year but only if *some* of the Reds learn to take a walk and *others* have some hits drop with RISP, but I don’t see the pitching improving too much beyond its current state.
G W L RS RA APR 21 9 12 97 96 casey - .372 .419 .615 1.034 Young - .200 .250 .236 .486 Taubensee - .260 .333 .500 .833 Larkin - .200 .281 .363 .643 Reese - .292 .338 .415 .753 Boone - .156 .237 .281 .518 Cameron - .295 .375 .526 .901 Vaughn - .219 .330 .411 .741 Hammonds - .167 .250 .222 .472 Tucker - .242 .297 .273 .570