Well, today’s the last game of the 2005 regular season, and what a season it’s been. Lots of highs, many more lows, and plenty of items to discuss.
John Fay turns an eye to next year in today’s Enquirer. He comes to the obvious conclusion:
You don’t need to be a baseball genius to figure what changes must be made for the Reds to return to respectability.
Even if you don’t know OPS from UPS, you can look at the stats and figure it out.
The Reds need better pitching.
Solving that problem is exceedingly more difficult than identifying it.
“It’s not a surprise to anyone that our No. 1 priority is to improve the pitching,” said general manager Dan O’Brien.
The Reds are first in the National League in runs, doubles, home runs and slugging percentage.
But all that good stuff on offense was negated by a pitching staff that is second-to-last in the National League – ahead of only the altitude-challenged Colorado Rockies.
I’m going to make a bold statement: the Reds only need one pitcher to be a contender next year. Eric Milton was awful, but you have to think he’s going to bounce back closer to his career average next year. If he’s average, and Harang and Claussen are slightly above average, you can plug in Belisle or someone like Justin Germano at the back of the rotation. Put a good pitcher at the front of the rotation — and I don’t know who that might be — but that would be enough to put the Reds in contention.
Heck, if all the Reds’ pitchers had just performed to their career averages, the Reds would have been in the playoff hunt this year. Unfortunately, they — Milton, Hudson, Ortiz — were historically bad. That can’t happen again (can it?). When they pitched average, the Reds played above .500 baseball.
Use this as a game thread, and let us hear what you think the Reds need to do to be competitive next year.
This has been an extremely disappointing season, but I hope OB doesn’t panic and start trading away the position players.
I think the Reds are two starting pitchers and a closer away from being a contender. That doesn’t sound like much but I’ll bet there are alot of other bad teams that say the same thing.
You’re point is well taken. If the Reds pitchers had just rose to the level of average, the team would have been contenders. I can think of at least 5 games this year during which the Reds lost 5 runs or better leads late in the game due to the bullpen from hell. If you put those 5 games in the win column and half of the other late losses into the win total, you are looking at a contending club.
When pitchers pitch below their career average, it could be bad luck. On the other hand, it could be one or more of the defense, the catcher, and the pitching coach who are failing to help them. I doubt that one starter would save this team.
…but with increased parity i think we can expect wild card teams to be right around where houston was this year at 89 wins.
The reds would need to get down somewhere near 740 RA to get there with the same offensive production, which is a little more doable, but still a massive overhaul.
With the numbers chris posted above, milton and wilson getting back to form (unlikely methinks) and a full season of claussen would take care of right around half of that, maybe a little more.
That leaves a solid 65 runs say that the reds have to make up in a new starter and a retooled pen. that’s a lot to hope for.
ramon ortiz and 40 innings of our spot starter (a combination of belisle, hudson, keisler, and ramirez) allowed 130 runs.
If by some miracle the reds got 210 innings out of a starter like john patterson, that would make up 54 of those.
i think that our pen will have matured enough next year to make up 10 more. So in summation the reds need:
1. full returns to form from milton and wilson.
2. full consistent seasons from harang and claussen
3. slightly improved play all around in the pen
4. and a legitimate 210 inning ace to fall in their lap.
ought six is in the bag!