AAA
23 year-old Ryan Wagner was roughed up in his one innning. Wagner gave up 3 H, 1 BB, and 2 ER. For the season Wagner’s ERA is 6.75 with 23 Ks, 13 BB, and 48 H in 32 IP.
AA
20 year-old Homer Bailey made his Chattanooga debut with an absolute GEM!!! Bailey, the first round pick of the 2004 Draft, went 6 innings giving up 5 H, 0 BB, 0 ER, and he struck out 7. I don’t care what religion you belong to, please say a prayer for Homer’s arm right now.
HIGH A
23 year-old Cody Strait went 3 for 4 with a 2B, R, RBI, and a BB. Strait, the 12th round pick of the 2004 Draft is now hitting just .222/.288/.416.  Cody does have 23 Stolen bases while only being caught twice!
LOW A
19 year-old Jay Bruce went 3 for 5 with an RBI.  Bruce, the #1 pick of the 2005 Draft, is now hitting .295/.351/.538.ÂÂ
Rookie
22 year-old Chris Gruler pitched 2 innings in his 2006 debut. The 1st round pick of the 2002 Draft, gave up 1 H, 3 BB and struck out 2.ÂÂ
2nd round pick of the 2006 Draft, Sean Watson pitched 3.2 innings in his Reds system debut, he gave up 0 H, 0 ER, and 0 BB.  Watson, from the University of Tennessee struck out 4. The 1st round pick of the 2006 Draft, Drew Stubbs went 1 for 4 with a 3B, and a R. After 3 games Stubbs is hitting .273/.429/.455.
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Bailey is the man. But he needs to finish the season in Chattanooga. No reason to rush him this year, and stunt his development.
As for Gruler, a guy I know played against him in the instructional league a couple of years ago. He said that Gruler was the worst pitcher he had faced in professional baseball.
I don’t know if he’ll ever recover. But I agree, it’s good to see him throwing.
i understand the temptation to compare bailey to wagner, but there’s one major difference between then that makes the call to keep homer down less persuasive: wanger was a bad pick, and bailey seems like a very good one.
Wagner was a college reliever with one good pitch. Because of the level of competition and the type of pitch he had, his grotesque k rates were as informative as a pitcher’s record, but that’s what got him picked. he got to the higher levels, and had a little success until people figured out how to get around his one pitch, and then he was done.
maybe if he “develops” another pitch he’ll be able to be effective, and for that reason it was a mistake to rush him to the bigs.
Bailey is another story all together. At spring training this year everyone siad that he had the best stuff of any pitcher there. Best fastball. Best curveball. Good change. So what he needs to “develop” is different from what wagner needed.
He needs to learn how to field his position, bunt, keep walks down, and not give up big innings. If the management feels he’s proven that stuff as much as he needs to in the minors, then bring him up. he’s not going to come up and not be able to throw his fastball and curve, he’s still going to have the best pure stuff of any pitcher we’ll have.
hell, i wouldn’t mind bringing him up as a reliever if they thought they could get him some innings, alla fransisco liriano. they could stretch him out in ST next year if he was successful.
that’s true, it’s a fair point. i guess my question is, is it better for the reds to have him to learn to be consistant and throw no hitters at the AA level or the big leagues.
It seems like if his stuff is on and he haas comand he’s going to get a lot of outs no matter what level he pitches at, so it would benefit the reds to have those outings in the majors.
On the other hand, if he doesn’t have his best stuff at AA maybe he gives up 4 runs over 5 or 6 IP, and in the bigs he gets hammered. I don’t know if that’s the case, maybe he’d give up the same 4 runs, but it stands to reason that he might get shelled.
so it is a tough decision. In the end i’m in no hurry to see him in cinci next week or anything, but if he were to demonstrate more consistancy at AA from here til sept, i’d certainly give him a look.