The lull in Reds news will soon end. Pitchers and catchers report in less than a month. With the young team and sorting season we Reds fans expect, spring training will be loaded with important developments.
Jason Linden’s thought-provoking column this morning (All of a Sudden, I Trust the Front Office) concerns a vital topic for Reds fans: What to make of the early moves taken by Dick Williams’ front office. We don’t have to wait for spring training to come up with a preliminary answer to that question.
Those of you of a certain age will remember Kremlinology. Because analysts in the West weren’t privy to the internal workings of the Soviet Union, a vast industry of academics and other analysts was formed to read Russian tea leaves. Inferences about what to expect from the Soviet Union were formed based on the few public statements by their leaders and the occasional visible actions they took.
That’s not to imply the decision makers at Joe Nuxhall Way are the Politburo or that they shouldn’t be trusted at face value. And let’s not forget that as Reds fans, we’re on the same side as the front office. There’s no war, cold or otherwise.
But by necessity, we aren’t in the know of all the thinking and decisions being made by Dick Williams and his staff. We see the signings and trades that are made, not the ones rejected. So we end up writing January posts like this one, and Jason’s that attempt to connect a few dots on our own.
It’s a tricky project. For one thing, it’s hard to know when the new regime’s decision-making began. We don’t know whether Walt Jocketty or Williams (or neither) was responsible for the successful 2016 amateur draft. We don’t know who possessed the nimbleness to approve signing TJ Friedl.
We don’t know whether Jocketty or Williams was the major driver behind the decision to use the Todd Frazier trade to acquire Jose Peraza, and whether that was the same person who used the Jay Bruce trade to acquire Dilson Herrera. We also don’t know who was the prime mover behind the signing of Alfredo Rodriguez and other international players last year.
Connecting the dots is all the more fraught with error when the lines of responsibility for decisions before November 2016 are blurry.
As Jason outlines, there have been encouraging indications since the transition of power to Dick Williams became official and total: the rationale given for the Drew Storen signing and the Dan Straily trade are two prominent examples.
Also, under Williams’ leadership, the Reds have staffed up with pro-analytics folks; committed resources to biomechanics and injury prevention; and taken steps to increase minor league instruction.
Another positive by inference: We can assume that the attribute of a player having been on one of Walt Jocketty’s Cardinals teams will no longer be a reason for acquiring him.
All that evidence is positive. It’s hard not to feel a sea change has occurred for the better.
But, let’s tap (not slam) the brakes on unbridled optimism. In evaluating the new front office, it’s important to differentiate tactics from strategy. Strategy in this case is the overall vision or philosophy of roster construction and team building. Tactics are the metrics and methods for how that vision is pursued. The recent promising steps in player acquisition fall into the tactics category.
While there’s ample reason to share Jason’s newfound confidence that the front office will take a more modern approach going forward, apprehension about its strategic vision remains warranted.
Specifics?
The decision to commit Michael Lorenzen to a bullpen role because of his success there last year weighs heavily. Coming in a rebuilding year, it displays a crippling fealty to roles instead of maximizing the impact of talent. Is the new front office emphasizing speed and stolen bases at the expense of hitting for power? Are they emphasizing contact instead of on-base skills?
Writ large, are they devoted to copying what they interpret as the Kansas City Royals model of building a team? The Reds front office might be doing an excellent, modern tactical job of putting together the kind of team they want. But that leaves the strategic question of whether the kind of team they want is the right one.
Others do have differing interpretations of the preliminary evidence and don’t share these concerns about the bigger picture. Each of us is doing nothing more than modern-day Kremlinology, drawing inferences from scattered data points, looking for patterns. But even with the hopeful early clues, withholding trust in the Reds front office’s while we verify their strategic vision seems prudent.
I’m with Steve on this one. But I would love to see a team similar to the Kansas City Royals that went to the series for a couple of years. I followed the Royals both years having friends from KC. They were extremely fun to watch, very aggressive, with a great bullpen, and transformed KC into a crazy baseball town.
Personnel has changed somewhat. The addition of Drew Storen (unknown actual performance at this time), and perhaps another part.
Lorenzen has a great arm. It was Bryan Price that really saw him as a potential starter based on his physical ability, instead of as a reliever (which was his college role).
There are questions about his long term durability as a starter, based on his sore elbow last Spring. None of us really knows what the medical staff has briefed the Front Office on his elbow problems and possible other long term consequences.
I love the guy. He has a big heart, wants to compete and is eager to learn. That’s what Bryan Price saw in him too. But there is the question of his durability.
Stretch him out in Spring training. See how he does. He can always revert to the Bullpen role afterwards if he has the beginnings of arm issues.
Your solid comments show why an on-going analytical approach is important.
A few years ago, based in part on Moneyball, everyone tried to find OBP and eventually just about everyone had an OBP focus. When everyone does something there are limited “inefficiencies,” in that area. Eventutally, teams looked at bullpen construction or defense as a means of exploiting inefficiencies since those areas became cheap and marginalized.
Defense was cheap so you could load up on quality defenders. Solid Bullpen pitchers are cheaper than solid starters so a team like the Royals could load up and exploit that to their advantage.
Since the Frazier trade, the Reds seem to care an inordinate amount about speed. Speed has become marginalized and can be obtained and maintained cheaply….at this point. Maybe they’ll be right, maybe wrong, but Williams seems ( in my opinion) to believe he can have a team loaded with really fast guys and that will enable him to overcome things the Reds can’t afford to obtain or maintain
“When everyone does something there are limited “inefficiencies,†in that area.” — Gene Fama love you.
Since the Kremlin has been prominent in our news over the past months, we hope that Kremlinology does not affect future moves of the Reds front office.
Maybe worth noting that the “Kremlin” despite its insularity evolved from Stalin to Gorbachev in just a touch over 30 years and then put itself out of business in another 6 or so years. We also know from the vantage point of hindsight that they were very aware of their domestic issues but hamstrung by ideology, personal rivalries, and corruption in trying to resolve them.
These facts could be used on either side of Steve’s premise. So, as he said, wait and see, trust but verify.
MLB, like nearly all professional leagues, is a copycat league. It seems pretty conclusive that teams are being assembled with much greater emphasis on ‘athletes’ and/or speedy guys. The Cubbies win the World Series and Joe Maddon is a genius. He too seems to love ‘athletes’, aka guys he can move around the infield, outfield, basically all around the diamond. Sort of like a giant chessboard. Some of this may indeed go back to how Dayton Moore assembled the Royals over the last few years. But certainly things seem to have shifted a bit toward speedy, athletic guys. The 3rd player in the Marlins deal, according to his stats and scouting reports, seems to fit this bill also. How much input did DW have in his inclusion? I sure don’t know. I DO hope our FO has finally begun to climb out of the shadow of Walt and into the 21st century. Regardless, we still have a ways to go with a whole lot of questions as we near spring training. The next nine weeks will go a long way in determining how successful DW’s first year will be. I have some hope due to addition of Drew Storen. Hopefully, one of the 2 new Marlins arms will be able to further bolster our awful pen. Maybe even Coleman from the Dodgers. In the case of Lorenzen…
it seems likely he will remain in the pen. He threw a total of 50 innings last year. It seems highly improbable he will be allowed to throw much more than 80 this year. That does not leave much room for him to be stretched out during spring. The ‘ol Cossack probably has that one just about right.
As for our starters? Wow! Again, a lot of questions. Especially with the removal of Straily. Hope they get answered starting soon.
This caught my eye because the my thought has been that young athletes are becoming more specialized earlier and earlier in development. My sense has been that baseball’s issue is that kids increasingly choose other sports to the exclusion of baseball.
I’m most familiar with college football recruiting. The future “hogs” on both sides of the ball seem seem to lift and do other body/ strength building drills year around to the exclusion of other organized sport. Many of “skill” players do tend to play basketball for winter conditioning and run some track in the spring for the same purpose. In the summer they are back to football activities, with no time for baseball.
I believe basketball is much the same. After a short break in the spring, the aspiring athletes are involved in organized team play much of the summer. Also there is big soccer complex just down the road from my plat. Starting in early to mid spring and right on thru to mid to late autumn, on many weekends traffic is snarled by “travelling team” tournaments which start on Friday evenings and run thru late Sunday afternoons. My guess would be none of these kids are playing any “real” baseball.
I very much agree kids don’t seem to play pick up baseball much if at all any more. When I was young we’d play 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 etc with “invisible” or “ghost” runners. You had to call which side of the field you were going to hit to etc. Don’t think this happens much any more.
I read a piece several years back that parents often push specialization because come college time even a partial scholarship can make a huge difference in the financial burden. And apparently even D3/ NAIA schools and the like also have systems which can channel financial aid at least in part based on sports participation.
Not really a very good argument Steve. The Brewers did indeed have many SBs and did indeed not fair well in runs scored, but they had lots of bad hitters including the Adam Dunn of today in Cris Carter (minus the walks).
You can easily find high SB teams that kicked butt and high ones that stunk. Same for HRs. The Reds of the past 20 years are a good example. All power, not much else and always .500 or losing records until the got real starting pitching for a few years.
Basically, we have seen power win, starting pitching win, bullpen win, defense win and speed win World Series over the past 30 years and it will continue to be ALL OVER the skills map for the next 30 years. Pitching still beats hitting, UNLESS you go up against a hitting team that ALSO has good pitching (aka the Cubs that didn’t have any holes). If your top teams in both, your a lock to be a favorite and if your rebuilding, you won’t be very good at either a lock to be a top 5 drafting team.
Anyway, saying someone else is wrong when your theories are no different (you took ONE season and yet bashed TCT for taking one year?) You took TWO digs at TCT. Was that really necessary?
I should have added, being a good SB team does NOT mean you suck at hitting and power. You can have a focus on one area and still be solid in the others. Power alone won’t win crap. That has been proven. Power with great pitching or good hitting or running makes you at least a solid team or better, but so does NO power and good pitching and good hitting.
The Reds were bad last year because they had catastrophic pitching in the first half, and most notably in the first two months. We don’t really need stats to tell us this, but the stats do tell it well. Pre-All Star break, the Reds’ pitching was dead last in all baseball in ERA, BB, OBP, SLG, OPS (naturally), Blown Saves, Save %, HRs, WHIP, K/BB and even HBP. They gave up 35 more HRs the first half than any other staff. The pitching staff even stunk as hitters, too. They had a collective OPS of .227 for the full season, a full 46 points worse than the next NL team (Miami), and about half of the Cardinals’ .422.
Once the team stabilized, the offense wasn’t that bad. It went from 28th in OPS pre-All Star to 6th post-All Star–third in the NL and ahead of the Cubs. Post AS, they were 4th in OBP, but at the same .338 as the 2nd and 3rd place Rockies and Cubs.
With some improvement offensively at catcher and maybe second base, this team is close to being excellent offensively. If Saurez, Peraza, Hamilton and Schebler continue what they did in the second half, and they are all young and improving, then the Reds will be fun to watch.
They need some major stepping up on the mound, though.
We could make up those 46 points and more with the Straily trade and starting Lorenzen
You basically are adding a bat where there was a forfeit plate appearance
Straily was 1-52 with 2 BBs last year.
One strategy would be to have a good hitter hit first or second in the top of the first in every road game, then have the starting pitcher sub for him and pitch the bottom of the first. Another variation would be to use an old, slow, but high OBP guy to lead off, then have a more fleet-footed starting pitcher pinch-run for him if he gets on base.
The best strategy for Straily may be for him roll up in the fetal position in the batters box, hoping it would distract the pitcher into a walk. If it worked once every 17 times, it would be better than what Straily did as a hitter.
That is one of the most persuasive reasons I’ve heard to start Lorenzen. I think we have several arms of equivalent talent trying to establish themselves as MLB starters. His bat is very good. On off days his bat and speed could be used to.
I think I heard Jeff Brantley or Chris Welsh say that fairly early in Leake’s career, essentially that over time his hitting will fall off. They didn’t say why, or I don’t remember what the reason was but my guess is less time in the batter’s box.
They gotta pay him, anyway. The issue is whether his presence/performance is thought to be a net positive. If not, then DFA him.
I think that they DFA him. These young players need to move forward together; I can’t see BP buying into what the team needs to do this year.