As was noted on the Redleg Nation Radio podcast this week, it’s been a rather exciting first week for the Cincinnati Reds this offseason. One of the reasons for that is because the Reds landed Kyle Boddy as their new minor league Director of Pitching Initiatives / Pitcher Coordinator. To read more about what is going on with that move, you can check out the write up and breakdown here.
Local sports talk radio host Lance McAlister spent 15 minutes earlier this week talking with Kyle Boddy on 700 WLW. There’s some interesting stuff in there from Boddy. You can listen to it below.
The thing that jumps out to me the most is the having a plan for each pitcher. While it’s not something I’ve heard as much about in the last few years, one thing that I noticed, and even heard about from players and some baseball personnel in the past when it came to the Reds development was that there wasn’t necessarily a plan for each guy. The pitching coach at one level would have an idea of what a pitcher should be, and the pitching coach at the next level would have a different idea of what a pitcher would be. And that led to entirely different ideas, concepts, mechanics, execution changing when guys were sent to different levels. The Reds track record speaks for itself when it comes to developing arms. Stuff like that certainly didn’t help.
Every player is different. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Not everyone should be a 2-seam fastball guy. Not everyone should throw a slider. Having individual plans for guys, in theory, should help them all perform better. The plan should be tailored to the pitcher. It shouldn’t be tailored to the idea that the pitching coach thinks “the ideal pitcher should be like this”.
A Season Later: The Reds and Dodgers Trade
Over at RedsMinorLeagues.com on Friday evening I took a look back at the Cincinnati Reds and Los Angeles Dodgers trade and how it worked out, and didn’t work out – breaking down the thought process behind it, the results, and the outlook from it.
A missing Major Leaguer: Research with a sad ending
This isn’t Reds related, but I came across it on Friday night and it was interesting. And really, if we wanted to squint hard enough we could make it Reds related. Fred Osborne was the Pittsburgh Alleghenys Michael Lorenzen in 1890. That would be his only season in the Major Leagues, but he got 175 plate appearances and threw 58.0 innings that season.
While his lone season wasn’t exactly good from either side of the spectrum, the Canadian born lefty was interesting on several different fronts. First, of course, was that he was used as both an outfielder and a pitcher. Next, and the thing that led to the research by Tim Hagerty at The Hardball Times, as that his date of death was unknown. Osborne is hardly the only former Major Leaguer from the early parts of baseball who was missing a date of death. But Hagerty noted that most of the others were guys who barely played. That wasn’t the case here. While limited to one season, he played a whole lot in that one season.
Searching through census records, and news stories, Osborne seemed to disappear for a while from the records. But when he re-emerged in 1905 it wasn’t the best story that ran in The Evening Statesman (Walla Walla, Washington). I won’t spoil the story, or how Hagerty got there. But I did find it to be an interesting read and thought maybe some of you would as well.
It’s irresponsible to have so much money invested to supposed on-field production and not consider individual player plans. School systems have IEP arrangements for children, yet the Reds, with 10’s of millions of dollars towards player investment can’t treat their commodity with such simple planning? I am amazed at these articles exposing the fall the organization took under Walt Jockety. Shameful waste of resource management. At least they’re doing something now with these recent coups, so hopefully it translates into wins *cough, cough, Trevor Bauer*
The Reds also need a 5th starter the thought of Mahle out there makes me sick
Ervin,India and Mahle should be able to land a decent starter
Zack Wheeler is a interesting option, I think..