The Rule 5 draft is going on right now.  The Reds' roster is at 40, so they will not be taking anyone, but they can still lose a player or two.  In fact, they already have.  The soul-sucker, Ben Jukich has been taken by the St. Louis Cardinals.  Here's hoping that he can't stick.

More photos » by Mark J. Terrill - AP

Is Maicer Izturis the potential answer to the Reds 2010 needs at shortstop?

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Ed Price at MLB Fanhouse is reporting this morning that the Angels could move infielder Maicer Izturis in a deal this off-season.  The 29-year old Izturis is a switch-hitter who has played a mix of 2B, SS, and 3B in his big league career and he's played all 3 fairly well defensively.  Offensively, he's a career .278/.343/.393 hitter, though his power has been slightly more developed over the last couple of seasons (he slugged .434 in 2009).  He shows decent, though not great patience (8.7% career walk rate), but he's only struck out in 11% of his plate appearances.  Since we know that he would bat 2nd for the Reds, it's nice to know that he gets on base at a good rate and that he handles the bat pretty well to be able to do the things that Dusty would ask him to do while batting 2nd.

His hitting projections for 2010 look solidly average (only have these two systems for Izturis so far):

Compare that to Paul Janish:

Janish's best projection still puts him about 15 runs offensively behind Izturis over 600 PA.  CHONE rates them both as +5 defensively, so an acquisition of Izturis would likely bring the Reds about a win and a half in 2010. 

I think Izturis is definitely somebody the Reds should pursue.  One-and-a-half WAR is not a huge amount, but Izturis will likely not make more than $2.5-3 million next season, so it would definitely be a cost-effective upgrade.  The question is what will the Reds have to give up.  Price says in his article that the Angels are looking for a corner outfielder and bullpen help.  I'm not sure if they'd have any interest in Jonny Gomes, and he's probably the most viable candidate as an outfield centerpiece to a deal. 

That means the Reds probably need to go the relief route.  Arthur Rhodes could be a potential candidate for dealing, and the money/contract situation would be similar (both players are free agents after 2010).  Given Rhodes' age, I think the Reds should be willing to give him up in a deal since he's a definite risk to have a big dropoff any day now.  I'd also consider Daniel Ray Herrera or Jared Burton available as part of a package.  And of course, if the Angels wanted to take Francisco Cordero's contract, I'm sure the Reds would even be willing to chip in a couple million to make it worth the effort.

What do you think?  Should the Reds pursue Izturis?  Do they have a package of players to get it done?

(h/t nycredsfan)

For all of their foibles, every year the Reds put together one of the finest events for baseball fans in the country.  If you've never been to Redsfest, I highly recommend that you try to make it there because it is a whole lot of fun.  The event runs this Friday (4-11pm) and Saturday (11am-7pm) and is a great opportunity to get a Reds fix just before the cold winter months settle upon us.

To give you a little overview of what happens at Redsfest, it's a large, wide-open floor of the Duke Energy Convention center where they have a variety of booths and activities.  There's a wiffle ball field, batting cages, and a speed pitch, for you athletic types who accidentally stumbled upon this site.  There's a main stage with player panels, "gameshows" and musical acts.  And there are autograph booths and memorabilia stands all throughout.  Oh yeah, and a sports bar for the alkies out there.  The Reds have put a floor map (pdf) up on their website if you need more specifics.

Probably the coolest thing about the whole day is the interaction with the players.  Some of this can only happen at the autograph booths, but occasionally you can be fortunate enough to bump into a player or coach just walking around the place.  In 2006, I got to talk to Wayne Krivsky out his sweater collection:

The big news this year is the reunion of many of the players from the 1990 World Championship squad.  I plan to stalk all of them and make them feel uncomfortable.  It's sort of my thing.

So, are you planning to be there this weekend?  If so, I'd love to meet you and put a face with a moniker, if I haven't done so already.  I'll be there both Friday and Saturday, though I can't say yet when I'll be "walking the floor" if you will.  If you are going to be there, let me know.  Maybe I'll even buy you a beverage.

More photos » by Gene J. Puskar - AP

Will the Reds ever be successful with Dusty Baker as the manager, or is he a bad fit for this squad?

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Chris Jaffe is releasing excerpts of his book Evaluating Baseball's Managers at The Hardball Times. Today, he looks at Dusty Baker, and even though it doesn't talk about his time with the Reds, I found this passage relevant:

Much of the commentary on managers (including, admittedly, much of this book) presents a reductionist view of their job, portraying a skipper as someone who has the same impact on all environments at all times. In reality, managers are better at some parts of the job than at others. Place a man in a situation that fits his strengths, and he will look like a savant. Put that same individual on a team that highlights his weaknesses and people will call him a dullard. Dusty Baker’s experiences with the Giants and Cubs provided ample evidence of this phenomenon.

Many of us knew that when Baker was brought to the Reds as a Big Name Manager™, he may not be a good fit for the team that he was given.  I think we have seen that at times with him, especially in his first season when he declared that "this is Wayne Krivsky's team, not Walt Jocketty's and not mine" (that sentence still pisses me off).  It is unclear to me whether this team is molding into "Dusty's team."  There are some pieces that suit his style, but I'm not sure the team as a whole is "in his wheelhouse" as a manager.

The real issue that I see with Dusty, strategically, is that he seems to be very dogmatic in his commitment to a certain style of play, regardless of his personnel.  I see very little creativity out of him.  He seems to manage strictly to the book.  That's not to say he can't be successful - obviously he has had success elsewhere - just that the pieces within the team need to be specifically aligned to his style in order to facilitate that success (plus it helps to have the best player in the game).  The Reds might be able to get there with Baker, but given their lack of budget, I'm not all that confident that it will happen.

Rather than spending time talking about what Dusty does wrong though, let's talk about what the Reds need to add in order for Baker to be successful as the manager.  What do you think the Reds should be doing to build a team that suits his style?

Happy Turkey Day everyone!  I hope today finds you with full bellies and happy families!  Be safe on the roads if you are traveling, and when it comes to eating turkey (or drinking Wild Turkey), know your limits!

We have a winner in our season long competition for the autographed copy of Joe Posnanski's book The Machine.  That winner is none other than long-time Red Reporter Caleb, who out-prognosticated all of you, especially in the playoffs, and took home the victory.  Congratulations Caleb, hopefully you haven't read the book already!  Even if you have, this is a copy signed by the author, so there's that. (The full results are after the jump)

For the rest of you, I give you the classic Turkey Drop scene from WKRP in Cincinnati.

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by Al Behrman - AP

Bronson Arroyo appreciates the help from his defense, but his mama didn't raise no dummy.

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Bronson Arroyo led the Reds' starters in wins, ERA, and innings pitched in 2009.  Aaron Harang led the Reds in losses and has managed just 12 wins over the last two seasons.  What if I told you that the biggest difference between those two pitchers last year was something that is largely out of their control?

As Justin showed yesterday, the Reds were arguably the best defensive team in the National League in 2009, but oddly enough, Harang saw very little benefit from that improved defense.  Out of all qualified pitchers, Harang finished dead last in the National League in Defensive Efficiency Ratio (DER) at .669.  Arroyo on the other hand had the 5th best ratio at .735.  This means that out of every 100 balls that were put into play (not counting home runs), the Reds defense turned 6.6 more of them into outs for Arroyo than they did for Harang.  That may not seem like a ton until you realize that batters put the ball into play 514 times against Harang and 722 times against Arroyo last season.  Those numbers add up quickly.

This is not to say that none of it is Harang's fault.  The big right-hander did have the highest Line Drive allowed rate in the Majors at 24% and his ground ball rate of 34% was much lower than Arroyo's 44% GB rate.  But those numbers still don't seem like enough of a reason for the dramatic 30+ play difference in the two pitcher's numbers.  So I did a little mathematical experiment.

Using the batted ball data from Baseball Reference's splits page, let's compare each player's BABIP to the team's BABIP for each batted ball type.  We're using BABIP, which is more or less 1 - DER, because BBRef does not include reached on error within the pitcher splits.

You can see here that Arroyo has had the fortune of many more of his batted balls being turned into outs across the board.  His BABIP outperforms the rest of the Reds team in every single category except for the tiny sample of bunts, most of which are sacrifice hits.  If you subscribe to the DIPS theory that pitchers have very little control over what happens to a ball once it is put into play, then you can see that Arroyo benefited dramatically from defensive help much more than Harang did.

What's that look like from a runs perspective?  If we use wRAA (runs above average based on wOBA) for our estimator, we see that Arroyo, based on actual values, was about 9 runs better than the average pitcher while Harang was about 7 runs worse than the average pitcher.  If we adjust each pitcher's BABIP lines per batted ball type to match the Reds' team average in each type (exchanging only singles and outs, leaving all extra base hits the same), Arroyo's wRAA changes to 3.5 runs below the average pitcher while Harang moves to 7 runs better than average.  That's a -12.5 run shift for Arroyo and a +14 run shift for Harang, all simply by leveling out the defensive success behind them.  I'll admit that it was a much bigger change than I expected.

Unfortunately, I won't simply take these numbers and adjust ERA because the chain effect of converting a hit into an out and vice versa would adjust the number of innings pitched and the math is too complicated for my small brain.  Besides, the point wasn't to argue the quality of each pitcher so much as to demonstrate how two pitchers, pitching for the same team, can get very different support from their defensive teammates and what a dramatic effect that can have on their outcomes.  And that's not even mentioning run support.  No one should be surprised if Harang is the 15-game winner next year and Arroyo is struggling on a start-by-start basis.  Such is the fickle nature of depending on your teammates.