SB Nation User Blog: fourthandeye

Reds get Micah Owings to complete Dunn deal

fourthandeye — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:35:51 -0000

Reds get Micah Owings to complete Dunn deal

PHOENIX -- After weeks of speculation, pitcher Micah Owings officially became the third player acquired by the Reds in the trade that sent Adam Dunn to the Diamondbacks.

Owings will join the Reds on Friday. To make room for him on the 40-man roster, second baseman Brandon Phillips (broken right index finger) was placed on the 60-day disabled list.

Owings, 25, was 6-9 with a 5.93 ERA in 18 starts and four relief appearances for Arizona this season before he was demoted to Triple-A Tucson on July 29.

On Aug. 11, the Reds dealt Dunn to the Diamondbacks for utility player Wilkin Castillo, Minor League pitcher Dallas Buck and a third player to be named. Owings' inclusion was held up because of an oblique injury which prohibited him from being placed on waivers. All players dealt after July 31 must first clear waivers.

Brian Bannister

fourthandeye — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:30:26 -0000

During Spring Training Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports wrote a piece on Brian Bannister called "Royals' Bannister unafraid to do the math". Passan wrote that "Bannister is the first big-league starter to so publicly embrace sabermetrics". He extended that notion to suggest that because Bannister embraces and studies concepts like BABIP and studies pitch f/x data he may be better equipped to go against the grain and compete without great stuff. In March there was a thread in this community on the Passan article.

Today Bannister's nightmare 2008 season continued as he yielded 10 ER in 1 IP further ballooning his ERA to 5.96. Only Carlos Silva, among leaderboard qualifiers, has a worse ERA in the majors.

Francisco Liriano

fourthandeye — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 12:17:02 -0000

Francisco Liriano dominated his last 10 AAA starts going 9-0 with a 2.53 ERA and 73/9 K/BB. He's also been very effective in his return to the majors allowing just 3 ER in 18.2 innings (3 starts). The results (stats) are encouraging. But I have to ask - how is he getting the results? Is he mixing pitches and relying on his fastball and changeup more? Or is he back to simply throwing his 91mph slider 60% of the time. In our large community I'm sure some of you have watched his starts - how is he pitching?

He's entertaining and hell and one of the very best pitchers in the league when he usually that slider as batters don't seem to have an answer for it. But I have no faith he'll remain healthy if he just goes back to the all sliders all the time pitcher. So if he's going to have staying power he needs to reinvent himself a little IMO. I'm curious if he has begun that process...