SB Nation User Blog: rojosoto

Reds roster cuts and 21-yr old LHP pickup

rojosoto — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:31:24 -0000

Courtesy of CTR The Reds today made a number of spring training cuts.

Alexander Smit was outrighted to Sarasota (off the 40-man roster.)
Richie Gardner and Tyler Pelland optioned to AAA.
C Chris Kroski, LHP Matt Maloney and LHP Adam Pettyjohn were reassigned to the minor league camp.

The Reds claimed 21 year old LHP Jose Capellan off waivers from the San Francisco Giants. The Giants drafted him in this year's Rule V draft from the Boston Red Sox. Follow the link to his career minor league stats and scouting report. Great professional numbers, but never pitched above A-ball. In 3 spring games with the Giants, Capellan pitched 2 and a third innings, 6 hits, 2 of which were homeruns, no walks, 1 strikeout and a hefty 11.59 ERA.

Seems to squeeze an already tight 25-man roster spot. Perhaps he can be stashed on the 25-man all year as a lefty specialist, then back to the minors next year to go back to starting?

RIP Chief Bender

rojosoto — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:27:00 -0000

http://cincinnati.reds.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080227&content_id=2392164&vkey=news_ci n&fext=.jsp&c_id=cin

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- A revered member of the Reds' organization passed away Wednesday with the death of former farm director Sheldon "Chief" Bender.

Bender, who was 88, died at Fort Hamilton Hospital in Ohio. He spent 64 years in baseball as a player, manager and executive -- the last 39 of them with Cincinnati.

As the organization's Minor League director from 1967-89, Bender was brought in by general manager Bob Howsam and presided over a bountiful system that provided the seed for the Big Red Machine. Johnny Bench, Dave Concepcion, Ken Griffey Sr. and Don Gullett later became stars in the 1970s.

Howsam died last week of heart failure at the age of 89.

Players later developed under Bender included Mario Soto, Tom Browning, Paul O'Neill, Ron Oester, Chris Sabo, Eric Davis and Barry Larkin.

In 1989, Bender became the senior advisor for player development. He retired in 2005, but remained a frequent visitor at Great American Ball Park.

To honor him in 2002, the Reds renamed their Minor League Player of the Year to the Sheldon "Chief" Bender Award.

Who would you rather listen to call a Reds game?

rojosoto — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:43:45 -0000

The Reds have played 4 weeks of baseball, and by now many of us have had a chance to hear all the new Reds commentators and combinations of commentators.

We have no clue from one game to the next, or at least one series to the next, who will be calling which games. Assuming you had a choice to listen to any of the combinations heard so far, other than Marty & Joe, who would you listen to on a nightly basis if given the choice? Would you bring Steve Stewart back??

Poll

Who would you rather listen to call a Reds game?

Thom & Jeff

9 votes

Thom & Chris

0 votes

Marty & Steve

3 votes

George & Chris

6 votes

Marty & Thom

16 votes

Marty & Jeff

22 votes

56 votes | Poll has closed

Johnny Vander Meer

rojosoto — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:36:40 -0000

The legend of Double No-Hit By Robert Weintraub on ESPN Page 2.

A great article on a great pitcher in Reds history, and a couple of major league records that still stand to this day.

The article also paints a nice background of the tangential plot lines to the overall story.

How good is Brandon Phillips?

rojosoto — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 19:11:19 -0000

Is Brandon Phillips part of this untouchable, young core that should be a mainstay in the middle of Cincinnati's infield for the next 5-10 years?

Should he be shifted to shortstop next year to improve the middle of the diamond defense?

He's been very streaky this year. Everyone in Cincinnati is in love with him after a great first impression in April. He's been branded as being a good bat, with a good glove, and great speed. Let's examine each of these.

.763 OPS on the season is 8th out of 20 qualified 2nd basemen (ESPN.com stats page.) His OBP is only .329, ranking 15th out of 20. He is #1 in SB% for anyone attempting more than 10 steals.
By month he has hit - OPS
April - 970
May - 675
June - 871
July - 564
Aug - 981
Sept - 398

His defense has not been as good as advertised. His .977 fielding percentage ranks him 21 out of 23 qualified fielders. His Range Factor (12th) and Zone Rating (11th) are middle of the pack. Will that translate to successful play at Shortstop?

For as much grief as Adam Dunn gets about his streakiness and his defensive errors, Phillips seems to have gotten a pass, regardless of his 675, 564, and 398 OPS's in each of May, July, and September or his 15 errors.

If I were the Reds GM, I would definitely consider the possibility of Phillips being a good buy low, sell high candidate. If Phillips trade value has grown appreciably over the course of the season, I would certainly entertain trade offers for Phillips.

It also appears on the surface that moving him to SS may be a bad idea.

Eric Milton - Quality Starter

rojosoto — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 16:17:13 -0000

Eric Milton has a 58.3% quality start percentage going into tonight's game (14 for 24.) Bronson Arroyo is at 64.5%, Lohse at 57.1% in his 7 starts. A surprising number that jumped out at me was that Aaron Harang's latest start dropped him below a 50% quality start percentage for the season (48.4% - 15 for 31.)

How important is or how useless is the quality start statistic? A quality start is defined as a start of at least 6 innings pitched with no more than 3 earned runs allowed.

An obvious loophole with the stat on first glance is that a pitcher could pitch exactly 6 innings, give up 3 runs, and finish the season with a 4.50 ERA. Not exactly "quality" though to match the feat exactly in every start would be quite improbable. Another issue is that a pitcher could go 8 innings of 4-run ball, produce the same 4.50 ERA, yet not get credited for a quality start. This happened to Harang most recently on 9/4 vs SanFran.

With many feeling that Aaron Harang is the staff "ace" and Eric Milton is an overpaid #5 starter, how different are these two pitchers?

Milton 4.95 ERA, 1.31 WHIP - 147.1 IP, 81 ER, 87R - OPS .264/315/462
Harang 3.83 ERA, 1.32 WHIP - 202.1 IP, 86 ER, 97R - OPS .274/323/437

It looks like Milton gives up fewer hits/baserunners, but more extra base hits. His higher ERA is a reflection of a higher HR ratio. When broken out, Milton's quality starts aren't of the same "quality" as Harang's, and he has even worse performances in non-quality starts. A lot Harang's non quality starts, in general, are of the 4-5 run variety. In nine of his 16 non-quality starts, Harang pitched enough innings to qualify, but surrendered 4-5 runs.

Milton ERA QS - 2.68
Milton ERA nonQS - 8.94

Harang ERA QS - 1.38
Harang ERA nonQS - 6.85

Looking at a modified approach to the quality start statistic, let's use the rule of 3 ER in 6 innings or 4 ER in 7+ innings. This change did not impact Milton's numbers. However, Harang would be credited with three more quality starts, 18 for 31, which is 58.1%. He had 1 appearance of 4 runs in 7 innings and 2 starts with 4 runs in 8 innings.

Harang ERA modifiedQS - 1.95
Harang ERA non-modifiedQS - 7.58

It should be noted in this modified approach that the Reds lost all three games added to Harang's QS total.

Looking at certain stats like QS% and OPS against, you could make arguments that Eric Milton has been as good as Aaron Harang this year. I think looking at the game-by-game shows that this is not the case, but it does show that Milton is certainly not as bad as he played last year and has been a pretty effective middle of the rotation starter for the team this year.

Rich Aurilia as a SS

rojosoto — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:11:20 -0000

The following comment was posted by Will two days ago on Daedalus's blog. (I have been unable to post comment/reply there from work, but will post there also once I have access.)

"Rich Aurilia as a shortstop: "

".244/.279/.415 "

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole point of starting Aurilia at SS is for his bat, right? Well, he's hitting no better then Clayton or Castro at short, so why are we making a major sacrifice in defense if we aren't getting anything in return offensively?"

I'd like to tackle the Rich Aurilia question, not sure exactly what the answer is prior to looking up numbers....I'd imagine that overall, Aurilia is a MUCH better hitter.

Aurilia's 2006 stat line is
286/335/518
Clayton is 266/312/349. Clayton hasn't seen an OPS north of 700 since 2004, when he played in Colorado. Prior to that was 708 in 2001. Aurilia, with the exception of 2004, has been consistently over 700.

So, offensively speaking in aggregate, Richie's bad years are better than Clayton's good years.

Looking at their splits, I see the point regarding Aurilia's stats at SS. Does playing SS cause Aurilia to hit worse? I'm not sure how playing a particular position affects his batting, unless he spends all pre-game doing defensive drills and no time in the batting cage, and that somehow rubs off on him during the game.

I think the past couple of weeks, when Richie plays SS it is vs a RH pitcher. Hatteberg plays 1st, Richie plays SS. Versus a LHP, Aurilia's been playing 1st and Clayton SS. Interestingly, Aurilia's number at SS almost match his numbers vs RHP. Clayton has been hitting LHP, and not been doing so well against RHP. Their splits:

Clayton vsL: 342/395/432
Clayton vsR: 237/281/319

Aurilia vsL: 365/423/730
Aurilia vsR: 244/287/407
Aurilia at SS: 244/279/415

Offensively, vs righties, they are about the same, except Aurilia has about 100 more points in SLG. We could debate whether the extra 100 points in slugging is worth Clayton's defense, but I think we'd have to debate first whether Clayton is better than Aurilia defensively. By watching games over the past month and taking a quick glance at the year-to-date stats, I don't think there's much of a difference between how the two have handled SS so far this year.

I'm not sure if we should expect Clayton to be better than Aurilia and that he's done statistically poor in a small sample size, or if Clayton has truly "lost a step" and they are fairly equal defensively.

I did not specifically look into the details behind Aurilia vs Castro, but I would expect to find Castro to have better defense than Clayton and even worse offensive numbers. Producing less offensive production than Royce Clayton is how you become a late-inning defensive replacement.

Relief help in 2006

rojosoto — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:53:33 -0000

The infamous trade last week for bullpen help left many fans wondering what help was acquired and at what price. The very early returns on Majewski are not inspiring.

But the main question to ask is, why did the Reds need to pay so much for young bullpen arms that will conceivably be in the organization for the next few years when the goal was to win this year?

The Atlanta Braves just acquired bullpen help in their bid to chase down the Reds. What did they give up? A minor league player that no one except he and his mother had heard of.

Who did they get? Bob Wickman - 4.18 ERA, 1.43 WHIP. Not great on the surface, but the funny thing about relievers stats is that a bad outing can easily inflate numbers. Take Wickman's performance vs the Reds on June 30. 0.2IP, 3H, 5ER, 2BB, 0K, and his only HR allowed of the season. Look at what he's done in his other 29 appearances of the season, and you find a much better relief pitcher with a 2.63 ERA and 1.28 WHIP.

If there was any doubt that Krivsky overpaid for Bray and Majewski, I think the Braves trade for Wickman proves that he did.