The period between the end of the World Series and the official start of free agency is usually uneventful, with teams taking care of procedural moves to get their rosters ready for the long offseason. That wasn’t the case for the Reds. On the first day of the offseason, the team traded Tucker Barnhart to the Tigers for infield prospect Nick Quintana. A day later, Nick Castellanos exercised his opt-out clause, forgoing two more years in Cincinnati and $34 million in total salary to test the market. A few days later, the Cubs announced they had claimed a surprisingly available Wade Miley off waivers. It was a pretty eventful few days for the Reds, and they now enter the offseason with a lot more question marks hanging over their roster than they had before the Fall Classic’s conclusion.

All three of these moves have significant implications for the Reds’ payroll in 2022. In a media session after the Barnhart trade last Wednesday, Reds general manager Nick Krall explained the reasoning behind that move: “Going into 2022, we must align our payroll to our resources and continue focusing on scouting and developing young talent from within our system.” That same rationale explains why Miley was so freely available to the league on waivers. While Castellanos opting out of his two remaining years with the club was unsurprising after his phenomenal 2021, his $17 million salary next year is now off the books, and both Barnhart and Miley held club options for next season — $7.5 million for the former and $10 million for the latter.

Even though those comments from Krall are couched in business speak, it’s not hard to understand the direction the Reds are headed this offseason. After a hefty increase in payroll from just over $100 million in 2018 to a non-pro-rated $149 million in ’20, the Reds look like they’re about to cut spending for the second season in a row. Even with Castellanos, Barnhart, and Miley off the roster, their estimated payroll for 2022 currently comes out to $131 million, $10 million over their final payroll figure for this season and just $17 million below the franchise high-water mark from 2020.

Given that payroll number and their comments, the Reds probably don’t have much room to add any players to address the numerous holes on their roster. They currently have just over $70 million in salary committed to five players in 2022: Joey Votto ($25MM), Mike Moustakas ($16MM), Sonny Gray ($10.7MM), Eugenio Suárez ($11.3MM), and Shogo Akiyama ($8MM). And that doesn’t take into account the 10 players due to receive a raise in salary arbitration this offseason. It’s likely they’ll try to move Moustakas, Gray, or another one of their high-priced players to free up further salary space. But this isn’t a case of addition by subtraction; the Reds are taking steps to field a team that constitutes a significant step back from the competitive rosters from the last two seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

In his own words, Ivan Johnson is “just a normal 23-year-old guy with some tools… who is going to take it as far as I can go.” It’s a humble self-assessment. Currently the No. 14 prospect in the Cincinnati Reds system, the switch-hitting middle infielder is coming off a strong season split between Low-A Daytona and High-A Dayton. A fourth-round pick in the 2019 draft out of Chipola College, Johnson put up an identical 125 wRC+ at both levels.

The Atlanta native’s initial collegiate experience after matriculating from Kennesaw Mountain High School was brief. Originally at the University of Georgia, Johnson transferred to Chipola for his sophomore year. Talent-level wasn’t a major factor.

“It was circumstantial more than anything,” explained Johnson, who is playing with the Arizona Fall League’s Surprise Saguaros. “Our shortstop [Cam Shepherd] was coming off a Freshman All-America year, so I would have had to move over to second where we had an older guy [LJ Talley] who was more used to what the SEC was all about. So I wouldn’t say I wasn’t ready. I think I kind of showed that in my JUCO year.”

Johnson put up a 1.078 OPS at Chipola, impressing scouts not only with his production and plus athleticism, but also with the fact that he swings from both sides. That he does so is product of advice he received at young age. Told by “some older baseball minds” that it would advantageous once he began facing more-mature pitchers, the natural right-handed hitter decided “to just run with it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Please note, this posting contains two positions.

Position: Data Engineer

Department: Information Technology – Baseball Data and Development
Job Title: Data Engineer
Reports To: Director of Data Systems & Development
FLSA: Salary, Exempt

Job Purpose:
The Data Engineer will work closely with the Data team and the Baseball Systems team to maintain, enhance, and extend the Cincinnati Reds data pipelines. You will be responsible for collecting and transforming data from various sources as well as preparing and distributing data for consumption by the department’s systems and analysts. The ideal candidate is an experienced data pipeline builder who excels at automating and optimizing data systems, with a strong preference for cloud experience. Read the rest of this entry »

After a one-year hiatus due to the oddity and non-celebratory feeling of a season truncated by a raging pandemic, we’re bringing back the Elegy series in a streamlined format for a 2021 wrapup. Think of this as a quick winter preview for each team, discussing the questions that faced each team ahead of the year, how they were answered, and what’s next. Do you like or hate the new format? Let me know in the comments below! We’ve already tackled the AL Central; now on to its Senior Circuit counterpart.

Milwaukee Brewers (95–67)

The Big Question
Could Christian Yelich bounce back from a weak 2020 season? His .326/.402/.598 breakout season in 2018 netted him an MVP award, and he may have won back-to-back trophies if not for a fractured kneecap that ended his ’19 season prematurely. And while 2020 was a disappointment, you could at least chalk some of it up to a low BABIP.

The Brew Crew didn’t look like a 95-win team coming into the season, but in a weak division and with possible upside from players like Yelich and the contact-challenged Keston Hiura, you had to like their chances as much as anybody. Helping matters was a pitching staff that took a big step forward during the shortened season. Corbin Burnes provided an ample demonstration of why you shouldn’t freak out about homers allowed for otherwise effective pitchers, and Brandon Woodruff had an entire season at bonafide ace status. Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros knew exactly what they were doing when they hired Dusty Baker to manage the team in the wake of commissioner Rob Manfred’s report on the club’s illegal sign-stealing efforts during the 2017 and ’18 seasons. The septuagenarian skipper’s old-school reputation stood out as an effort to rebrand an analytically-inclined organization that Manfred criticized as “insular” and “problematic,” to say nothing of outside criticisms of the team’s methods as “dehumanizing.” Baker’s human touch and his skill at dealing with the media have helped to offset some of the anger and hostility directed at the team by fans, while the Astros have continued their deep postseason runs, presumably without the benefit of illegal electronic help.

The Astros limped to a 29-31 record during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season due to myriad injuries and underperformances, but in the expanded postseason, they went on a tear, upsetting the higher-seeded Twins in the Wild Card Series and the A’s in the Division Series before falling to the Rays in the AL Championship Series, that after rallying back from a three-games-to-none deficit. This year, despite a rotation full of question marks, they overcame an 18-17 start, took over sole possession of first place in the AL West for good on June 21, and breezed to the AL West title with a 95-67 record. Since then, they outlasted both the White Sox in the Division Series and the Red Sox in the AL Championship Series.

In doing so, Baker became just the ninth manager to win pennants in both leagues, and before that, the first manager to win division titles with five different teams; he had already become the first manager to take five different teams to the postseason last year. Read the rest of this entry »

High-performing under-the-radar prospects have been featured frequently in this space over recent months, and Brandon Phaadt fits that description to a T. Unranked coming into the season, the 22-year-old right-hander in the Arizona Diamondbacks system posted a 3.21 ERA while fanning 160 batters in 131-and-two-thirds innings. Moreover, he did so while pitching at three levels —Pfaadt’s last six starts came with Double-A Amarillo — as a 2020 fifth-round pick out of a DII school.

The Bellarmine University product pushed back slightly when I suggested that his auspicious performance came out of the blue.

“I guess it did in some people’s eyes,” said Pfaadt. “But I knew I had it all along. I had a long offseason to train, and I also think it was really important that I was able to work with three different pitching coaches this year. I got feedback from all three, and was able to take bits and pieces from each of them.”

Asked for examples, Pfaadt told me that Barry Enright (Low-A Visalia) was more mechanics-based and worked with him on the consistency of his delivery, while Shane Loux (High-A Hillsboro) was more about pitchability. At Amarillo, Doug Drabek provided an effective combination of old-school and new-school acumen. As Pfaadt put it, Drabek “knows what worked back then, and what works now.”

Pitch design didn’t play a role. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 941

On this edition of the podcast, David Laurila offers a pair of interviews with some insightful pitching minds.

• In the podcast’s first segment, David is joined by Collin McHugh. The Rays right-hander (and occasional podcast host) talks about what it is like to be a major league veteran in a game that is getting younger, how he feels about converting to relief, and the best season of his career. McHugh also shares his thoughts on pitcher wins, striking out the side, and the extra-innings runner, before he tells David about getting his first hit off of Clayton Kershaw and trying to strike out Prince Fielder. [2:39]
• After that, David welcomes Kyle Boddy, founder and owner of Driveline Baseball. Kyle talks about his recent departure from the Reds, as well as the great progress he and his team were able to make while working there. Kyle also shares his thoughts on a number of exciting Cincinnati prospects, including Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Stevie Branche, Lyon Richardson, and Graham Ashcraft. [29:33]

Read the rest of this entry »

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As the end of the regular season draws near, the Wild Card race in the NL is as tight as it comes. The Dodgers currently control the top spot, while the Padres, who held onto second for most of the year, have faltered in the face of adversity, going from 91.7% playoff odds on July 27 to 24.2% as of today. That has left the door open for the Reds and Cardinals, with the former riding a torrid August and withstanding a slow September for a 36.2% chance to make the playoffs (though the latter currently leads in the chase for the second wild card by half a game).

Cincinnati’s success this season is in large part due to contributions from players like Joey Votto and Wade Miley. One unit that hasn’t helped, though is the bullpen; Reds relievers carry the fourth-highest FIP (4.69) in the majors and account for just 1.0 WAR. But in the last month and a half, the bullpen has shown some improvement, albeit modest, with a 4.40 FIP since August 1 and a 4.02 mark in the month of September, which ranks 11th in baseball during that time. That improvement has been particularly noticeable in the late innings:

All that is despite a closer situation has been fluid, to say the least — one riddled with injuries and poor performance throughout the year. Back in the offseason, the Reds surprisingly sent incumbent closer Raisel Iglesias to the Angels for middle reliever Noé Ramirez, betting that their stock of young arms and less expensive veteran alternatives would make up for his departure. The plan backfired. Iglesias is following up his excellent 2020 with a career year in which he’ll challenge previous career highs in saves and strikeouts, and his WAR this season is nearly twice that of the entire Reds relief corps.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am not going to beat around the bush: Luis Castillo had a miserable start to the season. On Opening Day against the Cardinals, he allowed 10 runs (eight of which were earned) and recorded zero strikeouts in just three and a third innings of work. He bounced back about a week later against Pittsburgh, tossing seven innings with five strikeouts versus one walk without surrendering a run. But despite that showing, Castillo’s Opening Day struggles proved to be more than a blip on the radar for a pitcher who ranked among the top 20 in baseball over the three seasons prior to 2021. At the beginning of May, Castillo still had an ERA above six (6.07); it would not dip below that mark until his June 15 start against Milwaukee. His ERA peaked (apart from the stretch between his first and second start) at 7.61 on May 23. As of this writing, his ERA is 4.20; he has accumulated 3.0 WAR over 163 innings, placing him 26th in the majors among qualifiers.

So what has changed? Back on May 18, Justin Choi wrote about Castillo’s performance through his first eight starts, attempting to diagnose what plagued the Reds right-hander. Justin first looked at Castillo’s changeup, which had long been his most effective offering but which was generating far fewer whiffs than before. Justin found that the pitch was dropping more than it had in the past, though Castillo was still able to locate it just below the lower edge of the strike zone. The rest of Castillo’s repertoire (a sinker, four-seamer, and slider), on the other hand, was being placed right down the pipe. Justin concluded that the location of Castillo’s changeup were so different from that of the rest of his pitches that batters were either laying off the changeup or swinging at the few that landed closer to the heart of the zone.

Since Justin published his analysis, Castillo has compiled a 3.15 ERA and ranks 10th in WAR. Let’s try to locate the difference. Year-over-year, his pitch mix is largely the same:

Read the rest of this entry »

Bobby Dalbec is a bona fide music nerd. The son of a longtime Atlantic Records executive, the 26-year-old Boston Red Sox rookie not only plays piano and guitar, he’s an ardent fan of multiple genres. Growing up around the business influenced that. His father, Tim Dalbec, has worked with a diverse group of artists that include — to name just a few — Bruno Mars, Robert Plant, Smash Mouth, and the Zac Brown Band.

While he listens to everything from rap, to house, to Neo soul —“If it sounds good in my ear is all that matters” — guitar-based rock is clearly in his wheelhouse. Talking to the young power-hitter prior to a recent game at Fenway Park, I learned that he enjoys Jimi Hendrix, John Mayer — “a lot of people think he’s a pop guy, but his his guitar playing is pretty top-tier” — and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Another favorite is Goose, a jam-band out of Connecticut.

Somewhat surprisingly, Dalbec only recently began playing the guitar.

“My dad never pushed me toward music,” said Dalbec, whom the Red Sox selected in the fourth round of the 2016 draft out of the University of Arizona. “He was a drummer growing up, but I never learned drums. The first instrument I learned was actually piano, and that was three or four off-seasons ago. I was self-taught. Piano was kind of a gateway into learning guitar, which I really dove into after the first COVID outbreak.”

Why piano before guitar? Read the rest of this entry »