The Reds Are Coming

This morning, Matt Klaassen and I sat at Carson Cistulli’s incredibly round table and gave our thoughts on each first round playoff match-up. You’ll hear the results of that in podcast form shortly, but I wanted to expound on a point of disagreement between Matt and I in one series in particular – the Reds/Phillies contest.

Matt jokingly referred to the series as a question of whether the Phillies would win in three games or just two, pointing to the team’s starting rotations as the reason that the series is a pretty big mismatch. And he’s right – the Phillies rotation is vastly superior to that of Cincinnati’s.

But, if you look at the other aspects of the rosters, I think the Reds not only hold their own, but they probably have the advantage.

The Reds posted a .339 wOBA this year, third best in baseball. Yes, they play in a pretty decent offensive environment, but so do the Phillies, who posted a .328 wOBA. No, you shouldn’t rely on just one year of data when looking at player abilities, but even a current true talent estimation will suggest that the Reds can hit, and probably hit better than the Phillies.

Everyone knows about Joey Votto – he’s a monster, and the best offensive player in this series by a good margin. Surrounding him, they have a number of good hitters, including guys at positions where you don’t generally expect offense. Few teams got better production from their up-the-middle spots than the Reds got from Ryan Hanigan, Brandon Phillips, Paul Janish, and Drew Stubbs.

These guys aren’t just lumbering sluggers, either. Including studly defenders Scott Rolen and Jay Bruce, the Reds position players are generally some of the better glove guys at their positions in the league. In fact, of the 21 position players the Reds used this year, only three posted a negative UZR on the season – Miguel Cairo, Jim Edmonds, and Jonny Gomes. You probably won’t see a ton of those guys the playoffs.

They might not be household names, but the Reds lead all of MLB in WAR by position players this year. That wasn’t an accident – they have a lot of talent there. Of course, pitching counts too, and the Phillies do have a huge edge in the rotation, but some of that gets eliminated when we look at the bullpens. Everyone knows about Aroldis Chapman’s crazy velocity, but Arthur Rhodes, Nick Masset, and Francisco Cordero are pretty good themselves, and they’ll get the benefit of whichever starter they don’t choose from the Homer Bailey/Travis Wood combo.

For me, the only place the Phillies are better than the Reds is in the starting rotation. It’s a huge advantage, and clearly the biggest discrepancy of any area between the two teams, but I don’t think it’s such a large gap that we should expect Philadelphia to roll in this series. The Reds can hit, they can field, and they’ve got a pretty good crop of relievers that they can turn to early in games.

This probably isn’t going to be a cake walk for the Phillies. Halladay-Hamels-Oswalt make them the favorites, but this series will likely be a lot more competitive than people expect. Don’t sleep on the Reds. They’re a good baseball team.