Archive for the '2006 Season' Category

By Thaq Diesel

It will be curious to see how much the 35-year-old Aurilia gets through free agency.  Yes he had a great year, but you have to wonder how much more he will continue to improve as he ages.  I guess we’ll see what price teams put on leadership, something Aurilia has been reported to bring to the Reds in the past.  Cincinnati needs to get younger in places and perhaps shortstop will be one place.  As for getting better as he ages, perhaps Rich has the same genes as Julio Franco.

Even more curious will be how David Weathers fares.  David flat out struggled at times last season. 

Alright, the Reds’ bloggers got together for another chat and I actually showed up this time.  Most of my comments revolved around how I disgusted I was with Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez getting traded.  Here are links to the other parts.

Part 1 at Church of Baseball

Part 2 at Red Hot Mama

Part 3 – STAY RIGHT HERE!!!!

Part 4 – The Olde 320 Pub

Part 5 – The Cincinnati Reds Blog

Shawn: Q4:

Shawn: What offseason trades would you like to see?

Blade: Adam Dunn for Roy Oswalt?

Shawn: That’d be good

Red Hot Mama: Ross for something worth more than he’s really likely to be next year

Shawn: Such as……

Red Hot Mama: I dunno man, I’m a girl

Blade: Oswalt owns us, it’d be nice to have him on our side

Shawn: Ooooooooooooo, cooties!

Red Hot Mama: Anything? Ross is likely to suck next year

Shawn: Ross could come in about .220 with 15 HR

Clint: I would like to see us get another starter and we definitely need some help in the bullpen

daedalus: i’m trying to figure out this damn sudoku puzzle…ross should be traded because we can get something for him now. (i like him, but we don’t have many chips…)

Blade: Are there any good free agent starters out there this year?

Red Hot Mama: Anyone says “closer” and I kick your ass

Clint: if anyone would be crazy enough to take Eric Milton that would be nice

Shawn: Free agent starters go Zito, Mulder, Schmidt

Blade: Not that we’d sign any one of them

Shawn: I wouldn’t put it past Castellini

Blade: Mulder is damaged goods

Clint: yeah Zito would be nice, not so sure about Mulder or Schmidt

Red Hot Mama: Zito

Shawn: Closer

Clint: do we keep Aurillia or let him go?

Shawn: Heeheehee

daedalus: we shouldn’t waste the money on a big starter. we have harang, arroyo, milton, and probably bailey. we should go after a big bat and a closer

daedalus: keep aurilia

Shawn: For the price of Aurilia this offseason, I’d say let him go

Clint: yeah I wouldn’t mind keeping Aurilia but at the same time I worry about overpaying for him

Red Hot Mama: You goin down, boyeeee

Shawn: If it was under $3 mil for one year, then yes. But he’s gonna be 2-3 years at $5 mil per.

Blade: What about Mark Buehrle. Looks like the White Sox might not pick up his option

Red Hot Mama: What is overpaying? Whatever he can get is the right price, right?

Shawn: Overpaying is overreacting to his 2006 season, the second-best of his career.

Red Hot Mama: I foresee many good “Buehrle”/”burly” puns in his future

Shawn: Buehrle I could go for.

Blade: I say we keep Aurilia just so Amanda is happy

Clint: Well Rich is getting older and I really don’t think he will repeat the year he had last year. Therfore the Reds would be paying too much for him

Red Hot Mama: <3

Blade: How much do you want to bet we end up with Jose Lima

Shawn: Then you’d see me on the roof of GABP with a rifle.

Clint: lol oh please no! If Dan O Brien were still here I would guarantee it

Blade: It sounds like a joke now……

Blade: What do we do with Griffey?

Clint: and you know Narron would pencil him as the 3rd starter since you know how he loves crafty vets

Shawn: Trade him, if there was a market.

Shawn: Griffey is untradeable, I am afraid

Red Hot Mama: Second. I think you underestimate Narron’s ability to underestimate Harang.

Clint: HAHA good point

Blade: We could also see Sean Casey back in town

Shawn: Narron let Harang lead the league in CG. I think he likes him.

Shawn: Casey and Hatteberg blocking Votto? Perish the thought.

Clint: really? I dont see that happening since we extended Hatteburg 

 

 

By Thaq Diesel

More disturbing than seeing an Albert Pujols close up in HD (replete with larger-than-life cold sores), watching the Cardinals win the World Series was painful.  Had they made the playoffs, I doubt the Reds pitching staff would have hurt them much after seeing the games this post-season. 

At least Sean Casey played well for the Tigers.  I’m sure that’s little consolation for him at this moment.  It was great seeing his familiar sluggy swing get some hits and at least make the Tigers look like they weren’t napping the whole time. 

The best quote of the postseason came from my wife who was doing some work at her laptop with baseball on in the background.  Fox was doing its intro for World Series game 4 and I said to my wife that I wondered if two of our friends, diehard Red Birds fans (and coincidentally lesbians at that) who lived an hour away from St. Louis were at the game.  Half-paying attention, she asked where the game was being played.  Joe Buck answered as part of the intro, “…tonight at Busch Stadium.”  My wife said, “Busch Stadium?  Yeah, I’m sure that’s where (our friends) are.”  I guess you had to be there.

I kept waiting for this World Series to turn into the book the “Tigers’ Revenge,” by Claude Balls.  Instead, it was “Twick or Tweet” as the Cardinals won with surprising ease.  Okay, I couldn’t come up with a good pun for the Cardinals.  I’m kinda glad this baseball season is over.  The Tigers embodied what the Reds were to me this year.  They came out of nowhere, started with great promise and folded late.  Defense let them down and most of their hitters were lost during the series, letting what otherwise would have been good or great pitching go to waste.  Let’s wipe the slate clean and start over.

By Thaq Diesel

Now that I’m seeing the world series, I’m almost rooting for the hated Cardinals.  I want to demonstrate that the National League can stand on its own.  I find it telling that I want that more than I want the Cardinals or the smarmy LaRussa to lose.  It would be nice to see Sean Casey win a ring though.

I remember that for the first game of the World Series, Fox showed an intro describing Detroit as run down, without job hopes – basically in the crapper.  Fox said that Detroit had its Tigers, though, and that was going to get them through.  Like the World Series wasn’t stressful enough…  Now they have the weight of a city with high unemployment, high poverty and high drug use on their backs. 

Former Reds player Juan Encarnacion looks lost in right field.  He can’t seem to field a ball clearly out there in the Series.  He’s played in the outfield a long time.  Not sure what’s up with him of late. 

By Thaq Diesel

I just finished reading Moneyball, the study about the Oakland A’s and their success in reaching the playoffs despite having a smaller payroll.  The book rambled at length about Billy Beane in both positive and negative light.  The main thrust of the book was that statistical analysis was more important than baseball’s conventional wisdom.

One big case made by Moneyball was that making an out (e.g. a sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, caught stealing, etc…) was statistically worse for scoring runs (the lifeblood of winning baseball) than leaving the runner on base and trying to hit them in.  It also argued that taking pitches and on base percentage, that is taking walks, was much better than aggressive hitting. 

This flies in the face of many things that I have espoused on this website this year.  I once got incredibly angry at Deion Sanders (a Reds player at the time) in Riverfront Stadium because he couldn’t get the ball out of the infield with the bases loaded and one out.  He didn’t execute even a sacrifice, dagnabbit!  Since he made an out, Primetime didn’t execute the Billy Beane Moneyball system either, but I was apparently mad at Deion for the wrong reasons.

Or was I?  I was amazed in the series versus the Tigers at how much the announcers railed against the A’s reluctance to steal.  To bunt runners over.  To do the things Detroit was doing (well except chain smoking like old Jimmy Leland).  Despite Oakland’s success during the regular season the past few years, they get unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs.  Usually in sweep fashion.  Moneyball blamed a “small sample size.”  That is, if the playoffs were, say, a 15-game series, the A’s would win 9 out of 10 times.  It’s like blaming the house in Vegas because you ran out of money before you could count enough cards in a six-shoe deck to win your rent for the month. 

I don’t know how to analyze this one.  On one hand, the A’s have done a lot with seemingly anonymous rosters sprinkled with castaway and stray cat free agents.  Yet they haven’t won in the playoffs.  Do they drop what got them there and start smallball like their opponents once the playoffs start?  Or go with what got them there?

Will the Reds need to go the route of ragtag players and “playing the odds” with their mid-market payroll?  They can’t think about that until they are rid of the salaries of Griffey and Milton. 

I thought Moneyball was an interesting read.  It had a great profile of Scott Hatteberg.  He was the prototypical Moneyball hitter.

By Thaq Diesel

I just finished reading Moneyball, the study about the Oakland A’s and their success in reaching the playoffs despite having a smaller payroll.  The book rambled at length about Billy Beane in both positive and negative light.  The main thrust of the book was that statistical analysis was more important than baseball’s conventional wisdom.

One big case made by Moneyball was that making an out (e.g. a sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, caught stealing, etc…) was statistically worse for scoring runs (the lifeblood of winning baseball) than leaving the runner on base and trying to hit them in.  It also argued that taking pitches and on base percentage, that is taking walks, was much better than aggressive hitting. 

This flies in the face of many things that I have espoused on this website this year.  I once got incredibly angry at Deion Sanders (a Reds player at the time) in Riverfront Stadium because he couldn’t get the ball out of the infield with the bases loaded and one out.  He didn’t execute even a sacrifice, dagnabbit!  Since he made an out, Primetime didn’t execute the Billy Beane Moneyball system either, but I was apparently mad at Deion for the wrong reasons.

Or was I?  I was amazed in the series versus the Tigers at how much the announcers railed against the A’s reluctance to steal.  To bunt runners over.  To do the things Detroit was doing (well except chain smoking like old Jimmy Leland).  Despite Oakland’s success during the regular season the past few years, they get unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs.  Usually in sweep fashion.  Moneyball blamed a “small sample size.”  That is, if the playoffs were, say, a 15-game series, the A’s would win 9 out of 10 times.  It’s like blaming the house in Vegas because you ran out of money before you could count enough cards in a six-shoe deck to win your rent for the month. 

I don’t know how to analyze this one.  On one hand, the A’s have done a lot with seemingly anonymous rosters sprinkled with castaway and stray cat free agents.  Yet they haven’t won in the playoffs.  Do they drop what got them there and start smallball like their opponents once the playoffs start? 

O

By Thaq Diesel

I just finished reading Moneyball, the study about the Oakland A’s and their success in reaching the playoffs despite having a smaller payroll.  The book rambled at length about Billy Beane in both positive and negative light.  The main thrust of the book was that statistical analysis was more important than baseball’s conventional wisdom.

One big case made by Moneyball was that making an out (e.g. a sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, caught stealing, etc…) was statistically worse for scoring runs (the lifeblood of winning baseball) than leaving the runner on base and trying to hit them in.  It also argued that taking pitches and on base percentage, that is taking walks, was much better than aggressive hitting. 

This flies in the face of many things that I have espoused on this website this year.  I once got incredibly angry at Deion Sanders (a Reds player at the time) in Riverfront Stadium because he couldn’t get the ball out of the infield with the bases loaded and one out.  He didn’t execute even a sacrifice, dagnabbit!  Since he made an out, Primetime didn’t execute the Billy Beane Moneyball system either, but I was apparently mad at Deion for the wrong reasons.

Or was I?  I was amazed in the series versus the Tigers at how much the announcers railed against the A’s reluctance to steal.  To bunt runners over.  To do the things Detroit was doing (well except chain smoking like old Jimmy Leland).  Despite Oakland’s success during the regular season the past few years, they get unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs.  Usually in sweep fashion.  Moneyball blamed a “small sample size.”  That is, if the playoffs were, say, a 15-game series, the A’s would win 9 out of 10 times.  It’s like blaming the house in Vegas because you ran out of money before you could count enough cards in a six-shoe deck to win your rent for the month. 

I don’t know how to analyze this one.  On one hand, the A’s have done a lot with seemingly anonymous rosters sprinkled with castaway and stray cat free agents.  Yet they haven’t won in the playoffs.  Do they drop what got them there and start smallball like their opponents once the playoffs start? 

By Thaq Diesel

I just finished reading Moneyball, the study about the Oakland A’s and their success in reaching the playoffs despite having a smaller payroll.  The book rambled at length about Billy Beane in both positive and negative light.  The main thrust of the book was that statistical analysis was more important than baseball’s conventional wisdom.

One big case made by Moneyball was that making an out (e.g. a sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, caught stealing, etc…) was statistically worse for scoring runs (the lifeblood of winning baseball) than leaving the runner on base and trying to hit them in.  It also argued that taking pitches and on base percentage, that is taking walks, was much better than aggressive hitting. 

This flies in the face of many things that I have espoused on this website this year.  I once got incredibly angry at Deion Sanders (a Reds player at the time) in Riverfront Stadium because he couldn’t get the ball out of the infield with the bases loaded and one out.  He didn’t execute even a sacrifice, dagnabbit!  Since he made an out, Primetime didn’t execute the Billy Beane Moneyball system either, but I was apparently mad at Deion for the wrong reasons.

Or was I?  I was amazed in the series versus the Tigers at how much the announcers railed against the A’s reluctance to steal.  To bunt runners over.  To do the things Detroit was doing (well except chain smoking like old Jimmy Leland).  Despite Oakland’s success during the regular season the past few years, they get unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs.  Usually in sweep fashion.  Moneyball blamed a “small sample size.”  That is, if the playoffs were, say, a 15-game series, the A’s would win 9 out of 10 times.  It’s like blaming the house in Vegas because you ran out of money before you could count enough cards in a six-shoe deck to win your rent for the month. 

I don’t know how to analyze this one.  On one hand, the A’s have done a lot with seemingly anonymous rosters sprinkled with castaway and stray cat free agents.  Yet they haven’t won in the playoffs.  Do they drop what got them there and start smallball like their opponents once the playoffs start? 

By Thaq Diesel

I just finished reading Moneyball, the study about the Oakland A’s and their success in reaching the playoffs despite having a smaller payroll.  The book rambled at length about Billy Beane in both positive and negative light.  The main thrust of the book was that statistical analysis was more important than baseball’s conventional wisdom.

One big case made by Moneyball was that making an out (e.g. a sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, caught stealing, etc…) was statistically worse for scoring runs (the lifeblood of winning baseball) than leaving the runner on base and trying to hit them in.  It also argued that taking pitches and on base percentage, that is taking walks, was much better than aggressive hitting. 

This flies in the face of many things that I have espoused on this website this year.  I once got incredibly angry at Deion Sanders (a Reds player at the time) in Riverfront Stadium because he couldn’t get the ball out of the infield with the bases loaded and one out.  He didn’t execute even a sacrifice, dagnabbit!  Since he made an out, Primetime didn’t execute the Billy Beane Moneyball system either, but I was apparently mad at Deion for the wrong reasons.

Or was I?  I was amazed in the series versus the Tigers at how much the announcers railed against the A’s reluctance to steal.  To bunt runners over.  To do the things Detroit was doing (well except chain smoking like old Jimmy Leland).  Despite Oakland’s success during the regular season the past few years, they get unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs.  Usually in sweep fashion.  Moneyball blamed a “small sample size.”  That is, if the playoffs were, say, a 15-game series, the A’s would win 9 out of 10 times.  It’s like blaming the house in Vegas because you ran out of money before you could count enough cards in a six-shoe deck to win your rent for the month. 

I don’t know how to analyze this one.  On one hand, the A’s have done a lot with seemingly anonymous rosters sprinkled with castaway and stray cat free agents.  Yet they haven’t won in the playoffs.  Do they drop what got them there and start smallball like their opponents once the playoffs start? 

Or

By Thaq Diesel

I always seem to be distracted, feeding my face or surfing on the computer when it comes on the television, but I think, nay I’m almost certain, that a Fox baseball promo shows the Old Left-hander.  And if I’m not mistaken, Joe Nuxhall is under the sink in the kitchen.  Which means Joe either had a stunt double or has been taking those yoga classes that let you chain smoke and drink beer during the poses.  (For those that haven’t seen it, Joe’s yoga is quite a sight.  And as Joe Buck said about it, “That is disgusting by Joe Nuxhall. And unfortunate we had that in this blog.”)

If I’m seeing things correctly, what gives?  Is Fox trying to rub it in that the Reds are sitting at home right now?  What probably happened is those promos were shot more than a month ago, when it seemed likely the Reds would make the wildcard at a minimum and they took a chance.  Oh well.  I hope the Tigers beat the Yankees.  I need someone to root for this post season.

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