The Reds couldn’t beat a nobody last night, so they get to try their hands at Andy Pettitte tonight. At least the good guys have Brandon Claussen on the mound.

The Reds need to win this one to continue the march toward the playoffs! (Or, at least, the march to .500.)

AAA

Louisville was idle

AA

Chattanooga and Mississippi

postponed

A (high)

Dunedin 4, Sarasota 2
24 year old Edward Valdez went 5 innings giving up 7 hits and 1 ER. He struck out 7. In 64 innings at Sarasota 57 Ks and 20 BB with a 2.10 ERA.

A (low)

Wisconsin at Dayton cancelled

Rookie

Billings 2, Great Falls 1
18 year old 2nd round pick Travis Wood pitched 4 2/3 gave up 3 hits, and 1 ER. He struck out 4 and walked 3. At Billings he has pitched 19 innings with 19 Ks and 10 BB. He has a 1.83 ERA.

Started browsing through my new baseball book “The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers” and noticed Matt’s blog entry on Clemens and his slim chances of winning the Cy Young Award due to his low win totals as a result of poor run support from his fellow Astros. Found that the book contained an article by Bill James where he puts forth a formula which attempts to predict the Cy Young Award Voting, and he gets pretty good results from seasons past. The formula is as follows:

Wins times 6
minus Losses times 2
plus Strikeouts divided by 12
plus Saves times 2.5
plus Shutouts
plus Runs Saved ( runs not allowed by the pitcher, compared to a pitcher with a 5.00 ERA ((5*IP/9)-ER) )
plus 12 points for pitching for a first place team.

I decided to compute the numbers for the top 25 starters ranked by ERA, and the top 10 relievers ranked by Saves, and see where Clemens came out in the prediction:

Name CyPoints
Chris Carpenter 198.68
Dontrelle Willis 157.23
Chad Cordero 142.40
Roger Clemens 139.38
John Smoltz 136.21
Pedro Martinez 128.26
Billy Wagner 127.00
Roy Oswalt 125.10
Jake Peavy 123.00
Mark Mulder 122.90
Derrick Turnbow 118.39
Matt Morris 115.73
Jason Isringhausen 114.97
Andy Pettitte 112.51
Brad Lidge 112.29
A.J. Burnett 110.61
Carlos Zambrano 109.02
Livan Hernandez 105.82
Todd Jones 105.43
Chris Capuano 104.75
Trevor Hoffman 101.27
Tim Hudson 100.52
John Patterson 97.52
Brett Myers 95.18
Brian Fuentes 91.40
Braden Looper 91.38
Josh Beckett 90.56
Brandon Webb 83.33
Ben Sheets 82.81
Noah Lowry 80.89
Esteban Loaiza 74.35
Jose Mesa 72.75
Aaron Harang 68.46
Brad Penny 49.47
Brian Moehler 42.16

James’ formula seems to predict, as expected, that the voters will place far too much emphasis on Win totals, as it predicts that Clemens, who is having an awesome season, will finish fourth in the Cy Young Award voting, well behind the winner, Chris Carpenter.

Later,
Tom

Reds and ‘Stros. Discuss it!!!

Since we are playing the Astros tonight I though I would take a look at their roster. I also heard on some ESPN show that he probably wouldn’t win the Cy Young because he doesn’t have enough Wins. To that, I say WTF?

Anybody who votes against Roger Clemens because he doesn’t have enough wins needs to have their voting rights revoked.

He has had one outing where he allowed 3 runs, and one outing where he allowed 4 runs and one outing where he allowed 5 runs. In the other 24 outings he has allowed 2 runs 6 times, 1 run 7 times, and 0 runs 11 times.

On a good offensive team he could easily be 24-3. On a great offensive team he could be 27-0. Because of the team he plays on his record is 11-6. This is a great example where wins and losses tell you nothing about a pitchers performance. In 7 games where he gave up one run he is 0-6 with a no decision.

AAA
Toledo 6, Louisville 2

A (high)

Sarasota 8, Dunedin 3
24 year-old DH Jason Vavao went 3 for 4 with a HR, a BB, 2 R, and 3 RBI. He is now hitting .235/.314/..387

A (low)

Dayton 4, Wisconsin 3

DOF Boy Adam Rosales went 3 for 4 with an RBI. In 129 plate appearances at Dayton he is hitting .303/.361/.521 He has 10 BB, 7 HR, 5 2B.

Rookie

Billings 9, Great Falls 8

The game went 13 innings, and don’t have a boxscore, but I got this from the Billings website

Josh Holden singled through a drawn-in infield to drive in the winning run in the 13th inning to give the Mustangs a 9-8 victory over the Great Falls White Sox on Monday night at Cobb Field.

Second baseman Mayker Sandoval, who was hit to start the inning, plated the winning run. The Mustangs got a big game from catcher Chris Denove, who went 3-for-5 with two doubles and four RBI. James Morris picked up the victory after coming on to get the final out in the top of the 13th inning. The Mustangs used a total of six pitchers in the game, but only four of the eight runs they gave up were earned because of five Mustangs errors.

Can the Reds sweep the Buccos, in Pittsburgh?

Discuss….

UPDATE: As noted in the comments, today’s game has been rained out. So, yes, the Reds did sweep the Pirates. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on September 16.

AAA

Louisville 7, Toledo 6

25 year-old Chris Denorfia went 3 for 5 with a double, a R, and an RBI. He is having a solid year .312/.387/.508. In 348 plate appearances, 37 BB, 13 HR, 12 2B, 5 3B, 7 SB, 3 CS, 60 Ks. 0 Errors in the OF this year, although I don’t know how many chances or assists.

Justin Germano, one of the players received in the Joe Randa trade, was beaten like a rented mule. 5 IP, 9 H, 6 ER. His ERA jumped to 3.65 with the Bats. In 44 innings he has given up 6 HR, 55 H, struck out 31. He has only walked 2 hitters.

AA

Chattanooga 5, West Tenn 2

27 Year old “Porky” Jimenez went 1 for 4 with a homer. He is hitting .282/.398/.423.

21 year old Travis Chick, the other player received in the Joe Randa trade, pitched an interesting game. In 6 innings he only gave up 1 H, and 1 ER, but he walked 5 and struck out 0. So far with the Lookouts he has a 5.13 ERA with 24 walks and 16 Ks in 44 innings. He has given up 45 hits and 5 homers.

A (High)

Sarasota was idle

A (Low)

Dayton 4, Beloit 3

24 year old Jeramiah Piepkorn went 2 for 4 with a homer, a R and 2 RBI.

Rookie

Great Falls 9, Billings 4

First round draft pick Jay Bruce went 1 for 5 with a Solo HR. In 32 Plate Appearances at Billings he has 2 homers, 3 walks for a .276/.344/.483.

GCL Reds were idle.

From today’s Enquirer:

- Last 21 games, the starters are 13-4 with a 2.69 ERA.

- Jay Bruce is hitting .292 with a homer and 4 RBI in his first 6 games at Billings.

Once again, Joel has hit a home run.

Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

That’s five out of six wins to start this road trip. Not bad. Only six games under .500 now.

UPDATE: Don’t look now, but the Reds are only 8 games out in the Wild Card race. Of course, there are six teams ahead of them.

Can you imagine where the team would be if they had gotten average pitching during the first half?

I think it’s safe to say that Jerry Narron will be the Reds manager next season. I really don’t have a problem with that. He’s better than Dave Miley.

Can the Reds continue their winning ways? Find out next week. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Or watch the game today, and discuss it here.

As you know if you read Redleg Nation regularly, one of our editors, Bill, recently made a trip to Florida where he was able to check out the Sarasota and GCL Reds. He’s already given us his impressions, but I wanted to post a few of the great pictures he snapped while he was there.

Here’s the first one; the rest are beneath the fold. Click the link below and check them all out.

Joey Votto

>> Continue

Tied for fourth with the Cubbies.

Hey, it’s something.

Even after a 3 game series in the Death Valley NL east the Reds offense still looks powerful, one thing about being a Reds fan is that hitting always seems to be a more frequent guest to Reds baseball then pitching. That said I ask you “Who” can’t love a team with an all world CF, a slugging corner outfielder, a budding young player at the other corner outfield position, an offensive surprise at both the catchers position and third base. Not to mention the emerging middle infielder and the other middle infielder that slugs above average for his position. Not to mention the Latin phenom in the dugout, you know…. the one with prodigious power.

I mean that sounds like a great offense, of course I’m not talking about the 2005 Reds, I’m talking about the Reds team from 40 years ago.

First let’s run through some numbers that might bring this team (the 1965 Reds and the 2005 Reds) and their place in the games history up to speed.

Since 1900 only 35 teams have had 100 runs over the league average. Today the Reds lead the NL in runs scored with 660 runs, this gives them a plus 89 in runs scored vs. the current average and they are on pace to score 848 runs. If they top the leagues average by 100 runs and have a losing record then they will be only the 4th team out of those 36 to have a losing record, and the only team that didn’t play in Colorado or the Baker Bowl

It’s a pretty impressive list, 71% of the teams on the list won either their division or league (or in case of the 1951 Dodgers were in a playoff) 31% won the World Series and 6% shared the same year with another team on the list that won the league title.14.25% of them are the Rockies or the Depressions version of the Rockies the Philadelphia Phillies.

Read the rest and see the numbers, below the fold:
>> Continue