Loading ...From John Fay:
The Reds didn’t bunt Saturday with runners at first and second and no outs with Jeff Keppinger at the plate.
Beginning next week, they probably will in that situation.
“We’ll start playing more fundamental baseball,” Baker said. “. . . Right now, at-bats are precious.”
Bunt, bunt, bunt…ugh.
Jerry Hairston Jr. was back in camp Sunday – a lot lighter for the wear.
Hairston lost 10 pounds or so during a nasty bout with the flu that he picked up in Mexico City while playing with the Mexican team in the World Baseball Classic.
“It was definitely the worst I’ve had,” he said. “I was unbelievably sick.”
Hairston didn’t have a lot of weight to spare. He was very lean at 5-foot-10 and 190 pounds before the illness.
“He looks like a little bird walking around here,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said.
Hairston said he caught the bug after the second game of the WBC.
“I tried to play in the third game,” he said. “But I had to come out. I was dehydrated, light-headed.”
That’s the last Hairston has played – on March 11. After Mexico was eliminated, he returned to his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., to recuperate. The Reds urged him to stay away so as to not infect anyone else.
The Reds will take it fairly slowly with Hairston – given that he hasn’t had any baseball activity in 11 days.
He did not make the trip to Bradenton for Sunday’s game with Pittsburgh. He stayed back to work out at the Ed Smith Stadium complex.
“I’m going to take some batting practice, some ground balls,” he said. “I’m hoping to play after the off day.”
The off day is Tuesday.
Hairston played both shortstop and center field for Mexico. Hairston is the backup plan at shortstop, if Alex Gonzalez should have a setback.
“We’re going to work him in the outfield and the infield,” Baker said, “mainly short, in case something happens. Gonzo isn’t going to play every day. We’ve got to have him ready.”
Gonzalez has yet to play nine innings.
“Gonzo says he feels great,” Baker said. “He wanted to go nine (Saturday). The fact that he wanted to go nine tells me how he feels.”
Gonzalez has looked excellent at shortstop.
“Doesn’t he look good?” Baker said. “He’s smooth.”
Despite the ending, Hairston enjoyed the WBC experience.
“Playing for Mexico with my brother (Scott), with my mom there, was unbelievable,” Hairston said. “The people were really into the games. Even for the exhibition in Tucson, the crowds were great because it’s so close,” he said.
Let’s hope it’s just the flu and nothing worse or longer lasting. And am I the only one that finds it troubling that a) our starting SS hasn’t played 9 innings yet and Opening Day is 2 weeks away and b) our manager says that he won’t be playing every day?
If I’m GM I find the out/bases occupied probability tables, explain them to Dusty, get his written acknowledgment that he understands them, and then I post them, size 20 font, in the dugout.
It’s a shame Janish can’t hit. He has looked really smooth in the field.
Like it or not, small ball will be used more often this year, so we all better get used to seeing it.
On top of your concerns you stated about SS, what about our starting catcher, who has yet to catch the pitchers in games. 2 weeks to go and he hasn’t been able to do it. I perfer Hannigan anyways, but Ramon is going to play no matter what.
Off Topic here…but with what is currently available, what would you make for your opening day lineup? We all have talked about Phillips should not hit 4th and that Taveras shouldn’t be leadoff, but we all know it is going to happen. I am curious how other people think it should look like. They have no high OB guys to fill in the first two spots in the lineup. I like Votto third, EE fourth, Bruce fifth, and Phillips sixth, but I don’t like any options at the top other than Hairston when he starts (if he plays like last year). Any thoughts?
If you play Hairston at SS, then I’d bat him 2nd behind Taveras and hope for the best. (It is shame that we might have to depend on Hairston at SS, but I have my doubts about Gonzo. And Gonzo should never bat 2nd). Or have Dickerson bat 2nd when he’s playing.
I as well like Votto, EE, Bruce, Phillips as the Reds’ 3-6. But, knowing Dusty, it will probably be Bruce, Phillips, Votto, EE. So, the best hitters will be hitting 5th and 6th. Just awesome.
I was looking at career OB% for projected starters and it isn’t pretty at all (I am not including Dickerson, Votto, Bruce, Hannigan due to small sample size):
Encarcion .346
Taveras .331
Hairston .330
Gomes .329
Hernandez .326
Phillips .308
Gonzo .295 (highest year .325 with 07 reds)
That is ugly.
The lack of OBP really bugs me a lot (we just aren’t going to score enough runs b/c of it), and I think it’s time to make a move. Sorry to be a broken record (from a few months back) but I still think something along these lines would make the Reds a better team, both now and in the future:
Phillips, Janish, Masset, Maloney
for
Weeks, Escobar
Phillips is going to give us another .275/.320/.440 type season and while that’s not bad, I’d MUCH rather get .260/.370/.420 out of Weeks (which I think he will do).
It’s time to capitalize on the way Phillips is over-valued, and we need to do it (like Oakland does) BEFORE he gets overpaid. If you wait until he’s making $10 million in two years, you just won’t get much for him.
Then the Reds get some OBP for the top of the order, plus a hot young true shortstop (Escobar) who apparently is an unbelievable defender. He actually sounds a lot like a young Concepcion to me (tall, thin, Venezuelan, great glove, decent bat).
I’d then bat Weeks and Dickerson 1-2 in the order.
Another little tidbit from Olney:
•Heard this: The Cincinnati Reds are shopping for a right-handed bat. Whether there is a match or not remains to be seen, but the Washington Nationals are shopping some right-handed corner outfielders — in addition to first baseman Nick Johnson.
I do not see where Johnson could fit (unless we are moving Votto to the outfield??) and the RHB are either former Reds of Dukes and Milledge. Not sure how this could work…
The only hitter from Washington I would want is Ryan Zimmerman.
I didn’t get to answer a post the other day about Gonzalez/Dickerson/Dunn on strikeouts (it was the day the system didn’t allow posting…and I struck out finally giving up after three tries…)
However, it goes back to why Gonzalez can’t bat second, and Dickerson isn’t our best choice either…
For his career, Adam Dunn about 4700 plate appearances, striking out 1256 times, or about once every four times to the plate. Still, he has a career .381 OBP. In the minors, Dunn made about 1250 plate appearances, striking out 270 times, or about one every five plate appearances with a .415 OBP.
Chris Dickerson has made about 120 major league plate appearances, striking out 35 times, or one about 3.5 plate appearances with a In the minors, Dickerson made about 2550 plate appearances, striking out nearly 700 times…or about one every 3.5 plate appearances (about the same rate as the majors….). Dickersons’ minor league OBP is .360…his major league cup of coffee OBP is .413…but was about .250 in his last 30 plate appearances. Dickerson’s never hit more than 14 homers in a minor league season.
The numbers I wsa prorating for Dunn and Dickerson do not make Dickerson a prodigious home run hitter. He was hot at a time which made for a great impression. He will strike out at a higher rate than Dunn (always has), hit fewer homers, get on base less. Prorated to 650 plate appearances like Dunn gets every year, Dickerson would strike out nearly 200 times. As for defense…yes, Dickerson would run circles around Dunn….but, that’s why he would be a fourth or fifth outfielder used for pinch hitting, pinch running, and late inning defense.
Having Gomes/Dickerson out there will be an extremely interesting contrast…one guy’s a power hitting, high strike out, no defense guy; the other is a relatively speedy, high strike out, all defense guy.
As for Alex Gonzalez…he’s not a “contact” hitter or professional hitter like Dusty likes to think. He, too, is a strike out machine…Alex has about 4200 lifetime plate appearances, and has struck out 814 times, or about once every 5 plate appearances. If he had 650 plate appearances in a year, he would strike out about 130 times. In fact, he struck out 126 times in 2004 in about 590 plate appearances.
Unfortunately for Alex, he is old in shortstop years…frankly, very old. We’ve been extremely spoiled in Cincinnati for the past 35 years with “Concepcion and Larkin…what many fans didn’t realize about Larkin is that after he faded in his defensive skills in his 30’s he was playing like many shortstops do in their 20’s.
Last year, in the NL, only two shortstops played “regularly” that were older than 30. Vizquel was 41 and only batted about 220 times, and the other was Tejada, who was 34…and his fielding range has declined about 20%. The other ages:
30- there were 3 (one batted only 220 times)
29-1
28-4
25-4
24-1
23-1
Shortstop is a young player’s position…not for a 32 year old guy coming off missing a year, who was really never been that good anyway—one year as an all-star.
We need him…we don’t have a backup plan, but this was a HUGE need not addressed by Walt Jocketty in the off season.
For a suggested, gulp, batting order….I would go against the grain here…
vs. lefties vs. righties
1. Taveras CF 1. Taveras CF
2. Keppinger 2b 2. Keppinger 2b
3. Votto 1b 3. Votto 1b
4. Gomes LF 4. Encarnacion 3b
5. Phillips SS 5. Bruce RF
6. Encarnacion 3b 6. Phillips ss
7. Bruce RF 7. Dickerson LF
8. Hernandez 8. Hernandez C
Oh…I can’t use Phillips at SS?
vs. lefties vs. righties
1. Taveras cf Taveras CF
2. Votto 1b Dickerson LF
3. Phillips 2b Votto 1b
4. Gomes LF Encarnacion 3b
5. Encarnacion 3b Bruce RF
6. Hernandez C Phillips 2b
7. Bruce RF Hernandez C
8. Gonzalez SS Gonzalez SS
I like your lineups, Steve (and I like trying Brandon at SS), but I don’t get what your point is with your long post about strikeouts?
What would you say to those of us who say that strikeouts are no worse than any other type of out?
I mean, if Dickerson (for example) is going to hit .260/.350/.420 (for example) in 500 AB’s for the Reds, why do I care if he strikes out 50 times or 150 times?
Why can’t we just look at the production level (the .260/.350/.420 or whatever) and simply ignore how the outs are made?
This goes back to an early post (I referenced early in my post here) where someone had sort of suggested I was selectively choosing my stats when it came to Dickerson’s strike outs, and said that the same cup of coffee analysis would suggest that Dickerson would hit as many homers as Dunn. Obviously, their career records show they are far apart in hitting styles.
As for strike outs…it doesn’t matter, in my opinion…unless a team is playing fall ball. Dusty had mentioned Dickerson and Gonzalez batting second because they could get the bat on the ball, or, specifically Gonzalez, knowing what to do with the bat…..and that’s just not true.
Anyway…bat control is usually looked for in a #2 hitter…and these two guys do not have that.