Billy Hamilton's season was predictable

Billy Hamilton began the season with a lot of pressure to fill some pretty big shoes worn by his Reds' center field predecessor. Hamilton gave the Reds everything they could have asked for with his glove and his legs in the field. He ranked first among all center fielders in defense according to Fangraphs.com. Unfortunately, his offense did not live up to the fielding. The sad thing was that the offensive season for Hamilton was predictable.

I wrote a piece before the season began that for the experiment of letting Choo go via free agency so that Billy Hamilton could lead off was fraught with problems. I wrote at the time that Hamilton would need to bat at least .280 to give his team some sort of offensive boost. He did not. Hamilton did not even come close.

Let's put his offensive season in perspective. There were 75 batters in Major League Baseball in 2014 that came to the plate more than 600 times. Billy Hamilton was 73rd among those 75 in times on base (walks + hits + HBP). For further perspective, Jeter, in his swan song season was belittled all season for batting second while hitting so poorly. Jeter got on base fourteen more times than Billy Hamilton.

Choo, who had a vastly disappointing season with the Rangers, only played in 123 games compared to Hamilton's 152 games and Choo got on base four more times than Billy Hamilton did. Among all center fielders in baseball, only B.J. Upton put up a worse offensive runs rating.

Billy Hamilton got on base 176 times in 152 games. But that's not the worst of it. While Hamilton did steal 56 bases, he was thrown out an MLB leading 23 times. While that is a 71% success rate, those 23 times caught meant that Hamilton was only available to score not 176 times, but only 153 times.

When Hamilton was available on base, then he had a good rate of scoring as he scored 72 times or 47% of the times he was available on base. If say, he could have been available on base 200 times, he would have scored 94 times.

If the season would have ended at the All Star Break, then Hamilton would have exceeded my "goal" for him before the season started. At the All Star Break, Hamilton had a triple-slash line of: .285/.319/.423. His 109 OPS+ at the time would have made him (when combined with his fielding) just as valuable as Choo was the year before.

Unfortunately, Hamilton fell off the tracks after the break and went: .200/.254/.257 the rest of the way. Coincidentally (or not), his drop off coincided with the Reds' collapse as the team was 51-44 at the break and 25-42 after it.

You would expect that someone with Billy Hamilton's speed would have a better BABIP than the .304 he compiled in 2014. But it is easier to understand when 37% of his batted balls were fly balls and a third of those were popups to the infield. His ground ball rate is somewhat inflated since he had 52 bunt attempts (with a .326 success rate) and led to a 1.11 ground ball to fly ball rate. Hamilton's speed would seem to benefit from hitting more ground balls.

Of course, Hamilton's strikeout rate of over 19% means that almost twenty percent of his at bats cannot get him on base at all. His plate discipline improved to a 28.8% O-swing rate and you should expect him to get better with that rate as he continues on in his career.

Fangraphs.com and Baseball-reference.com vary greatly in the value assigned to Billy Hamilton's season. B-R gave Hamilton a 2.5 rWAR and Fangraphs.com came in a full win higher at 3.5. That one win means a great deal when a win is worth about $6 million on the open market. Baseball Prospectus splits the difference with a 3.1 WARP.

There is no doubt that Billy Hamilton helped the Cincinnati Reds greatly in the field and made him a valuable player despite his total lack of offensive contribution. The Reds left Hamilton in the lead off spot despite his putting up numbers that made him unsuitable for that position. The trouble is that the only good on-base guys for the Reds are their three best hitters, Votto, Frazier and Mesoraco. You want those guys in the middle of the lineup. The Reds were 14th of 15 NL teams in team on-base percentage.

Billy Hamilton's final offensive season was not dramatically different than his Triple-A numbers in 2013. Perhaps this is who he is. The Reds will need to think about that and make some decisions. Hamiton's fielding make him worth having out in center field every day. But with his offensive production, he should be batting eighth in the lineup. Those decisions and the outcomes make 2015 an interesting season in the career path of Billy Hamilton.

Is Devin Mesoraco the Reds' catcher long term?

Devin Mesoraco has risen among catchers like a rocket this season. He has certainly made a lot of fantasy players happy (including this one) with his sixteen homers in only 244 plate appearances. His .406 wOBA is outstanding and he was an All Star this season. That's pretty heady stuff. But, of course, there are two sides of catching. There is the offensive side, which Mesoraco is killing and there is the defensive side. I am concerned about the defensive part of his game.

I watched him closely for the three game series with the Yankees recently and Devin Mesoraco did not seem very smooth behind the plate. He seemed to stab at everything and if the pitch had any kind of movement, he was slow to react. This resulted in some balls bouncing off his mitt and had to make the umpire's job that much harder.

But the eyes are not the only test to look at catchers. I'd like to think that I have watched the game for fifty years and know what I am looking at. But do the numbers back up what I observed? After digging around, I found that they did indeed back up my observations.

Let's start with a somewhat discredited statistic called Catcher's ERA. While nobody thinks this should be any kind of guide on good catching or bad catching, I do note that Mesoraco has a CERA of 3.52 compared to Brayan Pena's 2.91 with the same pitching staff. Pena, as observed on Sunday, seemed much smoother in his receiving. I will also note here in fairness to Mesoraco that Pena is the personal catcher for Johnny Cueto. Twenty starts with that bad boy will improve your CERA any day.

Okay, now that I have the least respectable stat out of the way, I'll look at some more advanced stuff. There is a site called StatCorner that actively scores catcher framing. This is still a work in progress, so that should be stated up front. But according to this site, Mesoraco is 73rd in the league among catchers at framing pitches. His score is a -3.2 runs. Pena, on the other hand, is 30th. Framing is the ability to get the umpire to call a strike, not only in the strike zone, but "steal" strikes out of the zone.

Devin Mesoraco has also regressed a bit in the amount of passed balls he allows. He had four last year in 782 innings behind the plate. This year, he is only at 527 innings behind the plate and already has seven passed balls. His rate of allowing wild pitches to get by him has improved however with only eleven compared to 22 last year.

Mesoraco is only slightly behind the league average of 27% for throwing out potential base runners. He is at 26%. But you have to consider that stolen bases are just as much the pitcher's responsibility as it is the catchers. But again, you have to compare him to Brayan Pena who is at 35% for the year.

It appears that my eyes were on to something when I observed Devin Mesoraco catching. He is only 26 but he has a long way to go before becoming what would be a good receiver behind the plate. And sometimes, you either have the soft hands or you don't. If he keeps producing when he hits, he would be a Posada-type catcher: Big on offense, not so great on defense. A lot will depend on how the Reds' pitching staff feels throwing to him. Sometimes staffs will rebel. I haven't heard anything from there, so perhaps they are fine with him behind the plate. Lord knows, the man is killing the ball on offense.

The two luckiest pitchers of 2014?

We reside in a numbers-driven baseball world where players are no longer measured by wins, losses, runs batted in or batting average. Instead we measure batters by wOBA and WAR and pitchers by FIP and WAR (among others). As such, players who buck the trends and are considered successful in the old way of looking at things compared to the new way end up being considered lucky. Alfredo Simon and Chris Young are the luckiest of this year's pitchers by those standards.

I find some discomfort with that bottom line. Pitchers can have amazingly successful seasons and still not be considered worth very much by today's standards. I should qualify that a little bit and state that Fangraphs.com and Baseball-reference.com rate pitchers differently. Fangraphs bases their pitching WAR calculations on FIP. B-R does not.

For example, despite amazing success on the field with a 12-3 record and a 2.70 ERA, Fangraphs rates Simon's season thus far as only worth 0.6 fWAR, only the sixth most valuable member of the Reds' pitching staff, while B-R gives him 2.2 rWAR, the second most valuable member of his pitching staff. With each win above replacement worth about $5 million, one system would rate Simon as worth $3.2 million this season while another at $11 million. That's quite a swing. Which is correct?

I wanted to see how rare Simon's and Young's seasons have been thus far. And so I did a search going back to the year 2000 and looking for starting pitchers with more than 100 innings in a season with an ERA less than or equal to a 3.40 ERA while compiling a FIP of 4.30 or higher.

With Simon and Young both in those categories for 2014 (with quite a bit of the season left to go), such seasons have only occurred twelve other times. So we are looking at something quite rare here. Of the twelve (fourteen if you included Young and Simon), only Jeremy Hellickson has done it more than once.

Of all the new statistics--and to reiterate for the thousandth time: I love them!--The devaluation of the win stat for starters does not sit right with me. FIP is a calculation that measures things a pitcher can control such as walks, hit by pitches, strikeouts and homers allowed. A pitcher with high strikeout rates, low walk, homer and HBP rates will score well. A guy with low strikeout rates combined with league average walk and homer rates will score much worse.

But the thing here for me is that I believe that a pitcher can control other things like weak contact instead of strong contact by keeping a batter off balance and getting less than ideal swings.

And so, on the one hand, you have a pitcher who seems to be succeeding despite substandard peripheral stats balanced by the fact that few of these pitchers mentioned in my search can repeat their success. There is a bit of a fluky element to both Young and Simon's seasons. But does that take away the fact that in the majority of their 18 or so starts each, they pitched well enough to win the game?

The interesting thing about Alfredo Simon is that he scored similarly last year when he pitched entirely in relief. He pitched 87+ innings in 63 relief appearances and had an ERA of 2.87 with a FIP of 3.96. He has found a way to get MLB hitters out for two seasons in such a way that makes him the non-darling of places like Fangraphs. Last year's season netted Simon a fWAR evaluation of -0.1. A negative worth for 87+ innings of 2.87 ERA?

Let's look at the two pitchers a little more closely. Let's start with Chris Young. As my buddy, Brandon Warne mentioned on Twitter, the guy really has a huge discrepancy between his ERA and FIP.  His ERA is 3.12 and his FIP is 4.95! Whoa.

Young has had several things going for him. First, the greater part of his success has come at home where his fly ball tendencies are a bit forgiven. His BABIP of .206 seems like something that cannot be sustained. Plus, a guy who only has a 1.66 strikeout to walk ratio still has managed to strand 82.7% of the base runners he has allowed. Neither look good for long term success.

But then again, Young has a .248 career BABIP against. That is amazingly low for the amount he has pitched over the years. I would lean on his second half being a bit rockier than his first half. I think we have already seen some of that happening in his last few starts.

Let's go back to Alfredo Simon. His BABIP against has been .232 after a career mark of .277. Both are lower than average, but much lower this year. His strand rate is even more remarkable than Young's at 85.1%. Simon's K/BB ratio is better too at 2.68, but still not amazing.  Simon is a remarkable 12-3 thus far. It may be lucky, but that is still twelve times that he has pitched better than his opponent has.

The season is not yet over and over a third of the games remain to be played. But as of right now, of those fourteen pitcher seasons I spoke of earlier, Young and Simon have the lowest OPS against of any of the other twelve. Simon's is .637 while Young's is .659. Fluke or not, that is dealing.

Here is something else to think about. Seattle and Cincinnati or one and two respectively out of 30 teams in defensive efficiency. For two pitchers that allow a lot of contact, great fielders support them in both cases and that has to remove some of the fluke factor.

Alfredo Simon and Chris Young might be having very fortunate seasons and perhaps you can say statistically--or at least make the argument--that the results they have achieved have been better than they have pitched. Or you can say, "Man, they have 2o wins between them at the half and that sure has helped their teams stay in the race." I'll leave it up to you and smarter people to decide.

Joey Votto + walks = problem?

Twitter is a great place to gauge how fans really feel about baseball, their teams and their players. Sure, much of it is irrational. But being a fan is never really about rationality, right? Many of the strong feelings of fans on Twitter surprise me. One of those is the total hate many Reds fans feel about Joey Votto walking. Here are a couple of examples:

Two walk game for Joey Votto. Time to give up on the 2014 season. — Tyler (@iTyBan) March 9, 2014

I'm sick and tired of watching Joey Votto get walked every AB. Even in spring training. Go yack or go back to Canada bro. #SwingTheStick — Sage Kendall (@SAKtap24) March 9, 2014

Perhaps the fans are egged on by the broadcasters:

No matter the broadcast team we always get to hear about the lack of RBI from Joey Votto, don't we? — Doug Gray (@dougdirt24) March 9, 2014

I have a really hard time getting what the problem is here. The thinking behind it is that Votto does not drive in enough runs because he walks too much. The thinking must also mean that if Votto would swing more often, he would hit more for power and thus provide more offense.

Are those valid thought processes? First, let's talk about what we know. Votto's walks are part of an evolutionary process during his career. He has swung at less and less pitches out of the strike zone as his career has progressed: 2010 - 30.3%, 2011 - 25.6%, 2012 - 21.1% and 2013 - 21.0%.

2013 was the first time in Votto's career that he played all 162 games of the season. That dispelled some of the nonsense about his durability from the games he missed the season before that. Despite the extra games, his slugging percentage fell under .500 for the first time in his career.

But he also walked an incredible 135 times to push his on-base percentage to .435 and left him with the same wRC+ as his career average. In other words, he had what was an average offensive year (for him). His 6.4 rWAR / 6.2 fWAR stacked up very well with what he did in 2011, the last time he played a full season and the season before that.

In other words, he was just as valuable a player as 2010 and 2011, but many of his fan base, and (apparently) his team's announcers thought he was more of a hindrance to the Reds winning. I am not sure I follow.

The clutch thing might be part of the problem. I am not yet convinced the whole clutch thing is more than a coincidence. But there was a problem for Votto here in 2013. According to Fangraphs.com, Votto's clutch score (-2.38) was the first time in the last four years was in negative territory. And his WPA or win probability added was 3.77 which is much lower than the figures over six where he was for the previous three seasons.

He did have less success in high leverage situations in 2013 where he was murder in 2011 and 2012. In 2011, Votto's OPS in high leverage situations was an incredible 1.221. In 2012, it was even more incredible at 1.299. But he became just above mere mortal in 2013 with an OPS of .856 in high leverage situations.

So, there is evidence that Votto did not do as well in the clutch and in high leverage situations as he has done in the past. His critics point to the walks. His critics say that he would rather walk than drive in the run.

But what if luck was also involved? Back in 2011 and 2012 when those high leverage situations went incredibly well, his BABIP during those situations were .360 and .457. His BABIP in those situations in 2013 was .299. That could be due to bad luck, less quality of contact or better positioning from defenses (or a combination of all three).

There is another statistic created by Bill James and others called Runs Created. The statistic measures a player's total contribution to a team's run total. Votto's total of 133 was fourth in the Majors and was higher than Goldschmidt, Cano, Choo, Carpenter and McCutchen. So you cannot convince me that he had a bad year.

Oh, by the way, that Runs Created total of 133 was one more than he had in 2011 and only eleven less than he put together for 2010 when he led the Majors.

Joey Votto was on base an incredible 316 times in 2013. Trout was his closest competitor in that category at 309. The 316 times on base was the highest total since 2004 (Bonds).

If that is a disappointing season, then I am sure that there are a whole lot of other fan bases that would love to take him off of the Cincinnati fans' hands. If a guy gets on base 316 times and only has 73 runs batted in and only 101 runs scored, then I would look more at his teammates for blame than him.

Joey Votto is one of the truly elite offensive players in the game. Perhaps his contract makes people expect more. His play was worth $30.8 million in 2013 as a first baseman (which garners no positional love) versus his $17.5 million salary. And people are complaining? I don't get it. I don't get it at all.

Billy Hamilton better hit .280 or higher

Billy Hamilton played thirteen games at the Big League level in 2013. And yet the accumulated 19.4% of the Cincinnati Reds' stolen bases for the season. So I get why the Reds are excited about having the rookie leading off and creating havoc for the other teams. The question is whether he will get on base enough to make that big of an impact.

Shin-Soo Choo got on base an incredible 300 times last season (162 hits, 112 walks and 26 HBPs). And while I believe Choo had a career year (read: outlier), of all the projections for Hamilton I have looked at, the highest projected number of times on base for Billy Hamilton was by ZiPS at 192 times.

And even with ZiPS being the most generous of the systems with times on base, that system only gave him an on-base percentage of .319. Such a low on-base percentage simply is not high enough.

Let's look at it another way. Of all the times the Reds got on base last season, 34.4% of those base runners scored. Choo's rate was higher at 35.7%. If we apply even Choo's higher rate (by the quality of the hitters behind him), then if Hamilton gets on base 192 times, he will score roughly 69 times, or 38 times less than Choo did a year ago.

The cast around Hamilton for the Reds is pretty much the same as what was in their lineup a year ago. Todd Frazier and Brandon Phillips might have better years. Or they might not. Even if they do, it will be difficult to make up for 38 less runs scored from the top of your lineup.

Billy Hamilton played 502 games in the minor leagues. For the sum total of those games, he batted .280 which gave him a .350 OBP. That would definitely work for the Reds if he could do that. The one problem is that he stumbled at the highest level of Triple-A. In 504 plate appearances in Triple-A, his OBP was .308. That definitely will not cut it for the Reds. I believe that is what troubled the projection systems the most. Well...computers are not troubled, they just spit out stuff based on past history.

Of course, baseball is not just about hitting and scoring runs. There is also preventing runs scored by the other teams. The news is much better there concerning Billy Hamilton. Everyone acknowledges that Choo was miscast as a center fielder last season and his defensive numbers showed the problem.

According to the defensive numbers, Choo cost his team between 1.5 and 1.9 wins last season. Hamilton could go as high as the positive number above replacement. In other words, his defensive could mean a three-win swing over Choo just by chasing down outs in the outfield.

Comparing Hamilton to Choo of last season is probably not fair. Choo had such a good year that most lead-off batters would pale in comparison. Choo was worth 4.2 rWAR or 5.2 fWAR (whichever your preference) while the most generous projection for Hamilton is a 2.5 WAR. In other words, his defense will not make up for the lack of offense.

Billy Hamilton will make things exciting on the base paths. He will have spectacular moments there and in the field. The question here is not any of those things. The question is whether he will get on base enough times to be the lead-off batter.

The problem for the Reds is that there is no one else to bat at the top of the order. The team's best on-base guys are Joey Votto, and to a lesser extent, Jay Bruce. You want those two guys batting third and fourth. Nobody else on the team gets on base nearly enough.

Projections are often wrong and Billy Hamilton could be a break-out star. But for that to happen, he needs to bat .280 and get on base at a .340 clip at least. Either way, it will be one of the most fascinating things to watch this season.

Projecting the five least valuable players of 2014

Without much else to do in this dead zone waiting to see where the last remaining free agents wind up and Spring Training games, looking at projections is a fun way to pass the time. Whether you do this for fantasy baseball purposes or--if you are like me and do not play fantasy--just for the fun of it, There is a lot of stuff to sort through and ponder. Projection systems are difficult to wrap your head around because some project actual playing time and others assume everyone is going to get 550 plate appearances. The latter, I suppose, is helpful in case a player breaks out in Spring Training and ends up as a starter (which rarely happens). What I thought I would do on this Sunday afternoon was cull through the various projection systems and determine who the five least valuable players would be in 2014.

Such an exercise is harder than you think. First, I have an artificial number of projected plate appearances of 450. I want to consider starters and not part-time players. Secondly, I have to figure out which of these players will actually get the playing time he is projected to obtain. For example, one of the lowest rated was Brett Wallace. But he was just DFA'd by the Astros and doesn't figure to catch on with a full-time gig anywhere else. And lastly, most of the projection systems have to agree on the lack of value a player will have in 2014.

After making my list, a discussion on the merits of each will occur. Think of it as sort of an over/under type discussion. For disclosure sake, I used PECOTA, Steamer, Oliver and Fans projections. I used MLB Depth Charts to confirm possible playing time.

Okay, the list:

1. Garrett Jones - Average Projection of 0.23 WAR
2. Raul Ibanez - Average Projection of 0.3 WAR
3. Mitch Moreland - Average Projection of 0.55 WAR
4. Adeiny Hechavarria - Average Projection of 0.65 WAR
5. Ryan Ludwick - Average Projection of 0.78 WAR

Garrett Jones - Jones holds one of the most extreme L/R splits in the Majors with less than a .600 OPS against left-handed pitching and in the high .878 against right-handed pitchers. He is penciled in as the platoon partner with Jeff Baker at first base. That would be a good thing for Jones as he is capable of hitting more than twenty homers. If he can field first base at near league-average level, he could score 2.0 in WAR. If he plays full time or spends any time in the outfield, all bets are off.

Raul Ibanez - The projections are logical since Ibanez is 41 years old and should never wear a glove. But the Angels only need him as a DH and have plenty of outfielders. So unlike last year in Seattle, Ibanez should only be a DH. That said, will he get 400 plate appearances? He won't if he is platooned (and he should be). Based on offense alone, he could get 1.5 in WAR.

Mitch Moreland - Moreland has no home at first base with the Rangers' addition of Prince Fielder. MLB Depth Charts has him listed as the Rangers' DH. Plus, he has spent plenty of time in the outfield too. Moreland's career doesn't seem to be going anywhere and I think these projections are pretty money.

Adeiny Hechavarria - Not only is his name a bear to spell, but he was awful for the Marlins last season. And still, he is pegged as their starting shortstop again this year. I don't think he will ever hit and a sub-.300 on-base percentage could be his norm. He gets bonus WAR points for his "important position" on the field, but doesn't score all that well as a fielder. If he reaches 1.0 in WAR in 2014, it will be a surprise.

Ryan Ludwick - I kept hearing last year that the Reds will be okay once Ludwick comes back from injury. And it made me scratch my head. Yeah, he had a pretty good 2012, but that is the anomaly for him over the past five seasons. The Reds have him penciled in as the starting left-fielder. I think it is a pie-in-the-sky scenario for them. He is not great in the field, and 2012 aside, his bat has been missing since his days with the Cardinals. I think his projection is fair. His positional ranking hurts him, his fielding hurts him and I don't see him repeating 2012 for offensive production.

There you have it. The projections have spoken. But of course, nobody knows how any player's season will go until he actually plays the games.

2013 Fluke or Future - Shin-Soo Choo

General managers looking for outfielders had two really great choices this off season. One was Ellsbury and the Yankees have snatched him up. The other is Shin-Soo Choo. News about Choo's free agency have been rather quiet and you would figure that after the season he just had, GMs would be jumping all over themselves to land the Korean-born star. The fact is that you cannot even find his name on the first page of mlbtraderumors.com. So what gives? Are GMs doing the same thing as me and wondering if Choo's 2013 was more fluke or a sign of future performance?

Choo might have been the steadier of the two outfield options. On-base percentage does not usually slump and Choo's has consistently been higher than Ellsbury. Choo has twice finished a season with a .400 or higher OBP. However, his walk rate did jump even higher in 2013. His walk rate has ranged during his career from 10.6% to 12.8%. But he had the phenomenal rate of 15.7% in 2013.

Can you call that a fluke? I don't think so. His plate discipline, always terrific, was even better (naturally) in 2013. He swung at only 20.8% of pitches outside of the strike zone. And he carried this consistently through the season. If you look at his splits, he never walked less than 17 times in any month of 2013. That is pretty remarkable. Add to the 112 walks (107 unintentional) the 26 times he was hit with a pitch and Choo was on base a remarkable 300 times on the nose in 2013.

That is amazing to me. But I think the part that is bothering teams is that Choo sort of got lost in 2011 and 2012. After being traded to Cleveland by the Mariners for Ben Broussard--one of the worst trades ever--Choo had terrific seasons in 2008, 2009 and 2010. 

But then, as memory serves, he was stopped for drinking and driving before the 2011 season and it seemed like he never recovered from that. And after a two down years, the Indians included him as part of a humongous three-team trade that included the Diamondbacks and Reds. Choo ended up being a one year rental for the Reds and he rewarded them with a fantastic season.

So what do you make of 2011 and 2012? If you look at 2008 through 2010, you get WAR values of 3.0, 4.8 and 5.9. Terrific, right? But then 2011 and 2012 and 1.3 and 2.4. Weird. But he was back to 5.2 fWAR (4.8 rWAR) in 2013. So what do you believe then?

I believe he simply got lost for a two year period. He now has four solid years of production. He is going to bat between .280 and .300. His on-base percentage is going to be between .380 and .400 and he will add 18 to 20 homers and 35 to 40 doubles. That is kind of hard to beat.

Unless you look at fielding data. Ugh. His fielding stats are ugly. And you would smartly say that Choo played out of position for all of 2013. The Reds played him in center field. He is not a center fielder and it showed. Fangraphs.com gave him a minus 13.3 runs below average. Baseball-reference.com was even harsher and gave him -16.6. So fine, move him back to right field.

The problem was that he played 154 games in right field for the Indians in 2012 and scored -23.6 according to Fangraphs. B-R was much, much kinder to Choo in RF in 2012. My take is that if you put him back in right, he is going to be fine. He will be just below league average, which is doable with his offensive contributions. 

Oliver projections for the next five years show Choo peaking at 4.8 in 2014 and then going down a couple of notches every year for the next five, but still maintaining his on-base skills. I think that is a little conservative. I would be doubtful that Choo can maintain the .390+ wOBA he put up in 2013, but he is going to be a productive offensive player for the next five years. He has bad splits against lefties, but that does not happen nearly as often, so it is acceptable.

I do not think Choo's 2013 was a fluke season. He is a really good offensive player who is going to help whichever team he ends up with. I just wonder which team that is going to be.

Just another strange game at Minute Maid Park

The visiting Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros in one strange and long game yesterday. It took the Reds five hours and eighteen minutes to do so. The game featured the coming out party, if you will, for Billy Hamilton who stole four bases in his first MLB start. Despite those four stolen bases and the fact that he was on base five times in the game, he scored only twice. That was the kind of game it was. Hamilton did, however, score the winning run.

The final score of 6-5 makes it sound like a high scoring game. The two teams combined to use fourteen pitchers. None of them were much to write home about. And yet, the score could have been ten runs or more higher.

For example, J.J. Hoover pitched an inning and a third. Of the 26 pitches he threw, only twelve were strikes. He did not give up a run. On the Astros' side, Josh Fields pitched an inning and threw 22 pitches and only six were strikes. He did not give up a run.

The two teams were a combined seven for 41 with runners in scoring position. That works out to a .170 average. The two teams combined for twenty walks in the game and 22 hits. There were also two wild pitches, an error and two hit batters. That is 45 combined base runners and only eleven of them scored. And this was despite the two teams combining for nine doubles and ten total extra base hits.

The two teams combined to strand 31 base runners. This despite the two teams' pitchers combining to throw only 57.6% strikes in the game.

Brandon Phillips did not have a good game at the dish. He went zero for seven with seven total runners left on base.

Ryan Ludwick had arguably a worse night. He went zero for six and left nine men on base all by himself. He did drive in one run with a sac fly.

Marc Krauss went hitless in the game (he did walk once) and stranded six runners all by his lonesome. He was the Astros' DH. The two designated hitters--a position meant solely for offense--combined to go zero for twelve with fifteen men left on base.

This was one strange game that had to be brutal to watch. Well, it would have been more brutal if not for the coming out party of Billy Hamilton. Just to wash out the bad taste of it all, I will leave you with the highlights of his steals. Enjoy.

It is time to embrace Dusty Baker

Dusty Baker has been a punching bag for manager-bashers for years. It started with his decade as the manager of the Giants where he coddled and cowed to Barry Bonds while ultimately failing in all three of his post seasons there. Then he was considered the guy who threw away the careers of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood during his run with the Cubs and helped create the misanthrope by the name of Carlos Zambrano. Baker has always run afoul of history and critics when it came to his managerial skills. The taunts crested since he took over the Cincinnati Reds. But perhaps it is time to reconsider all this negativity and take a fresher look at Dusty Baker as a manager.

His tenure with the Red started well enough. In his third season at the helm of that team and after steady improvement, the Reds won the National League Central Division and went to the post season for the first time since 1995. But all of that was negated when the Reds faced the Phillies in the first round of the playoffs in 2010 and Halladay pitched a no-hitter and the Reds were overwhelmed in the series three games to none.

And besides, it was Walt Jocketty who got the credit for building the team after coming to the front office via the Cardinals. And then the Reds could not get out of their own way in 2011. After winning the division, the team could not win back to back games that entire season to save themselves. Bronson Arroyo had a homer-prone season for the ages. The team was out of rhythm the entire season and Baker received his share of the blame.

An admission here is needed. This site run by this Fan has not been kind to Baker over the years either. Much energy here was bent on a mission to get the man fired earlier this season. And then a funny thing happened. Baker's team ran away with their division this season and finished tied for the best record in the National League. But surely the Reds would crumble again in the playoffs against those magical Giants and that pitching staff that won the World Series back in 2010. Oops. That didn't happen either.

So two straight Reds' mauling of the Giants this weekend coupled with that amazing season sort of left this naysayer sucking wind. Whose your daddy now, Fan?

Agreed. It is time to embrace Dusty Baker. It is time to give him his due as a manager his team rallies around and enjoys playing for. It is time to realize that he has managed winners in all three of his managerial stops. It is time to wonder if at least part of the anti-Baker meme is at least unconsciously racist. The guy has a .525 winning percentage as a manager. He was a Bartman foul popup and costly error of doing the unthinkable and getting the Cubs to the World Series.

But what about that pitcher-killer reputation? Well, here we are a decade removed from his years with the Cubs and there is still no consensus about the effect on innings on young pitchers. Some of the same writers who bashed Baker for killing Prior and Wood were this season crucifying the Nationals for shutting down Strasburg.

And Baker wasn't alone in that Cubs situation. He had a pitching coach there and medical people and advisers and a general manager. And in fairness, how the heck do we know how healthy those two pitchers would have been had they been coddled like Strasburg has been? We just don't know. We'll never know.

And Bonds was a force of nature. Would any other manager have been able to handle him any better in those years with the Giants? Bonds was bigger than the Giants at that time. When that happens and when an ego is as big as Bonds' was, what could any manager have done differently?

So yeah, we've been bashing Dusty Baker for years. He has never been given any credit for his managerial career. And perhaps it is time for that to end. He has won the Manager of the Year Award three times. He has won nearly 1,600 games as a manager in his 19 seasons doing the job. And that came after a very good nineteen year playing career. That is 38 years of quality service in Major League Baseball. That is quite awesome when you think about it.

It is time to embrace Dusty Baker as one of the treasures of this baseball era. This Fan will be the first one to admit he has done the man wrong. The Reds, despite their 2-0 advantage currently over the Giants, might not lead to a championship. But that does not even matter in the end. What matters is that Dusty Baker has been worthy of our respect and it is way past time he started receiving it.

Ryan Ludwick - Comeback Player of the Year?

The baseball journey of Ryan Ludwick has already been a strange odyssey. He toiled in the minors for years and for three different organizations before finally getting a chance with the Cardinals in 2007 at the age of 28. A year later, he would go to his one and only All Star Game as he crushed 37 homers and posted a .966 OPS. His following two campaigns were still productive but disappointing after that big year of 2008. Ludwick was traded in a three-team deal to the Padres in 2010 as they were fighting for a playoff spot (which they lost on the last day of the season). Ludwick tanked there. Ludwick looked like a one-hit wonder as his 2011 season in San Diego was not going any better. Meanwhile, the Pirates had a surprising start to the 2011 series and were looking for help. They obtained Ludwick from the Padres...and he tanked for Pittsburgh too. Ryan Ludwick was over. Or so it seemed. Then the Cincinnati Red signed him as a free agent. Baseball writers snickered. Ludwick was sort of okay in the first half but nothing spectacular. Then the second half hit and so has he.

And look at Ryan Ludwick now! He has a .911 OPS for the Reds in 2012. He has hit 25 homers and added 23 doubles and a triple in just 349 at bats. He has driven in 71 runs in just 103 games. It is enough to make you scratch your head. Ryan Ludwick!?

Ludwick's career makes you wonder about the vagaries of situation, setting and opportunity. He was drafted by the A's in the second round way back in 1999. He hit 55 homers for the A's farm system in his first two full seasons and by the end of the second, had already been promoted to Triple-A. The Rangers took notice and asked that Ludwick be included with three other players in a trade that sent the A's Pena and Renefro. Ludwick was solid for the Rangers' Triple-A club in 2002 and was called up for a cup of coffee to the big leagues. He got 88 plate appearances and hit his first big league homer, but was thoroughly unremarkable. Ludwick also fractured his hip which affected his play for several seasons.

The Rangers traded him after that season to the Indians and Ludwick actually got into 39 games with the Indians in 2003 and finished with a .791 OPS, good for a 108 OPS+. But he didn't stick and played most of the 2004 and 2005 seasons in the minors. He was granted free agency after the 2005 season and signed with the Tigers.

Ludwick had a big year in 2006 for the Tigers' Toledo Mud Hens. But the Tigers never gave him the call to the majors and he was a free agent again after that season. He signed with the Cardinals. It turned out to be a smart move.

The Cardinals of 2007 had a tough time with outfielders. Edmonds was hurt a lot. They tried the son of the pitching coach, and he hit 21 homers but was not very good otherwise. And they had Encarnacion, who was a fringe player at best. The Cardinals turned to Ludwick that season and he ended up playing in 120 games at every outfield position. His OPS was a respectable .818 and had some pop in his bat. Then came his big season in 2008 where he won the Silver Slugger Award, made the All Star team and even made the top fifteen in MVP voting. Ryan Ludwick became the unlikeliest of stars.

Except he wasn't, not really. He had a great 2008, but in 2009 and 2010, he played closer to his ability level. It was still productive. But the Cardinals and their fans were disappointed. He was a better than league average hitter, but they thought they had a superstar. And so he was shipped to San Diego, the MLB equivalent to Siberia.

Ludwick played 160 games for the Padres. His OPS in those 160 games was .659. His slugging percentage disappeared. His home ballpark there affected him mentally. He took those thoughts on the road with him. By the time he got to Pittsburgh, he was a messed up hitter. His OPS for the Pirates was .671.

And then, Ludwick signed with the Reds. Not only do the Reds have a fun home park to hit in, but they play in a division that also has several fun parks to hit. He started slowly this season. His OPS in April was .662 in 17 games. In another 17 games, it rose slightly to .709 in May. But then he caught fire in June and has had an OPS over one for both July and August.

Those statements can be made because the nitty-gritty stats for Ludwick are pretty much the same from year to year. He hits the same number of ground balls each year. He walks about eight percent and strikes out a little over 20 percent of the time. Those numbers have remained pretty much static through the years. He seems to be more aggressive this season and he is swinging at more pitches outside the strike zone, but otherwise, his contact percentage and swing and miss percentage are consistent from year to year.

But consider that in his two years in San Diego, his homer per fly ball rate plummeted from his career rate of about 15 percent to 10.4 percent in 2010 and 7.5 percent in 2011. Location is everything as they say in the real estate market. This year, his homer per fly ball rate of 21.4 percent is his highest since his big year in 2008.

Ryan Ludwick should get lots of consideration for Comeback Player of the Year. The reality is that for many players, the situation they find themselves in and where they play has a lot to do with how well they perform. Or to state it another way, they perform the same but the results are better. Whatever the case, he is one of the big reasons the Reds are flying high in 2012. They do not care about the semantics of his season. They are simply enjoying the benefits.

New Jersey kid gunning for Rookie of the Year

You thought this post was going to be about Trout. Right? We all know now where Vineland, New Jersey is because of that Angels' outfielder. But this post is not about him. He already has the Rookie of the Year Award wrapped up in the American League. Even Darvish is miles behind in the rear-view mirror. No, this post is about a kid from Point Pleasant, New Jersey. His name is Todd Frazier. And Mr. Frazier has quietly been a big part of the new Big Red Machine in Cincinnati. Of course, this writer was born and raised in New Jersey so all of this is quite exciting.

Unlike Mr. Trout, Todd Frazier is not a babe on the baseball diamond. He is not nineteen or twenty. He is twenty-six. He was a first round draft pick back in 2007. Unlike Trout and Harper, the other big news-maker this season, Frazier did not have an immediate rise through the Reds' system. It took Frazier five years to get his cup of coffee in the 2011 season. Part of the problem was that Frazier was drafted as a shortstop. Like most kids drafted as shortstops, he was not very good at it.

So Frazier was bounced around the field. In the minors, he played short, third, second, first and left field. Third base seems to be his best position. And Frazier's bat did not mistake him for that other kid from New Jersey. His first year in 2007, he lit up Rookie ball pretty well, but with no power. The power came on in 2008 in A and A+ ball. Frazier started in Double-A in 2009 and he was promoted to Triple-A. Between the two of them, he put up an .832 OPS. That's good, but not spectacular.

He had a little bit of a dip in 2010, all in Triple-A as his OPS dipped to .781. It was his batting average that dipped the most. The average did not return in 2011 and his OPS rose only to .806. He did get a call up from the Reds and got his feet wet in the majors in 2011. The results were somewhat disappointing. In 41 games, he put up a .727 OPS for the Reds.

After making the Baseball America's Top 100 prospects before the 2009 and 2010 seasons, Frazier fell off the list before the 2011 season. It is hard to call a 26 year old without a set position a prospect, especially when his numbers were not setting the world on fire.

That makes what Todd Frazier is doing this season a pleasant surprise. He got some playing time with the health issues of Scott Rolen and because the other back up infielder was Miguel Cairo. With all due respect to Miguel Cairo...he IS Miguel Cairo. Frazier played a lot in Rolen's absences and now he is playing a lot with Joey Votto out with knee problems. While Frazier is no Joey Votto (who is?), he has performed well no matter whose place he is taking.

To date, Frazier has compiled a .913 OPS is good for an OPS+ of 137. Baseball-reference.com has him at 2.3 rWAR while Fangraphs.com has him at 2.8. The Fangraphs' evaluation ranks him second among rookie offensive players behind only that other kid from New Jersey. Frazier's 18 homers exceeds expectations and is higher than any year total he had in the minors. He has added twenty doubles and five triples. Frazier's .383 wOBA places him only behind Trout among rookie position players.

You would think that some of those numbers have been because he plays his home games in that little bandbox of a Great American Park. But that is actually not the case. He has better numbers on the road than he does at home. He also had very similar splits against right-handed or left-handed pitchers. He walks more against right-handed pitchers but also strikes out more.

Frazier's line drive percentage has been fantastic but he needs better plate discipline and he needs to swing and miss a bit less often. But overall, his season has been dynamic and has filled two huge holes for the Reds this season with equal aplomb and has helped keep the Reds' offense rolling.

So who is Frazier's competition in the National League? For position players, both his teammate, Zach Cozart, and Harper are in the conversation. Neither is as good as Frazier with a bat but have better fielding scores. Among pitchers, Miley of Arizona has a good size lead on Frazier in the WAR department. Miley would have to be considered the front runner. Fiers of the Brewers, Lynn of the Cardinals and Harrell of the Astros are contenders.

But Todd Frazier has a chance and if he gets enough playing time and if Miley falters at all, both leagues could have an all-New Jersey podium for the Rookie of the Year Award. And that would be kind of cool for  this former Jersey kid.

Chapman did NOT do a somersault

After Tuesday night's escapades of Aroldis Chapman following his save, the one word used over and over was, "somersault." Chapman did NOT do  a somersault. This is what a somersault looks like:




What Chapman did is a forward roll.




Got it?

Joey Votto is a line drive machine

Joey Votto is the best hitter in the game today. You can have some good arguments about that judgment call. You might go for Josh Hamilton. You might think it Adrian Gonzalez or perhaps Matt Kemp. You might even want to consider Paul Konerko. But the choice here is Joey Votto. Not only has he batted over .300 for three straight years, but he has also had an on-base percentage of over .410 the past three years and his lowest slugging percentage in those years has been .531 (last year).

This season, Votto is doing the same thing. His triple slash line so far: .325/.466/.606. If he wasn't a first baseman, he would easily be leading the league in fWAR. Instead, he is third behind Josh Hamilton and David Wright, both having great seasons. He is just ahead of the amazingly hot Konerko. The thing that makes Votto stand out is the line drives. He is a line drive machine.

Votto led all of baseball last season with a line drive percentage of 27.5. Twenty percent is considered excellent in that category. But this year, he has topped even himself. So far this season, Joey Votto has put 123 balls in play. Of those 123 balls in play, 43 of them have been line drives. That is a line drive percentage of 35 percent. 35 percent! He has more line drives than ground balls. That's unthinkable. He has more line drives than strikeouts. He walks a lot. And yet, he has more line drives than walks.

Since batted balls have been tracked, of all regularly playing hitters, Only Todd Helton and Mark Loretta have a higher career line drive percentage than Joey Votto. Yeah, Loretta is a surprise. But he had some very good years for the Padres when no one was looking. But Votto could surpass both of them at the rate he has been going the last couple of seasons. 

This statistic is important because line drives lead to the highest BABIP of all hit trajectories. And Votto is no different. His OPS on his line drives is 1.651. And honestly, that is a bit unlucky. For most batters, a line drive will lead to a hit around 70 percent of the time. Votto is only hitting .651 on line drives. The league stats would be given to you, but baseball-reference.com seems to be having a bit of an issue this morning. But let's put it this way: Votto hits line drives 35 percent of the time, and when he does, he is going to be on base, 65 percent of the time. Yes, that is going to do some damage.

You can have a decent argument on who the best hitter in the game is right now. But for this observer, if this was a sandlot and we had to pick teams, Joey Votto would always be picked first. He is a line drive machine.

Ho hum - Aroldis Chapman

The game on Sunday between the Cincinnati Reds and Miami Marlins was exciting. The seesaw game went back and forth as the lead changed hands a couple of times. Jay Bruce hit two homers including the game tying shot off of Heath Bell to tie the game in the ninth. The 37 year old Scott Rolen gave the Reds the victory with a well-placed smash down the third base line that Hanley Ramirez had to eat while the winning run scored. The hometown fans in Cincinnati went wild. A trip to MLB.com to view the highlights saw the winning hit, both of Bruce's homers, Brandon Phillips' 1,000th hit, a few of the Marlins' offensive highlights and that was it. There were no Aroldis Chapman highlights. Ho hum. All he did was pitch two innings to luck into the win. Nothing to see there.

From there it was to Yahoo sports for the game recap. Aroldis Chapman got one line. One line. The line: "Left-hander Aroldis Chapman (1-0) pitched two shutout innings of relief." Nothing special there. Move along. We have other things to talk about. But was there anything more important to this victory than the two innings Chapman pitched? Not in this mind, there wasn't. Chapman shut the door spectacularly and allowed the Reds the chance to come back in the game. His innings were pivotal. 

Chapman has come a long way since his struggles of a year ago. 2011 was a year of emotional upheaval for the Cuban pitcher we've been told. Apparently that upheaval cost him his ability to pitch in the strike zone. Chapman walked 41 batters in 50 innings of work in 2011. That is a rate of 7.4 walks per nine innings. Mixed in those wild results were records of throwing the ball 105 MPH. Nobody had recorded a pitch going that fast before. But Chapman's 2011 season, much like the Reds' 2011 season was a lost one. He did a short stint in the minors and came back more effective though.

There was talk this spring of moving Chapman into the starting rotation. In fact, four of his five spring appearances during Spring Training were starts. The results were encouraging: 17 innings, a 2.12 ERA with 18 strikeouts and just two walks and a WHIP of 1.12. But those plans were scrapped because the Reds, in their infinite wisdom felt that Bronson Arroyo and Homer Bailey were better fits in the rotation. Well, alrighty then.

And thus, the Reds put Chapman in the bullpen. Sunday marked his first appearance. It was spectacular whether or not anyone noticed. He threw 27 pitches and 21 of them were strikes. His average fastball was 98 MPH with a vertical break of 10.66. 10.66! His fastest pitch was 100.3 MPH. The slacker. Only two of his pitches were more than 100 MPH. Perhaps that doesn't excite anyone. Chapman threw two innings and his line was one hit, no walks and three strikeouts. Would the Reds have had a chance in this game without that? Doubtful.

Just to give you a pictorial idea of how effective Chapman was, here is his game's strikezone plot via Brooks Baseball. Talk about pounding the strike zone! Chapman was a beast on Sunday for the Reds. Too bad nobody noticed.

The Reds are Dusty

You know how you avoid bending over so that your underwear does not show? Writing about baseball can be like that. Topics are sometimes avoided because of fear you will look either biased or uninformed and neither is a comfortable place to be. In this particular space, posts about the Cincinnati Reds have been particularly avoided and it is not because the team is disliked. On the contrary, Cincinnati is a great baseball town with a rich baseball history. Some of the players there are favorites like Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips and Mike Leake. To be honest, the Reds have been avoided because of bias about their manager, Dusty Baker.

No, it is not Baker's skin color that causes the bias. This space should not even exist if that were the case. The bias goes back to personally blaming Baker for the demise of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior during Baker's tenure with the Cubs. Those two pitchers should have been the dynamic duo for a decade. And like most biases, this one is not even logical because we simply do not know if Wood and Prior would have developed the injuries they did no matter how they were used by Baker. But they were hurt under his watch and care and he is held responsible.

And it is not like those two were isolated instances. There was Bill Swift and Jeff Brantley and others that were never the same after perceived overwork under Baker's watch. There is also the perception here that he hasn't been able to close the deal. In his eighteen years as a manager, his teams have won a grand total of one National League pennant and no World Series titles. His record in the post season is 17-22 including the Reds' colossal blowout at the hands of the Phillies in 2010.

But big picture, Dusty Baker has had success as a manager. His teams have a .521 winning percentage and all of his teams combined have finished in first place in the division four times. That is not a bad record. He managed Barry Bonds for ten seasons and lived to tell about it (if he so chose). So, there's that. And it cannot be forgotten that he was a very good baseball player in his day as well. This bias has to be dealt with because the Reds are still a factor in the NL Central this coming season and his team cannot continue to be avoided like they are contagious or something.

It is time to "man up" about this particular bias. Now that it is out in the open, it can be dealt with. Baseball Prospectus predicts the Reds will win slightly few games than the Cardinals in 2012. With such a close race predicted in the NL Central this coming season, that race will need attention. And a lot of Baker's decisions will be important if every game counts in that divisional battle. It all starts with how his rotation will start the season as he has seven pitchers vying for the five spots. The season will be fascinating and this space and its readers have been shortchanged by a bias that simply has no good reason for existence. 

Does Cozart Rhyme With Mozart?

After winning the National League Central in 2010, the Cincinnati Reds laid an egg in 2011. While stalwarts, Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips, Scott Rolen and Jay Bruce provide some continuity to the 2010 team, much of the Reds' hopes in 2012 fall on new acquisitions like Matt Latos and Ryan Madson and youngsters like Zack Cozart and Devin Mesoraco. Mesoraco has some cushion as Ryan Hanigan is a very reliable catcher. Zack Cozart, on the other hand, is counted on to seal the defense at short. It's a scary proposition. Will Cozart rhyme with Mozart this season, or will he be more Vanilla Ice?

Looking at Cozart's numbers is confusing. His stats in the minors before 2011 were pedestrian. Then suddenly he is putting balls in play all over the field and hit over .300 in Louisville and again in 38 exciting plate appearances for the big club before blowing out his non-throwing elbow in August. He had Tommy John surgery on that elbow that same month and is said to be good to go in the spring. Still, you have to wonder considering the Reds just obtained Wilson Valdez from the Phillies. Perhaps the Reds are a bit worried too.

With such a small major league sample size, can anything be said about Cozart's brief exposure to the majors? He was brilliant in the field. According to the stats, he converted every chance at shortstop into an out. That's impressive. But again, it doesn't really match his minor league history. Another concern was that in his eleven games, he never took a walk. He only walked a little over six percent of the time in the minors, so are we looking at another Yuniesky Betancourt? Time will tell.

A lot rides on Cozart's shoulders (and elbows, it seems). Shortstop is a premium position that remains without many real stars around the majors. When Clint Barmes is a good option for teams, there isn't a whole lot of talent out there. Defense is certainly the biggest key of the position and it appears that Cozart can be very good. But that's only half the battle. You also have to be able to at least hit somewhere near league average. Projections for Cozart are already all over the place for 2012. Bill James has him at, .256/.306/.404 while others have him hitting as high as .283 with an on-base percentage at .330. The latter will work. The former will be a drag.

Can we see anything else from Cozart's minuscule sample size? It's hard not to like his only four percent swinging strike percentage. Cozart makes contact. He hit ground balls twice more often than he hit the ball in the air. That's a bit troublesome combined with his only nine percent line drive rate. Again, this is all with so little samples to go by that they might all be moot points. Perhaps we just have to give the guy 500 plate appearances and see what happens.

Cozart had some power in the minors but that disappeared last year. If he hits the ball in the air, twenty percent of such contact results in a homer. That's impressive. But he doesn't hit the ball in the air often enough. The thing that is just hard to get over is that 2011 seems so much different than all of his previous performances. Is that the new Zack Cozart? Is this the player we have now? Or is the pre-2011 guy the real one? Again, we'll have to wait and see.

Fortunately, the Reds do have some fallback plans. The aforementioned Valdez is capable and if all else fails, there is always the solid glove of Paul Janish (who likely is the odd man out here). The Reds aren't much different than any team this time of year. A lot will have to go right for them to regain their 2010 mojo as a contender in 2012. If Zack Cozart can prove he is the Reds' shortstop answer for years to come in the 2012 season, that would be a huge aid to their cause.

So the Same Day as a Reds' Snooze Fest Post....

Life isn't always kind to a writer. Yesterday morning dawned and the idea struck that the Cincinnati Reds had done absolutely zilch this off season. So that was the theme of yesterday's post. The  fortunate thing that happened after that  post was written was having to spend thirteen hours at the mall trying to peddle the company's books. Why was that fortunate? Because there is no Internet at our mall. And why is that fortunate? Because that way this writer didn't find out until much later how silly the morning post looked after the blockbuster deal between the Reds and the San Diego Padres.

One Twitter buddy said he preferred to think of yesterday's post as a catalyst (which was kind). Another asked that this writer come up with a post talking about his team's glaring needs (which was hysterical). But enough about the Fan. What about that deal, eh? The Reds turned three prospects into Mat Latos. Don't be fooled by Latos' 9-14 record in 2011. This guy is a stud.

Latos is the kind of pitcher every team covets for the top of their rotation. In Latos, the Reds get a pitcher who just turned 24 this month and has already logged 72 starts in his big league career. His FIP in the last two seasons were 3.00 and 3.16 respectively. Opponents have batted .216 and .228 off of him the last two seasons. Batters have trouble squaring up the bat to his pitches. His line drive rates the last two years have been off the charts: 14.9 and 16.1 percent respectively.

And Latos' success can't be pinned solely on his home park in San Diego. Yes, his home OPS against was lower than on the road. But not by much. His OPS against at home was .641 last season and only .688 on the road. You would take that, no? Plus, he is not an extreme fly ball pitcher (when batters manage to hit the ball). His ground ball to fly ball ratio is 1.03 for his career. So that isn't something that would overly concern you heading into the Reds' little ballpark.

In yesterday's lame duck post, Yonder Alonso was featured as an up and coming player for the Reds. Well, forget that idea because he was one of the three prospects the Reds sent to the Padres. The Reds were trying to convert Alonso from first base to left field since Votto is a fixture at first. But in Keith Law's take on the trade over at ESPN.com yesterday, Law mentions that the left field move was ill-advised and that Law prefers Anthony Rizzo, the Padres incumbent first baseman. Alonso could then be dealt by the Padres for another need they might have.

While it's hard to argue with Keith Law, this writer thinks that Alonso could have worked out in left field for the Reds and the Reds line up will miss the young player. But you have to give up quality to get quality and that's just what the Reds did. The Reds most glaring need was in the rotation (as mentioned yesterday) and the Reds took care of that need in glorious fashion. They also got rid of a thorn in the organization's side.

Part of the deal sent Edinson Volquez to the Padres. The erstwhile starter the Reds obtained from the Rangers in the Josh Hamilton deal had a brilliant debut season for the Reds but has gone down hill since. Last year was particularly trying for all as Volquez had to endure two stints in the minors due to his ineffectiveness in the Reds' rotation. This Fan bets that Volquez pulls it together for the Padres gaining a comfort level in a much more pitcher friendly environment.

This Fan wouldn't call Brad Boxberger a spare part like others have when discussing this deal. Boxberger has a big arm and could have helped the Reds in the bullpen this season. That's still a big need for the Reds. But then again, when you can get a guy like Mat Latos, geez, you have to give up some quality if you have the chance. Latos, if he stays healthy (knocking wood), can be a terrific pitcher for the Reds for years to come. He's a fiery personality which makes him a tough competitor. He is an ace and aces are hard to find.

Merry Christmas, Reds fans. You got something pretty exciting to talk about today.