Pitching Wins Championships

In the off season the Cincinnati Reds struck a deal sending fan favorite Josh Hamilton to the Texas Rangers in return for pitchers Edison Volquez and Danny Herrera. Hamilton was my favorite player last year and upon initially hearing that he was traded I was disappointed. His story was a good one of someone given a second chance and actually succeeding. However, I understood that this deal was good for the Reds. Hamilton is a good hitter, but pitching is the key to winning championships. I still hear a few Reds fans complaining we shouldn't have traded Hamilton and look where our offense is now. My answer to them: I have seen many recent Reds teams lead by a great offense that have gone no where while watching every championship caliber team succeed with good pitching. You can have a good team powered by a great offense but every team's goal is to win a championship and for that to take place you first need pitching. Yes, the Reds are struggling at the moment but they desperately needed another top notch ace for years to come if they are going to be serious about contending. Harang and Volquez at the top of the rotation are very dangerous.

An offense is much easier to fix than a team pitching and the Cincinnati Reds are in position to easily overhaul theirs in this remaining season and into the next. I would say the only locks for next year's every day position players are 2B-Brandon Phillips, 1B-Joey Votto, Infielder-Jeff Keppinger, and of course Outfielder-Jay Bruce. The Reds have the ability to clear up a ton of payroll if they choose to part ways with the likes of Griffey, Dunn, Patterson, Ross, Fogg, Belisle, Hatteberg, Affeldt, Weathers, and we will be done paying Stanton as well, freeing up around $25million by my calculations. Controversially I'm an Adam Dunn fan if the Reds' manager would use him right (I'll save that for another day) and like the stuff Affeldt has but the rest could go. With that money, and on top of that if Castellini is willing to dish out big bucks again, the Reds could make a bid for a right handed bat that could help this offense.

Oh' Where Have You Gone Greg Vaughn?

I think that clubhouse personalities are highly underrated not only in baseball but in all sports. If you have ever played for a team with good leader (or lack there of) you probably understand. I bring this up because I was recently day dreaming about why the Reds have had the lack of success since the '99 season.

Before the '99 season the Reds acquired Greg Vaughn with the understanding that they were only going to have him for one season then most likely not be able to afford him after that. According to many Vaughn was a great clubhouse leader and I've heard Marty say on a few occasions that Greg Vaughn was the best leader he has ever seen in a Reds uniform. The story goes that after the horrible April in '99 that Greg Vaughn called a team meeting. He basically said hes not here in Cincinnati to lose and accept losing. To stop saying "hey, don't worry about it we'll get them tomorrow" but to get them TODAY. After that meeting the Reds went on huge run and the only thing that kept them out of the playoffs was their horrible start.

In the offseason Greg Vaughn was not pursued very much by the Cincinnati Reds, especially when it became clear that Griffey Jr. wanted to come back home to Cincinnati.

Its no secret the Reds have stunk since then. "Griffey isn't outspoken but leads by example" is a bunch of crap because he loafs all over the field and continues to swing for the fences when teams shift on him, BUNT THE DAMN BALL FOR A HIT. Hes not a team player and obviously not a leader.

I really don't know what Greg Vaughn is up to or if he would be interested in somehow working with the Reds at this stage as a coach but my point is the Reds need a leader. Someone that can step in and tell Corey Patterson hes not a homerun hitter; someone that has the balls to tell Jr. he could hit .300 again by taking advantage of the shift and not letting his ego get in the way; someone that could create a winning mindset in the clubhouse.

Where Have You Gone Greg Vaughn (to the tune of Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?)

Money BALLin!

A few years back I (and many others) were fully introduced to sabermetrics via Michael Lewis' Moneyball. The main premise of Moneyball was the new age emphasis on on base percentage and slugging percentage. Another central theme of Moneyball was that stolen bases, batting average, and runs batted in were "old relics" and out of date ways to gauge a baseball player's importance.

I'm a big believer in much of what Moneyball preached (especially on base %) but did not see eye to eye with all the arguments behind the book. Discussing Moneyball could be a book or multiple books within itself so I'm just going to focus on one aspect.

In the book Billy Beane is often portrayed as believing stolen bases are overrated. To an extent I agree with Beane, but I can not totally write off stolen bases and the potential impact they can have in a single game nor over the long haul of the season. I believe 30 stolen bases is the most overrated stat today in baseball. Over a 162 game schedule is stealing 30 bases really going to make much of an impact? I believe a base stealer does not largely impact the outcome of games over the long haul till he swipes 60-70 a year, that's roughly every other game. So to me there are only a hand full of base runners in the game today that really have the ability to impact games over a 162 game schedule. Jose Reyes and Juan Pierre are the only players in the 2007 season to steal over 60 bags.

While reading Moneyball I began to think of stolen bases in a different light, not as tallying them as merely stolen bases but combining them with another stat. What actually got me thinking of this was Beane's belief in slugging % and OPS. I thought of stolen bases as a way to compliment the main idea behind slugging %. Slugging % is basically a way of valuing the amount of bases a hitter gets in each at bat. So wouldn't stealing 2nd base after hitting a single be the same thing as hitting a double in the first place while also maybe affecting the way the opposing pitcher was pitching to the current hitter at the time the base was being swiped.... so maybe even more important than initially hitting the double? Now I do not know if anyone has created a stat taking this into account (I searched briefly and didn't find any such stat but please comment if you know of one). My idea is a new Slugging % or taking it a step further and using it as a OPS formula used for taking into account a players ability to take another base after his at bat is over. I'll call it the Fabricated OPS. How to find the Fabricated OPS : add the total SBs to the total Doubles then of course you would have to subtract the number of SBs from the original amount of singles. After that you would recalculate a player's Slugging% and then OPS with the original OPS formula using the new singles & doubles figures. Here is an example with Jose Reyes' numbers from the 2007 season. Reyes stole 78 bases in the '07 season. His original 2007 OPS was .775. After using the Fabricated OPS his new OPS is: .890. I also did this with the Marlins' SS Hanley Ramirez who stole 51 bases in '07. His original OPS was .948 and his new FAB OPS was 1.027!

Please let me know what you all think of this idea or if it has already been accounted for in a similar OPS stat?