How Many Wins This Year? (feat. the 2000 Cincinnati Reds and T-Pain)

The last winning Reds season was 2000 when we finished 85-77, good for 2nd in the division, still ten wins behind the pennant-winning Cardinals. That was Griff's first year. My, how things change.

National League Ranks

5th in total runs (825)

4th in batting average (.274)

5th in home runs (200)

6th in OPS+ (103)

5th in ERA (4.33)

T-4th in ERA+ (109)

The pitching staff featured starters Steve Parris, Rob Bell, Ron Villone, Pete Harnisch, Denny Neagle, Osvaldo Fernandez, Elmer Dessens and relievers Danny Graves, Scott Sullivan and Scott Williamson. The offense featured Benito Santiago, Pokey Reese, Barry Larkin, Aaron Boone, Dmitri Young, Ken Griffey Jr., Dante Bichette, Chris Stynes, Michael Tucker and Alex Ochoa, all of whom finished with an OPS+ over 100 for the exception of Santiago and Reese.

The 2008 team finished 74-88, 5th in the division.

National League Ranks

12th in total runs (704)
16th in batting average (.247)

4th in home runs (187)

14th in OPS+ (93)

13th in ERA (4.55)

9th in ERA+ (99)

The 2009 pitching staff is in position to be better than the 2000 squad. I still have a hard time believing we finished at 85 wins with a 1. Steve Parris 2. Rob Bell 3. Ron Villone rotation for most of the year. If the 2009 staff can pitch to potential and become a Top-5 staff in the NL, as was the 2000 staff (still not sure how that happened), then we have a chance at 85 wins. Holding us back will be a young, developing offense. For 85 wins to occur, many of our hitters will need career years or breakout years or not-bad years.

Starting with 74 wins, let's do some math...

Not having Josh Fogg = +3 wins

Not having Matt Belisle = +1 win

Not having 2008 Homer Bailey = +1 win

Johnny Cueto a year older = +2 wins

Aaron Harang not smoking crack = +2 wins

Not having Adam Dunn = -1 win

366 Taveras ABs over 366 Patterson ABs = +1 win

Offensive improvement from Phillips, Encarnacion, Votto and Bruce = +5 wins

The bullpen not topping last years performance= -2 wins

Best case scenario: 86 wins, 2nd in the division, Wildcard!!!

Worst case scenario: 76 wins, 5th in the division, Two of diamonds

My scenario: 81 wins, 3rd in the division, Queen of hearts

And now.........T-Pain

Show Me the Money, '09!

The official propaganda machine of the Cincinnati Reds, reds.com, released an article recently with some updated salary figures for the 2009 season. Among them, some changes from last year...

• Francisco Cordero is taking everyone out to dinner as the highest paid Red at $12 mil, roughly $171,000/inning.
• Aaron Harang, coming off his worst Reds season, is rewarded with a few more millions. Why not!
• Brandon Phillips, fresh from laying a turd at home plate last season, will get nearly double with $4.75 million (gotta love that Gold Glove bonus!).
• Alex Gonzalez continues to kkkkkiiiiiillllllllllllllll us.
• Bronson Arroyo now almost makes $10 million a year, not including his JTM advertising monopoly which is rumored at hundreds of dollars.
• Matt Belisle still has not received his paychecks from the last four years of his service.

Scouting Report: The Harangatang

In 2003, the Reds traded Jose Guillen to Oakland for Aaron Harang and a couple no names. At that juncture, the Reds were giving away one of their best young hitters in the middle of a breakout season for an unproven arm with a high ERA. Though at the time the deal seemed like a classic Reds manuever, trading away a good player in an effort to avoid paying the good player and in return recieveing a cluster of hopefuls, the deal miraculously worked. Flash forward five years--Jose is now a professional nutball who plagues every locker room he manifests and Aaron is a consummate leader and workhorse starting pitcher. Speaking of nutballs, the trade was made two days after Jim Bowden was canned. Why doesn't this surprise me?

Aaron Harang is a large man. He stands 6'7" and weighs 240 lbs. He will bend down to shake your tiny little hand. He will not, however, wear his emotions on his sleeve. A good example of this came last season when he went 6-17 with a 4.78 ERA and did not lose his shit even once. Many of us wish that Aaron didn't have a heart of gold (see Aaron's Aces), that he would lose his shit once in a while, I don't know, say August 16th, 2008 at home against those ass-sniffing St. Louis Cardinals when he surrendered 8 ER in 3.1 innings, including home runs by Ludwick, Schumaker and the destroyer of all things spherical, Mr. Pujols. Couldn't Aaron have at least thrown a glove or kicked the Gatorade cooler? How about intentionally throwing at the next batter, Rick Ankiel. Nobody likes that guy. Drill him right in the back, have him charge the mound, and then pick him up with one hand and bite his head off. We can assume that Aaron has freakish monster strength.

Last year was not Aaron's best year, his worst since his first full season with the Reds in 2004. From 2005-2007, he unassumingly built his reputation as one of the most consistently good pitchers in the NL. In 2007 he finished 4th in Cy Young voting despite leading the league in Wins and SOs, becoming the first pitcher ever not to win the award after leading the league in those two categories. Sad face.

STAT WATCH: The Harangatang will most likely be our opening day starter. He's #1, which means he needs to pitch like #1. The #1's on most other winning teams are lights out, shut the door, have a nice ride home. Aaron needs to be one of those guys. As I've said before, even in his good years, his ERA is still rather high (3.83, 3.76, 3.73). I'm not splitting hairs here. It's just, if he's our #1, it needs to be lower than that. Aaron needs to log 200 innings of 3.25 ERA baseball for the Reds to contend in the NL Central this year.

Scouting Report: Johnny Cueto

If a pitcher posts these numbers (174 IP, 9-14, 4.81 ERA), trade bait comes to mind. But when you're a 22-year-old rookie from the Dominican who averaged 8.18 SOs/9IP with a 96-mph fastball, you're probably safe for the time being. This is Johnny Cueto.

Johnny is one of a few Baby Reds, along with Edinson, Jay, Joey and Brandon, who will be unfairly asked to carry the load in 2009. He models his game after one Pedro Martinez, who is similar in body type, delivery, ethinicity, and who never backs down from a cockfight.

In 2007, Johnny went through the entire minor league gauntlet, earning his second consecutive Reds Minor League Pitcher of the Year award. Thanks to the failings of highly touted prospect Homer Bailey, who has yet to grow his set of testicles, Johnny nailed down a spot at the back end of the rotation with his major league debut performance on April 3, 2008, in a 7-inning, 1 ER, 10 SO performance against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Even though Johnny was brutalized in many following starts, the Reds stuck by him and were rewarded with some solid outings. He is still learning to be a pitcher and he relied too heavily on a fastball that was often placed waist high over the center of the plate. These baseballs often ended up in shrimp boat nets in the Gulf of Mexico, deposited from the Ohio into the Mississippi River.

As Johnny grows into a man and daydreams less and less in between innings about that one time he almost touched a girl's private parts behind the dance hall in San Pedro de Macoris, he will have the potential to become a 1 or 2 starter on a playoff team down the road. This of course will be on the team he is traded to after the Reds can't afford to offer him a major league contract.

STAT WATCH: Johnny will presumably be the fourth starter this year behind Volquez, Harang and Arroyo, which instantly makes him one of the best up-and-coming fourth starters in the bigs, if there is such a category. Steady improvement is what we want from Johnny. An ERA under 4.00 would be a major achievement for a 23-year-old. We also do not want Johnny to contract an STD or wear his arm down in the offseason participating in another sport, beisbol. We also do not want to discover that Johnny falsified his papers and is really 37.