The Young Reds

BBTF pulls an appropriate quote from an interview with Dick Williams, general manager of the Reds:

CE: After this past season, how close do you think you guys are compared to 2016 to being the next winning Reds team, and how does that color your offseason plans?

DW: The lesson we’re all collectively learning is the difficulty of putting exact timetables. Some people are coming quicker than we thought and some people are coming slower. It’s really difficult to say when it will all come together. I had a guy run it the other day, we were the fourth-youngest average age for offensive players this year, and we were the youngest team in baseball for pitchers, average age, for the season. It’s mostly prospects that are driving those young ages. That tells me these next couple years, we will have a very good opportunity to grow into that success.

They do have a young offense, which gives them a chance to mature into a good unit. The Reds unique problem here, however, is that the Cubs offense is the same age, and already 0.4 runs per game better than the Reds. So they will be playing catch up.

On the pitching side, they are young but not very good. Playing in their home park they may not be able to do much about the home runs, so the staff is going to need to cut down on walks and increase their strikeouts to keep batters off base. That will help the homers do less damage. I’m more confident of the offense maturing that the pitching at this point. An improvement next year in the walk rate will be a very good sign.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2yvMLQr