George Steinbrenner did not believe in time off, which is one of the reasons I miss him. If the biggest story of the weekend was a player sending out a survey to teams, Steinbrenner would have signed a free agent, or fired someone, just to make news.
Fortunately, we have Dave Laurila and his Sunday notes column. His lead discusses the optimism of Reds general manager Dick Williams about the Cincinnati rotation:
“If you look at their last eight starts, Romano and Castillo had ERAs under 3.00,” Williams told me. “Mahle made four starts at the big-league level and his ERA was 2.70. That’s a really encouraging finish for those guys. A lot of our young pitchers made progress over the course of the season.”
This table shows the Reds pitchers over the final quarter of the season. Luis Castillo did pitch brilliantly, with a low ERA, a high strikeout rate, a low walk rate, and just two home runs allowed in 29 innings. The other young starters did indeed have low ERAs, but also appeared to have some weaknesses in their three true outcomes, either with a low strikeout rate or a high walk rate.
What they all did, however, was keep the ball in the park. That should be a reason for optimism. Great American Ballpark tends to favor home run hitters, so if the Reds are developing a staff that prevents home runs, that should be an advantage for the team. They can survive higher walk rates or more balls in play if the ball stays in the park.
I will also note these pitchers tended not to go very deep in games. The Reds appeared to be pulling them before they could get in trouble. There is nothing wrong with that. The pitchers go into the winter with a positive view of how they finished the season. They can build on that in 2018. The Reds found pitchers that fit their park, and gave them a chance to experience success. Well done.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2BcgDiW
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