Cincinnati Reds 2004 Preview

By David Marasco

Timing is everything. Just ask Pete Rose. If he had come clean about his gambling on baseball when the scandal hit the fan in the late 1980s, he would be in the Hall of Fame right now. Sure, there would have been outrage from the small but vocal minority that believed that Pete cost the Reds a title or two by hanging on to catch Cobb. They would point out that Pete admitted to betting on his own team, something that baseball punishes with a permanent ban. But even with that haircut, Pete was an American icon, and while our society takes perverse pleasure in the fall of the mighty, we also enjoy Lazarus stories. It took a quarter of a century, but even Richard Nixon was rehabilitated. With proper public apologies, all of those hits would have weakened MLB and the Hall of Fame voters. Enshrinement would perhaps not be on the first ballot, but it would be inevitable. Instead, Pete waited for nearly a decade and a half, insisting all the while that he was innocent and that MLB had conspired with a bunch of lowlifes to blackball him out of the Pastime. When he finally admitted to his transgressions, his longtime supporters felt betrayed. For years they had insisted that he hadn't done anything wrong, and now he made them look like fools. Pete painted his accusers in a very bad light (and truth be told, they were scum), but now these people are seen not as bad men accusing Pete to make a buck, but instead as his trusted associates. Worse yet, Pete managed to pile bad timing on top of bad timing. He announced his years of gambling a few days before Cooperstown revealed its picks for 2004. This outraged the two groups now most important for his possible induction - the sportswriters who see Hall of Fame voting as their special domain, and the men already granted baseball's highest honor. If Pete is working on an induction speech, I'd guess that he has plenty of time to polish it.

The Cincinnati Reds are also learning about timing. Back in the 1990s, it seemed as if building a new ballpark was a magic bullet for franchises in trouble. Some, like the Blue Jays, Indians and Orioles, were able to spin the excitement of a new venue into large crowds, big payrolls and on-the-field success. But recently teams have discovered something else: a new stadium might give a bounce on attendance for a year or so, but unless a quality product is provided between the lines, the shiny rubs off the new ballpark might fast. Look at Detroit, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, they had great one-year attendance bounces, but once the fans had seen the nice new ballparks, it just wasn't worth the new ticket prices to see bad baseball. The teams that have recently built ballparks seem to have realized this, both the Phillies and Padres have tailored their squads to begin a run with the opening of their new digs. So where do Reds fall into this spectrum? The Great American Ballpark opened last year, and drew 2.4M fans for a team that finished 69-93, fifth in a division where the bottom dwellers were all playing ugly ball. Note that this was fewer fans than the 2.5M who watched the Reds in 2000, when they finished second for the second year in a row. At the trade deadline they dealt Scott Williamson, Jose Guillen and Aaron Boone. Good baseball draws fans, and the Reds are showing a rebuilding mode. How fast can they turn things around? Will they be the Astros, with a strong team in a new palace, or the Brewers, a joke with expensive box seats?

The question that has been asked for most of this century by Reds fans is "how many games will Junior play this year?" While he's a lock for the Hall of Fame, he's averaged fewer than 95 games a year during his tenure in the Queen City. Let's not forget that he's 34, and should also be showing normal signs of age-related decline. Even a healthy Junior might not be the answer. People take for granted that he'll still be a great defensive outfielder, but for years he's used athleticism to make up for poor technique. If he loses a step he may no longer be qualified to play center field. He's a smart player from a baseball family, so perhaps like Bonds he can make up for slowing legs by better positioning, but if he does it will be a skill that he has yet to display. Adam Dunn was a Moneyball Dandy a few years back, he posted a 249/400/454 line at the age of 22. While the slugging was a drop from the previous year's small-sample .578, the 400 OBP showed signs of greatness at an age where most players are taking 12-hour bus rides to their next opponents. He had a serious regression in 2003, dropping all the way to 215/354/465. Granted, that's for a 23-year-old player, but is unacceptable for a corner outfielder. He needs to show serious improvement. The same age as Dunn, Austin Kearns is coming off of shoulder surgery. In 2002, the young Reds outfielders looked great, Kearns posted a 315/407/500 line in 372 ABs to bookend Dunn's performance. This is a hard trio to project. Two are very young, have seen fluctuations in their level, and two are coming off of injuries. The could play out great, three terrific bats giving other pitchers nightmares, or they could all fall flat on their faces, and have batting averages and combined games missed both around 200.

The statement "Barry won the MVP in 1995" might confuse some people. Sure, Bonds won a bunch of MVPs some time in the early '90s, and then a bunch a decade later, but 1995 seems late. He did lead the league in OBP and OPS that year, so arguments could be made, but the Giants finished in 4th place, so 1995 was the only year between 1990 and 2003 that Bonds played a full season and did not finish in the top ten for MVP balloting (toss out 1998, and you can change that statement to top five). The Barry in question is "the other Barry", the same way that McCovey will always be "the other Willie." At least Larkin didn't play on the same team as his more famous namesake, as did the Willie Mac. Like the other Barry, Larkin will be 40 this season. He hasn't won the MVP the last three years, in fact, he hasn't even been league average at the plate for any of those seasons. Look for a nice farewell tour, but nothing great out of Barry. Sadly, he'll be overshadowed by the likes of Tejada, Jeter, Nomar, and the Yankees' third baseman, and perhaps his Cooperstown call might come a little later than it should.

Rounding out the rest of the infield are Sean Casey, D'Angelo Jimenez, Jason LaRue and Brandon Larson. Sean Casey is a scary picture for Reds fans trying to project the futures of Kearns and Dunn. At the age of 24 Casey posted an great 332/399/539 season. Each of the following three seasons saw a decline, all the way to /261/334/362, where he was limited to 120 games due to shoulder problems. After surgery Casey managed to bounce back to a 291/350/408 line last year, but that's still below average for a first baseman. D'Angelo Jimenez, at the age of 26, is now on his fourth franchise. He was once one of the jewels of the Yankees system, and even got a cup of coffee back in 1999. The Yankees needed Jay Witasik, so Jimenez was shipped to San Diego, where he put in time at short stop. He didn't make people forget Ozzie Smith. The White Sox were hurting at second after giving up Ray Durham, so a pair of minor leaguers went to the Padres and the Sox made Jimenez a second baseman. That experiment didn't work, so he was off to the Reds. He would make a good utility infielder, but it's hard to look at him as say solid major leaguer. Jason LaRue is just about at the stage where you could slap the title "journeyman" in front of "catcher". He's put in three straight seasons of about 120 games behind the plate. It's a little surprising that the Reds haven't tried to pick up a veteran catcher given their rotation woes, but those tend to be expensive. His hitting won't help that much, low-200s average, low-300s OBP, low-400s slugging, and his arm seems to have declined (threw out only 26% of baserunners last year). He would make a decent cheap backup catcher on a better team, but he's the number one man here. Finally, Brandon Larson is the suspect for third base. Over the past three seasons he's put in about seventy games in the bigs, and quite frankly, hasn't delivered on the promise that made him a first round draft pick in 1997. In sum, the Reds have a faded star at short, a question mark at first, backups at second and catcher and a rookie at third. That sounds bad, but it's better than the pitching.

Let's look at the rotation. Cory Liddle will be the Opening Day starter, and Paul Wilson looks to be the #2 guy on the staff. Labels like #1 and #2 are kind of silly, as they would not be better than #3 on many teams. Liddle was a free agent pickup from Toronto, where he won 12 games last year. Not exactly like picking up Maddux, the fact that he might walk in and be the best pitcher on the staff is a damning statement about the quality of the Reds pitching staff. Paul Wilson had to be shut down at the end of last season with arm troubles. Wilson was once the number one pick in the nation, and was one of the darlings of the Mets system. He popped up for an extended cup of coffee (26 starts) with the 96 Mets. He got knocked around, and between this experience and some serious arm troubles, did not resurface until 2000, when he pitched for Tampa Bay. Granted that he's pitched for some fairly bad teams, but he's now 31 and has a career 28-47 record. Again, the fact that he's a #2 on this staff says more about the staff than the pitcher. From there it's a crapshoot. Jimmy Haynes will most likely make the roster, but after a 2-12 2003, don't expect the Reds to have much faith in him. Jose Acevedo, Jesus Sanchez and Aaron Harang are all in the mix, but who knows how good or bad (mainly bad) these arms will be? The bullpen will get a lot of work in 2004. Danny Graves is moving back to the closer's role. Like the rotation, there's a lot of chaff here, and nothing really worth writing home about.

There are so many ifs on this team, mainly ifs due to injury and true potential ceilings. The rotation looks scary, but Brewers scary rather than Cubs or Astros scary. In the end, the Reds should be thankful that they live in the same neighborhood as Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, misery loves company.

Lots have things have gone off the road in Cincy recently...