Results tagged ‘ Reds fans ’
What Now, Uncle Walt? Everyone Is Waiting, Waiting, Waiting. . . .
What now? In the aftermath of a 3-7 stretch against the three primary contenders in the NL Central, the Reds were a bunch of fludarts, as my old man used to say. We never had a firm grip on the true definition of “fludartedness,” but it was funny, disparaging and the meaning implied. John Madden was a fludart. So were the Washington Redskins when they invariably lost a game they should have won. Now we have the ’09 Redlegs, who, despite themselves, are still in the thick of the race, 3.5 games back, tied with the Cubs for third. You ask yourself how (and why) when you look down the Reds’ roster, injuries, stats and gory game comparisons: 0 for 13 with runners in scoring position in the 14-inning loss to the Cubs on Sunday and 3 for 31 in the series with 36 left on base. We can second-guess any number of game situations or managerial moves, but that’s just all pointless because it doesn’t change facts: the Reds as currently constructed are a bunch of fludarts. That stretches from Uncle Walt’s office down to the 25th man on the roster, who is apparently reliever Mike Lincoln (see blogosphere). In June, the starters have a 3.40 ERA, 1.286 WHIP and .258 batting average but a 1-3 record. The offense? This is not a misprint: the Reds are batting .211/.296/.402 with just 5 homers and 25 RBI in 289 plate appearances. And it gets uglier the deeper we look at the splits. The Reds simply don’t have enough talent and the front office is acting like it doesn’t have enough cash (or willpower) to make a bold move. We understand the team is beaten up by injuries to critical frontline players and the 40-man roster situation is such that adding talent will require some tough financial choices (eating contracts) or risk losing a valuable prospect (who would have to be waived off the roster). What to do? Jeff Gentil at Redlegs Rundown has ideas and there’s merit to some of these. There’s fan noise to bring up OF Drew Stubbs or Chris Heisey and 3b/LF Todd Frazier. But that’s adding inexperience where inexperience is already an offensive problem. People are wanting a big trade; that’s not likely happening because of payroll (see Atkins, Garrett) and the cost of talent (see Holliday, Matt). But what the front office really, really needs to do is things within immediate control. Get the active roster to full strength. No more waiting 5-7 days for a position player to heal. This roster has been short-handed for a month. That’s ridiculous. The other night against the Cubs, they had three reserves and pitcher Micah Owings as a pinch-hitter. Ship out one reliever to add some flexibility to the bench. Optioning Wilkin Castillo and keeping an extra pitcher because of interleague play, where you don’t need as many hitters because of the DH, was stupid because the AL games were six days off. It took exactly one day for this move to bite back. Someone pray for Ryan Hanigan, please. He caught 25 innings within 24 hours. More bothersome . . . this is the second straight June that Uncle Walt has sat idly by while injuries ripped apart the team. The Reds are protecting their top 30 prospects and trying to avoid knee-jerk moves for the short term. Yeah, ohh-kay. It’s not fantasy league and manager Dusty Baker thrashed out at fans wanting a change every time a player gets hot or cold or makes a mistake. He is absolutely right but his point is lost to the masses when you keep wishing upon stars and clicking your heels three times for a turnaround with the Jonny Gomeses, Jerry Hairstons and Adam Rosaleses. The Reds have the pitching to contend . . . nothing else but a couple of parts. Maybe in Jocketty’s heart this team is not a seasonlong contender and he wants more time to see how things play out. Fine. Just put a full, healthy roster on the field and give the impression of caring and competing. You can almost feel the desperation of the clubhouse groping for help, especially with Joey Votto’s absence. It’s the second week of June, schools are letting out, vacations are being planned and baseball is traditionally a popular destination. Just under 106,000 attended this past weekend’s series at Great American Ball Park; problem is, over half that crowd was Cubs fans. If Jocketty keeps standing firm on doing nothing to help the roster, what’s the message he’s sending to the clubhouse and fan base in this economy amid eight straight losing seasons? I think we all know the contents of that message, and it’s a tough, tough sell. –30–
The Pathetic Existence of the Bitter Reds Bloggers
Over the past week or so I’ve exchanged e-mails with Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News about his adapting to the blogosphere. As many of you know, Hal is legally blind from a stroke of the optic nerve and he’s thought several times about retiring. Aaron Boone talked him out of it a couple of years ago and the paper has been incredibly supportive of Hal continuing to cover the Reds. There’s a widespread belief in the industry that once Hal retires DDN will no longer staff Reds road games. That would be criminal. Readers should revolt. There’s a baseball legacy at DDN that no other paper of its size can match–three writers in the Baseball Hall of Fame . . . . Si Burick, Ritter Collett and Hal McCoy. Hal, who works with a specially magnified computer screen and has only about 50 percent of his vision, has been energized by the potential and interactivity of the blog because the size of newspapers is shrinking. Those of you who read the print editions see the evidence–smaller papers, smaller stories, more nuts, bolts and charts . . . junk and more junk for the smaller attention span. I’m told the DDN sports section is averaging around 24-28 columns a day, which translates to only 4-4 1/2 pages. Here’s another reason print editions will die someday–less is not more. Hal has been ambushed twice in the past week by idiotic fans attacking him online for typos and mistakes in his copy. For one thing, the paper’s sports desk has been doing a horrendous job of covering Hal’s back the past few years. Too many typos are getting into the print editions. Hal’s disability is his eyesight, not his mindset, and the editors and ham-handed deskers who are breezing through his copy ought to be embarrassed for him. It’s their jobs to catch these things. For online copy, Hal readily admits his mistakes because he will sometimes post at hours when he doesn’t have an editor available to back-read his copy. The DDN blog template is also very difficult for him to see his own typed words. But Hal figures the expediency and core information should be the focus of the fans, not his mistakes. He’s right. There’s a general sense of informality about blogs, especially on deadline. For the most part, the readers care about the information, the message and storyline of the post, not clean copy in a hurried environment, as proven by the overwhelming support Hal has received on his blog. The best? “I look forward to reading every piece of information that comes out of tht (sic) steel trap of a brain of yours!!” J.R. wrote. But the bigger picture Hal and I have discussed through e-mails recently is the generational negativity and reactionary knee-jerk attitudes of so many Reds fans. “Drives me nuts,” Hal said. Now, the blogosphere gives these particular fans a platform and it has become a very huge problem. The Cincinnati Enquirer is at loggerheads about what to do about these bitter bloggers. All of the paper’s sports blogs are corrupt with these people who do nothing but insult, attack, whine, complain and spew about every little thing. It’s not an issue of expressing opinion; it’s an issue with explosive hostility toward players, coaches and owners. No Cincinnati athlete or team is exempted. Neither is any other blogger. It’s mean, nasty, personal vitriol. Yet, the Enquirer’s sports blogs command the overwhelming majority of the paper’s online traffic, thus advertising potential. Call it Catch-44 for the Enquirer. All of this oddly coincides with a terrific episode of the current HBO show “Costas Now” that is must-see TV (on repeats this week) for any sports fan who blogs or calls in to a sportstalk radio show. The Costas show addresses the impact of the internet and bloggers, athletes and media, and the changing roles of sports media. It is fascinating. Meanwhile, the sports editors and their writers for the Cincinnati-area papers are flummoxed because they really want to give readers more content. They see the benefits of pushing extra value-added material to the web and having readers respond. For years editors and writers paid lip service to allowing readers direct access to them. Now that readers can post on a writer’s blog? There’s no boundary. Attack the subject, attack the writer, attack the poster, attack dogs, bowlers and even themselves. How often do we see a post that begins, “I know I’m going to get blasted for saying this, but . . . .” Talk about defensive offense. Sheesh. Worse is when it’s speculative and personal, and somehow becomes fact, as we saw with some of the Josh Hamilton falling-off-the-wagon postings last year. This is why the newspaper blogs want to stop the mindless babysitting they’re forced to do throughout each day by moderating blog posts. The Enquirer’s decision–which is the right one for now–to filter all sports blogs ruins the spontaneity and interactivity, especially during live events. Enquirer Reds writer John Fay, who by all accounts is a super nice guy, has changed the posting rules on his blog about half a dozen times already this season. Nothing has worked other than hand-picking the comments that are cleared. That’s ridiculous. Meanwhile, as Reds fans have more news, insight, information and interactivity than ever before, they abuse and neglect the platform and the people who bring it to them. Picky stuff. Angry stuff. Stupid stuff. It wasn’t so long ago when sports editors put their sections on a gigantic pedestal and carried the attitude, “Fans only know what we tell them.” Given that the newspapers were the only daily source, the editors were probably right. Today newspapers are almost the last resource for information–tomorrow morning’s editions tout day-old news. Fans are more informed than ever. An argument can be made fans are more informed than the mainstream media. By the time the morning paper hits the doorstep fans have seen the game or highlights on TV or online, read the box score, caught up on the latest team buzz via blogs, and it’s not even midnight! There’s not many sports editors nationally who fully understand they need to produce two different sections a day–web and print. For Reds fans, a lot of really good fan As for the acid behavior of so many Reds fans? At the beginning of the day when you are enjoying a fresh, hot doughnut or at the end of the day, when you are kissing your loved ones goodnight, how is it possible the outcome of a game or the performance of one player can cause so many people such anxiety? You realize this intensity has nothing to do with years of losing or typos and mistakes; it has to do with the bitter blogger who, somehow, has no other life to live.
So Hal sees the Internet as a way to give fans more, more and more than he’s ever been able to give them in print while also delivering his insight and experience over a 24-hour news cycle. He’s writing web-exclusive content, longer pieces for online, and best of all he’s been developing his blog “voice” since spring training. He’s posting throughout the day and night, offering more analysis and overview, and yet he’s still being vintage McCoy with his snappy remarks and fluffy one-liners. He’s also building a web following and having a lot of fun. No talks of retirement for now. Except. . . .
blogs offer intelligent and worthwhile perspectives that newspapers simply don’t have the time or manpower to conduct. Like McCoy, I find some of these statistical acronyms and mumble-jumble equations dizzying–it’s still a game of see the ball, hit the ball–but that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate the fan blogs’ effort and perceptions.
The Dusty Watch Is Underway
Only eight games into the season and the closet Cubs fans masquerading as Reds fans are already blaming losses on Dusty Baker. According to some comments across the Reds blogosphere, defeats to the Phillies and Brewers were the direct results of “highly questionable” moves by Baker, who, player performance aside, can be pinned for all 85 losses this season. Most baseball experts say a manager’s decision determines the outcome of a game about 5-6 times a year. Of course, Earl Weaver said the manager never screws up. But unlike fantasy baseball managers, the real manager’s job is far more detailed than lineups and game strategy. The best managers are those who can manage and hold the respect of the clubhouse. That respect often turns into heightened player performance. In that regard, Baker’s only peers are Joe Torre and Jim Leyland, and all have two decades of players who swear by them. We’ve already seen dramatic change in the way Reds players respond to Baker compared to, say, Jerry Narron and Dave Miley. It’s the little things such as professionally handling a baserunning mistake by Javier Valentin or giving a huge confidence boost to Mike Lincoln to bail the Reds out of a sticky jam against the Diamondbacks. Lincoln had not pitched in the big leagues in four years because of arm surgeries but was thrown right into the fire. There’s also Baker’s knack for putting players in positions to succeed, even if it goes against the conventional wisdom (coff-coff) of the fantasy league geniuses. So with that backstory and the neverending excuse-making by Cubs fans comes “The Dusty Watch” a mere week into his new job. Surprised? Nah. Baseball managers are not infallible. Problem is, did Baker leave 11 runners stranded, bobble a ball in short left field that led to a run, make the back of the Phillies’ rotation look like Spahn and Sain? Do the Dusty watchers understand what constitutes a manager’s decision that actually loses a game? To wit: 1.) You have a young pitcher (Cueto) who is under his pitch count and throwing a great game, this is the opener of a grueling roadtrip and you need to spare your bullpen when possible. Even though it’s a tie game going into the seventh, you positively send the right message throughout the clubhouse by giving the kid a chance to win the game instead of pinch-hitting for him. Players respect being respected in these situations. Yeah, Cueto gave up a go-ahead homer in the seventh, but there’s no crystal ball, no foretelling in baseball. Cueto was blowing away the Brewers and the decision to leave him in the game is NOT highly questionable and did not cost the game because. . . . 2.) . . . In each game a manager makes decisions that may impact the game, but the overwhelming majority of these decisions do not. It’s the player who determines the outcome, and that most always spins on making a pitch or getting a hit, which we all know is an opportunity of chance: pitcher wins about 74.5 percent of the time; the batter succeeds about 25.5 percent. Bad pitch gets hit; good pitch gets the out. Happens hundreds of times a day and the manager has nothing to do with the actual performance. Unless you’re Dusty Baker, apparently. 3. No hypotheticals, no Ifs, Ands, and Buts. If he had not put Scott Hatteberg here, if he had pinch-hit there, if he had not used David Weathers a second inning, blah-blah-blah. You can’t assume a player would have knocked a hit any more than you can assume Weathers would have failed in his second inning. Even though the manager puts players into a position to perform, his decision does not guarantee positive results. Ifs, Ands, and Buts don’t win or lose games. Neither does hindsight. 4.) Lineup construction is rarely to blame for a loss. Since 2001, MLB teams use the same batting order around 15 games a season. The issues of platooning, matchups and even injuries are such these days that a team can hope to field the same eight regulars about 33 percent of games. Was Juan Castro ideal batting in the 2-hole against the Phillies? No. But neither was a bottom of the order of Paul Bako-Castro-pitcher, which is essentially tossing away three offensive innings of the game. By batting Castro second, he was likely to see more fastballs to hit, and the more productive Jeff Keppinger was moved into the 5-hole, where, if you haven’t noticed, Adam Dunn is stinking up the place. This was one of those oddball moves that was quilted with more foundation than visible on the surface. So while some of you closet Cubs fans want to blame Baker for every loss and micromanage every little chew of the toothpick like the psychotic Red Sox fans, a manager’s real screw-ups are never transparent. Yes, Baker will do some head-scratchin’ stuff. But so do all managers, especially Bobby Cox, who’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer. To this point of the season, like the overwhelming majority of games, all Reds losses have been a failure of performance, not managerial dumbassedity. The Dusty Watch is way too premature. Relax.
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