by 
Welcome to Red Monday, where Reds fans can start their week with clear-eyed analysis of how the team is doing and where it’s headed.
The Week That Was
The Reds went 4-2 this week, sweeping the Kansas City Royals, then going 1-2 against Atlanta. David Bell’s club is 41-37 and leads the NL Central, a half-game ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers.
- Monday The Joey Votto Game. The future Hall of Famer returned to the Reds lineup for the first time since shoulder surgery last August. He homered and lined a two-run single to center in the Reds 5-4 win. Alexis Diaz gave up two hits but earned his 19th save.
- Tuesday The Reds build 5-1 and 8-2 leads and hold on for an 8-6 win. TJ Friedl (4), Elly De La Cruz (2) and Will Benson (2) homered. Casey Legumina gave up three runs in an inning of relief work. Friedl had three other hits.
- Wednesday The Reds fell behind 3-0 but came back to win 5-3. Andrew Abbott gave up three solo homers but otherwise had a terrific start with 10 strikeouts and no walks (see more below). Jake Fraley (9) hit a two-run homer in the 8th to break the tie. Lucas Sims, Ian Gibaut and Buck Farmer combined for three shutout innings.
The Reds hosted first-place Atlanta for a dramatic weekend series at packed Great American Ball Park.
- Friday The Elly De La Cruz Cycle Game. Also one of the most exciting games played at Great American Ball Park. The Reds win an 11-10 slugfest that included two Joey Votto homers and a comeback from a 5-0 deficit. Shaky start from Luke Weaver. Lucas Sims and Daniel Duarte gave up multiple runs. De La Cruz hit for the cycle. Jake Fraley chipped in his 10th homer. 21st save for Alexis Diaz. Winning streak at 12.
- Saturday Another Reds rally falls short as they lose 7-6, snapping their historic winning streak. Graham Ashcraft returned after a short IL stint and gave up six runs in four innings on ten hits. The Reds fought back with homers from Matt McLain (4), Spencer Steer (11), Jake Fraley (11) and Will Benson (3).
- Sunday Reds pitchers walked nine Atlanta batters while striking out only five in a close 7-6 loss. Matt McLain had a day, though, with three doubles (11) and a home run (5). The Reds were forced to use Levi Stoudt and Randy Wynne for the first 5.1 innings. Then Ian Gibaut gave up a couple runs in his relief inning.
The Week to Come
The Reds play six games this week:
- Three on the road with the Baltimore Orioles (7:05, 7:05, 7:05)
- An off day on Thursday
- Three back at home against the San Diego Padres (5:10, 1:40, 1:40)
Rookies Lead Offense Revival
Photo: Reds Facebook
Through the first couple months of the 2023 season, the Reds had one of the worst offenses in MLB. In March/April, the lineup generated a run production (wRC+) of 86 with 100 being league average. That ranked fifth from the bottom. In the past 30 days, the Reds have flipped the rankings, checking in at a wRC+ of 117, good for fifth best in MLB. The sharp turnaround has been a great accomplishment and a vital element of winning 20 of their last 27 games.
Many players have contributed to the club’s revival at the plate. Three of the most important have been rookies Spencer Steer, Matt McLain and Elly De La Cruz. Steer has been with the team since Opening Day and played in 75 of 78 games. McLain debuted on May 15. De La Cruz joined the Reds on June 6 (E-Day). Here are the numbers they’ve posted in 2023. Data through Sunday.
All three have provided hit tool, power and speed to the lineup. Each has a batting average (BA) well above the league average. Steer and De La Cruz have above average walk rates. Steer and McLain are stealing bases at about the same rate. De La Cruz is stealing four times that number. wRC+ is overall run production where 100 is league average.
Here are stats for the three players related to power and contact quality.
For an apples-to-apples comparison, you can double McLain’s counting stats to see how they stack up against Steer. To put De La Cruz in the mix, multiply his counting stats by four. With those adjustments the three players are quite similar. De La Cruz would have 12 homers, Steer 11 and McLain 10. McLain would lead in doubles with 22, De La Cruz would have 20 and Steer has 19. Each has an average exit velocity around league average. fWAR is a counting stat. McLain and De La Cruz get extra credit for plus defense.
“Planned, Recurrent Sequence”
Photo: Reds Twitter
If you look up “rotation” in the dictionary it has several definitions. The one that best fits its usage in baseball is “a planned, recurrent sequence” representing one time through the use of the team’s starting pitchers. A five-pitcher rotation has become standard practice in the Major Leagues though a few teams have blurred the line between starter and reliever. The Reds have used an “opener” twice this season.
In building a starting rotation, teams hope for talent, durability and stability. The local benchmark remains the 2012 crew of Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos, Homer Bailey, Bronson Arroyo and Mike Leake. Those five started every game but one (a doubleheader) for the 2012 Reds, on way to 97 wins and a runaway first-place finish in the NL Central.
The 2023 Reds haven’t been as fortunate with the health and effectiveness of their starting pitchers. Saturday’s game against Atlanta marked the completion of the 15th turn through the rotation. No Reds pitcher has thrown every time through. Hunter Greene has taken 14 turns, Graham Ashcraft 13 turns and Luke Weaver has 12. Those are the most. If you assign starts to the follow-on pitchers in the pair of opener games, the Reds have already used ten different starting pitchers in 2023.
Here’s a chronicle of each trip through the rotation, starting with the Opening Day five:
- Rotation 1: Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Graham Ashcraft, Connor Overton, Luis Cessa
- Rotation 2 and 3: The Reds repeat their Opening Day rotation twice more, flipping Overton and Ashcraft. Overton’s third start is his last.
- Rotation 4: The Reds add Levi Stoudt and Luke Weaver for a six-man rotation.
- Rotation 5 and 6: The Reds drop Stoudt and go with Greene, Lodolo, Weaver, Ashcraft, Cessa. Weaver has taken Overton’s spot. Cessa makes his last start.
- Rotation 7: The Reds drop Cessa and take a turn with a four-man rotation. Ashcraft is third. Nick Lodolo makes his last start.
- Rotation 8: The Reds replace Lodolo with a Derek Law-Ben Lively combo. Two days later Law opens for Stoudt.
- Rotation 9, 10, 11: Brandon Williamson debuts. Reds settle into Greene, Williamson, Ashcraft, Lively and Weaver for three turns.
- Rotation 12 and 13: The Reds add Andrew Abbott for a six-man rotation, Hunter Greene pushed back; a rotation they use twice.
- Rotation 14: Ashcraft hits the IL. The rotation is Williamson, Lively, Abbott, Greene, Weaver.
- Rotation 15: Greene is out. Ashcraft returns.
Four of the pitchers from the Opening Day rotation are out. Connor Overton had season-ending surgery. The Reds cut Luis Cessa on May 14. Nick Lodolo made seven starts and hit the IL with calf tendinosis and a stress reaction in his tibia (shinbone). The Reds haven’t been clear about the injury sidelining Hunter Greene, describing it only as “right hip pain.” Recent reporting from Mark Sheldon indicates Greene and Lodolo could be out until August at least.
The sixteenth rotation turn the Reds appear to be rolling out this week is:
- Levi Stoudt (4.52 xERA)
- Brandon Williamson (6.72 xERA)
- Andrew Abbott (3.39 xERA)
- Luke Weaver (5.37 xERA)
- Graham Ashcraft (5.85 xERA)
Don’t look to the horizon or listen for the sound of galloping horses. There’s no cavalry arriving from the team’s affiliates. The Reds have already stripped Stoudt, Abbott and Williamson from the Triple-A rotation. 28-year-old Brett Kennedy is the journeyman break-glass next option from Louisville. Connor Phillips (from the Suarez-Winker trade) has had success pitching for Double-A Chattanooga. But Phillips was pulled last night after throwing 33 pitches and facing six batters in the first inning. Chattanooga plays in the Southern League, still using an experimental grippier baseball.
The 2023 Reds rotation has been anything other than a planned, recurrent sequence. To be sure, the club has been afflicted with injuries and underperformance. But the front office entered the season eyes-wide-open with precious little depth. Process the notion that their plan relied on Connor Overton and Luis Cessa as the team’s fourth and fifth starters. Luke Weaver ($2 million) was the only offseason signing and he had only started one game in 2022. He’s already at 60 innings pitched. Weaver hasn’t thrown more than 65.2 innings since 2018. We’re watching the get-what-you-paid-for backup plan.
You might let ownership and the front office evade accountability because the team wasn’t expected to compete this year. The overriding concern was coddling the team’s investors.
But, here we are, watching the exciting, way-ahead-of-schedule Reds. To the boardroom’s great surprise, the team is in first place. But not only in the win-loss standings, also the headlines. A bright, revealing spotlight has been thrown on Nick Krall and the Castellini family to see if they can come up with moves to fix the club’s pitching staff. The glorious 12-game-winning streak means no more ducking responsibility.
TJ Friedl Is Walking More
Photo: Reds Twitter
On the heels of a solid 2022 season, TJ Friedl got off to a terrific start at the plate in 2023, batting .311 with an isolated power (ISO) of .158. That’s good for a wRC+ of 125.
I’ve mentioned a few times in this column, Friedl’s numbers have been goosed by good luck. His batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is 130 points above last year, even though his average exit velocity (85.9 mph) is below his 2022 number (87.1 mph). Friedl’s contact quality xwOBA is in the bottom 12% of MLB and that EV is bottom three percent. Friedl also has a high fly ball and pop-up rates. All that said, Friedl continues to perform at an above-average level at the plate.
Manager David Bell moved Friedl to the leadoff spot on May 23.
The Major League walk rate the past couple seasons has been around 8.5%. Last year, Friedl was below that mark (7.8%) in 258 plate appearances overall. In 2023, he walked only seven times in his first 138 PA for a 5% rate. But in Friedl’s 77 plate appearances since he began to lead off, he’s walked a whopping 17% of the time, including twice yesterday.
Considering the new thump in the Reds lineup in Matt McLain, Spencer Steer, Elly De La Cruz and Joey Votto, Friedl should be emphasizing his on-base talents. Walks are a great way to do that.
Andrew Abbott’s Best Start
Photo: Reds Facebook
Last week, I wrote about Andrew Abbott. The young left-hander had allowed no earned runs in his first three major league starts. Of course, no one believed Abbott could maintain an immaculate ERA, but we noted several significant warning signs regarding his pitching: a low strikeout rate, high walk rate, high fly-ball rate and giving up hard contact.
Abbott started against the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday. He allowed three solo home runs. That performance led a few people to conclude it was Abbott’s “worst start.”
If the only criteria you use to evaluate pitchers is the number of earned runs he allows, then Abbott’s fourth start was his worst. But most of you know there are better ways to measure a pitcher’s actual performance. Means that are independent of his teammates, their defensive alignment, official scoring and plain luck. Let’s see how Abbott measured up last Wednesday based on those metrics.
Strikeouts Abbott’s strikeout rate had been 17%, good for the bottom 13th percentile among MLB pitchers. On Wednesday, he faced 21 Rockies batters and struck out 10. That’s an outstanding K% of nearly 48%.
Walks Abbott’s walk rate had been 13%, or the bottom 11 percentile. On Wednesday, he didn’t walk any batters. A K%-BB% of 48% over a season would be the best in MLB.
Swinging Strikes Abbott’s swinging-strike rate had been 6.5%, the lowest rate among qualified pitchers. On Wednesday it was nearly three times that at 18.2%. Only Spencer Strider from Atlanta has a higher rate.
Ground Ball Rate Abbott had one of the lowest ground ball rates at around 31%. He didn’t do anything against the Rockies to dispel his extreme fly ball rate, giving up ten fly balls out of 12 balls put in play.
HR/FB Despite giving up a bunch of long fly balls, good luck had meant that Abbott hadn’t yet surrendered a homer. The three he gave up last week brought his HR/FB rate up to about 9%. That’s still a little shy of the league average of 12%. But at least it’s close to normal.
Exit Velocity The most encouraging area of improvement for Abbott was the average exit velocity of the hit balls he allowed. Over his first three starts, his EV had been 92.3 mph, in the bottom 3% of the league. Even allowing the three home runs, Abbott averaged 88.3 mph against the Rockies. That’s lower than league average. On the other hand, his percentage of hard-hit balls remained around 46%.
Luck on Balls in Play Prior to Wednesday, his BABIP was .200. Against the Rockies it was just .125. But home runs don’t count as balls in play and he certainly wasn’t fortunate on those.
Bottom Line We’re still dealing in small sample sizes. Just four starts. But Abbott needs more starts like his fourth. Ten strikeouts, no walks and a below-average exit velocity is a better recipe for success than hoping all the fly balls he surrenders stay in the park when we know they won’t. I don’t think you’d be off-base to say Andrew Abbott’s start against the Rockies was his best of the year.
In Case You Missed It
A triple for Edwin Arroyo, who is playing SS for the Dayton Dragons.
[Featured image: Reds Facebook]
Great recap. I noticed a little dig to those who don’t believe as you do though, regarding the evaluation of a player.
“If the only criteria you use to evaluate pitchers is the number of earned runs he allows, then Abbott’s fourth start was his worst. But most of you know there are better ways to measure a pitcher’s actual performance.”
With all do respect, that is just a wrong way of thinking. Bottom line for a starter is earned runs allowed, followed closely by how many innings he gives you. I know you love the non traditional stats, but they are nothing more than helpful follow up’s to the stats that matter the most, such as ERA for starters.
Thanks for reading, Chris. The stats I love the most to evaluate pitchers are strikeouts (for dominance) and walks (for command), hardly non-traditional. That “dig” on ERA wasn’t meant to be subtle. I’ve written for years about how ERA is a lousy way to evaluate how a pitcher actually performed, especially now when better stats are so easy to access. The link between ERA and a pitcher’s performance is fatally contaminated by the role of teammates, park dimensions, defensive alignment, the official scorer and just plain luck at where the ball lands. It’s easy now to find stats that weed out those factors. The “E” in ERA stands for earned. The pitcher doesn’t earn the runs caused by shabby defense, poor defensive alignment, fluky park dimensions, arbitrary scoring decisions, weak relief pitching and bad luck on balls in play.
Steve, I always enjoy your articles, and have enjoyed it much since you ran the RLN page. That said, we will always disagree on this. Those other stats you speak of are great, and like I mentioned in my previous comment, they are great supporting “follow up’s” to key stats like ERA. At the end of the day I want to know if a pitcher gives up runs. I do care how, but that’s secondary. ERA is a macro look at a pitcher’s effectiveness. Off the top of my head, I thought of Scherzer. He’s pitched for about 4 or 5 teams now, correct? Fact of the matter he’s played for multiple teams in multiple parks, and his ERA is consistently LOW. That’s lots of personnel behind him and lots of stadium factors as well, but the fact is, he keeps a low ERA. Unless you pitch in CO or have the worst defense behind you, and the next year have the best defense behind you, I don’t think those additional stats tell you all that much more.
Let’s get back to Abbott though. He had lesser peripheral stats in his 1st 3 starts compared to his 4th start, yet in those 1st 3 starts he could NOT have suffered a loss, yet in his 4th start, which you say was better, he could have actually suffered a loss. I’m not sure how you call giving up 3 HR’s (or runs) better than giving up ZERO? Also, your argument in respect to Abbott is completely void because the defense really had ZERO factors in the outcome of him giving up runs. Anyway, great discussion, and always enjoy your articles.
@Chris Yes, Abbott pitched better in his loss than in his wins. If you look at a picture of any baseball stadium you can see that there is a lot of luck in homeruns. A fly ball that goes 370 feet may be an out or a homerun depending on the stadium and where the ball is hit. Abbott pitched better in his loss because he had 10 strikeouts and 0 walks. Abbott had been getting lucky with his fly balls in his first three games and that luck finally ran out in his loss. I guess you could call it regressing to his mean. One thing that is scary about Abbott is his 26.7 GB%. That’s not going to play well at Great American.
It may come across as being strange to you but xFIP is a better predictor of what a pitcher’s future ERA will be than his current ERA. And yes, defense didn’t factor too much in this particular game but across a whole season defense is going to play a factor in ERA which is why a lot of people don’t rely on that stat anymore. As a test, you can see if Abbott ERA at the end of the season is closer to his current ERA of 1.14 or his xFIP 4.83. I’m guessing it’s going to be closer to the latter.
The three home runs Abbott gave up are instructive. They were 349, 373 and 400 feet. He had given up two balls over 400 feet in his start against Houston and one 399 feet in Colorado. He gave up eight fly balls longer than 349 feet. So park dimensions and luck matter. Research shows that pitchers have little control over the distance fly balls go. They do influence the number of fly balls vs. ground balls. Was Abbott “worse” when he gave up a 349-foot homer compared to a 409-foot out?
I’d rather Abbott give up 349-foot fly balls compared to 409-foot fly balls. I’d rather him strike out ten instead of two and walk zero instead of four.
Steve, your argument is essentially tantamount to suggesting that the team had better statistics than the other team, but still lost. You can use all the statistics you want to, but what matters is whether you score runs or give up runs (depending on a hitter or pitcher). Again, you can’t discount Scherzer’s numbers over the years. You also can’t discount Abbott’s numbers in the last game. Using your argument, I’d suggest a pitcher learn to pitch a bit based on the ballpark he’s pitching in. You don’t actually think a pitcher can afford to pitch to a hitter the same in Fenway as he does in Oakland, do you? I look at pitchers as humans who can think, not as robots that cannot think. Your overall way of viewing stats is to micro analyze them, while I want the end results, a macro approach. Traditional statistics are macro oriented, and overall they work, especially if you do indeed follow up with your approach to micro statistics.
Hi, Chris. Can you give me (us) an example of a pitcher who fits your definition of ‘great’ who had great traditional stats (ERA, wins) but who had mediocre or lousy advanced stats (SIERA, xERA, etc.)? If there is such a player, that would make your point, but if there is not, Steve’s point is made.
Thanks again for reading. I think we’re repeating the same ground, so this will be my last reply. From my view, the flaws in your reasoning are:
1. Assuming that Max Scherzer and pitchers like him don’t grade as well or better with metrics like strikeouts, xERA or SIERA is wrong. Scherzer, Kershaw etc. all measure as Hall of Famers by modern stats, plus ancient stats like strikeouts.
2. The more “macro” you get, the further away from the responsibility for *individual* players and performances. One of the goals of sabermetrics has been to help isolate the performance of individual players to better evaluate them. Thus the de-emphasis of stats like pitcher wins, RBI and ERA, which depend huge amounts on other players.
3. You narrowed your argument to just home runs when I pointed out the role of teammates in defense, in positioning, in official scoring and just luck in where the ball lands — things the pitcher has no control over.
4. Evaluating pitchers based on the number of runs that score while they are on the mound is an incredibly imprecise and misleading way to evaluate. We have so much better ways, often with metrics like strikeouts and walks that are even older “more traditional” than ERA. Do you grade shortstops based on the number of runs that score while they’re in the field?
5. Pitchers have substantially (nearly entirely) more control over strikeouts and walks than they do hits and home runs.
I enjoy these Monday columns. Great takes.