Reds Trade Talk Heats Up

So does everything else, unfortunately

Who’s gonna stop the fire?

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Another day of Edible Air in the Queen City. Fix your fires, Canada, eh?

Beyond that, we’re getting a full dose of our weather future. It ain’t so hot, pun very much intended. Earth is cooking itself. The country is full of deniers, folks who laugh/scoff at the pointy heads in lab coats, but the scientists have been right all along.

You can feel the proof. It could be my imagination, or it could be the power of suggestion. But in the past several years, I’ve felt the power of the sun around here, more than ever. Am I wrong? I’ve piled on the SPF-50 and still I burn. Today here, 90 degrees. Tomorrow, 95. Ocean temps in Miami, 100. Coral dying en masse.

This time last summer, we took Jillian The Magnificent and her husband, the Estimable Ryan Mavriplis, to our condo in Bradenton. For the first time ever, the heat was unbearable for me. It was 96. The humidity pushed it well above 100. The Gulf of Mexico water offered zero relief. It was warmer than the air.

I’ve visited Florida most of my life. My grandparents had a retirement place there, my parents moved there when Jim Daugherty retired from the federal government in the early 80s. The heat was part of the bargain. But never like this.

We’re going to Ponte Vedra for a week Saturday. Highs in the low-90s. It’s bearable if you’re on the beach. Barely. No breeze will hide the fact that we’re cooking ourselves.

Now, then. . .

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2023 NL Manager of the Year

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LET’S PLAY A NEW GAME, KIDS. . . It’s called Easy and Hard. We sift through the monumental issues of the day and determine which are painful and which are back rubs. Ready?

EXTEND DAVID BELL.

Easy. I thought the Club would win 70-72 games this year. At its current pace, it will surpass that by the end of August. The Reds are on pace for 87 wins, 25 more than last year.

Those are just the numbers. They don’t necessarily reflect what I’ve written all year: Bell’s personality works for this team. Young players in 2023 don’t need a fire-breathing tyrant, or an aloof stoic penciling in lineups from the castle of his corner office. They need someone who believes in them. Someone who played the game for a long time, certainly long enough to understand their doubts and fears. Bell has them believing in themselves and playing without fear. That’s called Tone, boys and girls. It can be very hard to set and very important to get right. In ‘23, David has mastered Tone.

He has been very good at juggling a bullpen to overcome a highly mediocre starting staff. The heavy ‘pen-manship might cost the Reds at some point down the road — methinks sooner than later — but we don’t know that. All we know is that Bell and Derek Johnson and the other pitching smartguys have gotten great work from the likes of Ian Gibaut, Buck Farmer, Alex Young, Alexis Diaz and so on.

HOW MUCH TO PITCH ANDREW ABBOTT.

Hard. The 24-year-old rookie lefthander has been superb. In this beyond-all-expectations summer, the temptation is to surf that wave all the way to the beach. But at what cost?

Between the minors and the Reds, Abbott has thrown 115 innings in 2023, 62 with the big club. Last year, 118 between A and AA. Two years ago, 132 innings, the vast majority coming as a college pitcher at Virginia.

When is too much too much?

We bring in the Verducci Effect, authored a decade ago by ball-writer deluxe Tom Verducci. Essentially, it’s this:

A young pitcher (25 or younger) who saw a significant increase in his workload in the previous season over the season before that (defined as an increase of at least 30 innings, including postseason and minor-league work). Verducci claims that this sort of pitcher is in danger of either a significant injury and/or a performance decline. (Baseball Prospectus)

You have to account for the fact that major-league innings are more taxing than minor-league work, or mowing down football players playing baseball at Clemson. Abbott is currently 17 innings short of his career high. That’s three decent starts, give or take.

Might the Reds push him? Does he get 30 more innings this year than in 2021? That’d be 162 innings, maybe more if the Reds qualified for October.

We talk about the threat posed by trading top prospects for pitching help. What about the injury concern caused by pitching too much?

Tough call.

The pitching answer?

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WILL THE REDS GET SUFFICIENT PITCHING HELP IN THE NEXT 4 DAYS?

Hard. I dunno for certain, but I suspect J. India really was on the market last week, and might still be. Regardless, that’s a small indicator of the cost of pitching this time of year. India’s numbers have fallen off lately; his intangibles have not.

The LA Angels just got arguably the best SP available, Lucas Giolito, for a couple Class AA prospects. There are decent options, still. Jordan Montgomery is there, if the Reds want to pay a pile of gold and the Cards wanna trade a good pitcher to a division rival. Ditto for Jack Flaherty.

Lance Lynn is a large (literally) Eh. Ditto Rich Hill.

I’d love to see America’s Team make a run at Tigers lefty Eduardo Rodriguez, who is 1A to Giolito’s 1. There are issues, as outlined by mlb.com:

Rodriguez’s contract situation -- he can opt out of the final three years on his five-year, $77 million deal this offseason -- complicates his trade value. But for teams looking for rotation help in 2023, there aren’t many better options available. While the southpaw has been uneven in his return after missing more than a month with a left index finger injury, he still owns career bests in ERA (2.95), FIP (3.18), WHIP (1.03) and K/BB ratio (4.33).

How hard is to acquire substantial pitching?

Yesterday, the Guardians traded their starting SS to the Dodgers for Noah Syndergaard, whose so-so career has been diminished by injuries and who is 1-4/7.14 in 12 starts this year.

Any interest in bringing back Michael Lorenzen?

THE ITALY/IRELAND TOURS. . . Interest is blowing up in going abroad with me and my travel expert pal and tour arranger Larry Fannon, in 2024. Larry asks that I tell anyone interested in making one of these forever trips attend an informational meeting at the Oasis Golf and Conference Center in Loveland. Larry will make a presentation in the Palmer Room at 7:30 pm.

Larry also asks you RSVP if you intend to attend. Email. . . cruisetheinternet@gmail.com or call 513-368-1900.

THE ETERNAL JACK HAD A POINT. More than 20 years ago, Jack Nicklaus suggested the Masters solve its Tiger Problem by creating a Masters golf ball designed not to fly as far. This was after Woods’ hello-world destruction of Augusta National in 1997. Jack said, don’t make the course longer, make the ball less potent.

It’s still a topic. Worldwide. Yahoo!:

The (PGA) Tour would not be supporting the so-called "Modified Local Rule" distance-rollback proposal advanced by the USGA, which administers the U.S. Open, and the R&A, which oversees the Open Championship. The Modified Local Rule attempts to address the debate over pros' spectacular drive distances off the tee, distances that are now threatening the viability of courses all over the world. The drive-and-wedge game that pros now practice renders many of the game's classic courses obsolete, or at least neutralizes many of their architectural strategies.

Sorta like baseballs in a humidor.

Question: Can’t courses come up with alternative ways to defend themselves? Grow more grass, for example. Tighten the fairways, toughen the rough. A 300-yard drive in the fairway is better than a 350-yard clout into the heavy cud.

Chicks dig the long ball, yeah?

But if the choice is strictly between redesigning a course or deadening the golf ball, I deaden the golf ball.

AND FINALLY. . . Can you think of any reason for a major-league manager to wear a watch during a game? Lou Piniella wore one. So, now, does David Bell.

Isn’t baseball supposed to be. . . timeless?

It isn’t like Bell has anywhere else to be. He’s not picking his kid up from soccer practice. If he needs to grab some bread and Fruit Loops, well, most Krogers are open after the games.

Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Haven’t spent any time in Motown lately. I love Motown. It had as much impact on popular music as anything, Beatles included. Hit after hit, for more than a decade. No time spent in our damp little semi-finished basement in Bethesda did not include spinning some soulful 45s.

This is among my favorites, a little-played Temptations gem.