Cincinnati Reds 2016-2017 Top 5 Offseason Priorities
The Cincinnati Reds finished the 2016 season with a record of 68-94, earning them the #2 selection in the 2017 draft. What should be the team’s priorities for the 2016-2017 offseason?
Pitching
The Cincinnati Reds pitching was simply bad. No two ways about it. For the first time in their recorded history, Fangraphs had the entire Reds pitching staff with a negative overall WAR. That is incredibly bad. As mentioned in the season review, there were some bright spots, and overall, the Reds staff is quite young, so there’s room to dream on this pitching staff, but there’s definitely some work that could be done.
Right now, the starting rotation lines up to include Dan Straily, Brandon Finnegan, Anthony DeSclafani, Homer Bailey, and then a competition among a number of young pitchers like John Lamb, Cody Reed, Robert Stephenson, and Amir Garrett. One of the big concerns with the rotation is going to be innings as DeSclafani missed a big chunk of 2016, Bailey only made six starts while returning from surgery, and only three pitchers total (Straily, Finnegan, DeSclafani) had 100+ innings thrown on the season. One of the focuses in the offseason could certainly be a guy who eats up innings, perhaps someone like an Ervin Santana of the Minnesota Twins by using one or more of their arms close to the majors as bait. That would seem to fit needs for both teams, frankly.
In the bullpen, it’s a mess. Left-hander Tony Cingrani has his crazy fastball that is difficult to pick up out of the hand, and it’s not worked to be a one-pitch starter. Instead, Cincinnati made him their closer this season, and while he saved 17 games, he had a 1.44 WHIP and a 4.53 FIP in the role, so the team very well may look elsewhere to close out games. Luckily, they do have two excellent options that could work with Cingrani to be a right-left-right combination in the final few innings.
Raisel Iglesias transitioned to the bullpen this season, and it was an incredibly successful transition. His stuff plays up in the bullpen well, and his straight fastball is more difficult for pitchers to time when they don’t get multiple at bats to do so against him. Michael Lorenzen also found the bullpen to be a great spot for his stuff as his heavy sinker and slider combination led to a low strikeout approach in the rotation, but in the bullpen, he was able to get weak swings and attack more with the slider rather than trying to conserve pitches by creating contact, which allowed him to get plenty of swing and miss.
Outside of Iglesias and Lorenzen, there’s a lot of pieces that are “meh” in the bullpen. Jumbo Diaz put up solid numbers, but his ERA was 3.14 with a FIP of 5.24, so there was plenty of “luck” involved in his numbers, and he’s 32 years old, so there’s not a lot of growth to come. Keyvius Sampson could be another excellent transition candidate, but he’s had a very fragile arm in his minor league career thus far, so it may take some time, meaning he may not be ready for a “big” role in 2017, but he could certainly contribute. There are also a number of other arms in the system who are close and could contribute from the excellent AA and AAA teams that the Reds had this year. It could also be an excellent way to help with the expected shortage of innings pitched in the rotation to keep one or two of their young starters in the bullpen as well as a long man.
In the free agent market, there are quite a few right-handed relievers, but the Reds really would need help from the left side. That market is pretty weak this year, with Aroldis Chapman being the highlight player, and there’s likely no re-connection coming there. Outside of that, there’s Brett Cecil, Mike Dunn, Boone Logan, Marc Rzepczynski, and Travis Wood for guys under 35 that are available on the market, and that’s it. The team could hope for a bargain signing in that group, or they could stick with their lefty starters in the bullpen instead.
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