34. Billy Rhines

Billy Rhines, a household name in all but the most rustic of homes, has the 9th best peak in Reds history, but just the 86th best prime score. How is this possible? In 1890, as a 21 year-old rookie playing in the inaugural NL season in Cincinnati put together a season which has not been topped since: Rhines had a 28-17 record with a 1.95 ERA (leading the league), which was good for a 184 ERA+ (also led the league) over 401.1 innings (6th best in the NL). He started 45 games, and finished them all. As great as that season was, it did not portend a great future: over the remainder of his career, most of which was with the Reds, he was strictly an average pitcher, with a .500 W-L record and a 105 ERA+. He did, however, manage a blast-from-the-past type season in 1896, recording a 2.45 ERA (188 ERA+), albeit in just 143 innings.

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Welcome to Red Reporter's second hurrah into some old-timey nerdery in the form of a book club.  This time we'll be reading Joe Posnanski's The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds.  As most of you know, Posnanski is a former Cincinnati Post reporter, current Sports Illustrated writer, and a Clevelander at heart.  I think he does a great job discussing the personalities and stories of the 1975 Reds, and if you have the means I highly recommend acquiring The Machine and giving it a read.  I'll try to post something every week or two covering a chapter of the book so that we finish the book before Opening Day. 

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38. Miller Huggins

Bill James once fashioned a way of calculating a player’s most similar players, statistically, and he posited that if a player’s most similar player had a relatively low similarity score, it was evidence of that player’s excellence. In Miller Huggins’s case, he shared a rather low score with his most similar player (Don Blasingame), but in his case, it was due to the unique nature of the 5’6" player’s game. Consider: over Huggins’s 13-year career, his on-base percentage was 68 points higher than his slugging percentage. He routinely topped 600 plate appearances in a season, but never even reached 20 doubles in any one year, despite his good speed (324 career steals). He scored nearly three times as many runs as he drove in. Roughly half of his playing career was with the Reds, accumulating a batting line of 260/362/310 (104 OPS+), before being traded to the Cardinals for a pair of players who never did much to help the good guys.

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42. Curt Walker

In Walker’s seven years as a Red, he was a consistent source of triples, hitting a total of 94, and at least ten each year. Five of those years, he finished in the NL top 10. Additionally, Walker was above average in terms of taking a walk, and his career hitting rates as a Red were 303/378/441 (113 OPS+). Ultimately, however, the Reds might have been better off keeping the player they traded for Walker (George Harper), who from 1924 through the end of his career in 1929 hit for an OPS+ of 127, albeit in about 1100 fewer plate appearances, plus being a better defender in right field.

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More photos » by David J. Phillip - AP

Ramon Hernandez will be back next year, but could that affect the contract status of guys like Jonny Gomes and Jared Burton?

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• Hall o' Famer Hal weighs in with his opinion on the Hernandez signing
  and he does little to convince me. "Hernandez hit only .258 last year with five homers and 37 RBIs, but...(he) is the kind of guy I want around when I want to have fun and a guy I want to have around when I need somebody to watch my back." Sorry Hal, but this team needs a catcher, not Danny Glover. Hal also tries his hand at a bit o' statistical analysis. He discusses Jay Bruce's LD% and Aaron Harang's DER. It's actually pretty impressive for an old-timer.

• Mark Sheldon wonders if the re-signing of Ramon Hernandez will prohibit the team from signing a LF
  He says Jonny Gomes is the better choice over Laynce Nix (duh), but "you have to wonder if catcher Ramon Hernandez's re-signing on Monday for one year at $3 million takes away some of the dollars for left field." He says there are other in-house options, but gives the impression that Gomes would be the superior choice.

• Matthew Pouliot likes the Hernandez signing as well
  "He's 33 now and clearly on the decline, but if the Reds give him a fair amount of rest, he should be good for a dozen homers and his typical .330-.340 OBP."

• The Fay has the Boss Man's word on the signing:
  "It was an offseason priority. When you look at the alternatives, they’re not great. I think he and (Ryan) Hanigan are a good combination. Corky (Miller) is going to go to Triple-A that that gives us some depth."

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More photos » by David Kohl - AP

Jonny Gomes can mash the ball. But he may be the Reds' worst fielder, which cuts deeply into his value.

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A lot of the talk about the Hernandez signing was about whether the money spent on Hernandez would affect our ability to sign Jonny Gomes.  I thought it'd be worth it to try to estimate how much Jonny Gomes should actually be paid in 2010.

Gomes will be effectively in his second year of arbitration eligibility in 2010.  He's at 4+ years of service, despite having his first significant amount of playing time in 2005: too much time in the minors.  This impacts his earning potential, as players do not make as much in arbitration hearings as they do on the open free agent market.  The general guideline is that they make 40% of free agent salary in their first year of arbitration, 60% in their second year, and 80% in their third year of arbitration, though some work has shown that these values actually underestimate actual totals because arbitration salaries haven't inflated as rapidly as free agent salaries.  But we'll go with 60% for Jonny.

Hitting-wise, Jonny is above-average.  CHONE's R150 is +4 RAA for him.  Converted to wins per full season puts him at +0.5 WAA.  CHONE's slightly more optimistic than ZiPS, but let's run with CHONE for now.

Gomes's problem is his fielding.  Jeff Zimmerman's UZR projections have him at -3 runs in the corner outfield positions combined.  However, he really only has about 1.5 seasons worth of playing time in the outfield to draw from (192 games started), which means sample size is an issue and thus we're seeing Gomes regressed a bit toward the mean.  Furthermore, Zimmerman's data are based on total UZR data in each season, not UZR/150, which results in several fairly "average" low-inning stints entering into the calculations and pulling the numbers back toward zero.  I'm just not sure that I trust that projection.  So let's try something else.

His career UZR/150 in the corner outfield is -22 runs.  Yikes.  But again, it's based on a relatively small sample for this kind of stat, so we probably need to regress roughly 50% toward the mean.  As an alternative, the Fan Scouting Report has him at 2.4 out of 5.0, which is well below the average of RFs of 3.2.  If I'm doing this right (and I think I am), based on standard deviations of the Fans data and UZR data, you can equate 1 unit of FSR to ~17 runs, which would put Gomes at -14 runs below average in RF per full season (-1.6 wins).  That seems in keeping with his all-hit-no-field reputation, so I'm going to go with that estimate.  Nevertheless, I can see arguments for everything from -0.5 wins to -2 wins.  It's a big source of uncertainty, and how you evaluate his overall value depends a great deal on how you evaluate his fielding.

Finally, Gomes is playing corner outfield positions, which have a 0.75 win/season penalty to reflect the poor fielding found at that position (it's easier to be an average-fielding left fielder than an average-fielding center fielder).  Replacement is +2.25 wins per season.  

So, all of that combined, per season, puts Gomes at 0.5 - 1.6 - 0.75 + 2.25 = 0.4 WAR player per full season.  

Ouch.  Fielding just kills his value.

The question, then, is playing time.  CHONE projects him at 54% playing time, which isn't an unreasonable guess if you assume he'd platoon with Dickerson in left.  On the other hand, if he starts all year, he might push toward 85% playing time.  Here are estimated WAR totals, free agent dollar values, and 2nd-year arbitration dollar values for each of those two playing time estimates:

If those seem like surprisingly low totals, remember a) he's not getting paid at free agent rates yet, and b) fielding is killing his value.  He was worth 0.6 WAR according to fangraphs last season...but 2009 was his first positive WAR season since his "breakout" 2005 campaign.

Also, in terms of the salaries, keep in mind that these are estimated fair market values for him.  The market, and probably especially the arbitration market, hasn't completely corrected for bad fielding players yet.  Arbitration debates, as I understand them, are still largely settled with AVG/HR/RBI.  So it may be that he'd get more than that in arbitration--perhaps at least the $1.3M he made in 2008.  Nevertheless, I think this is a pretty good estimate of what he should be paid in 2010.

Finally, I want to emphasize that this estimate is hugely contingent on how you evaluate his fielding.  Go with the Zimmerman UZR projections and you add a full win (~$4 M) to his FA salary.  Go with his straight-up career corner outfield UZR/150, and he's a replacement player.  What do you folks think?

46. Joe Nuxhall

You know about the MLB debut at 15 years of age, and you experienced the radio broadcasts, but often glossed over with Nuxhall is a long and effective career, fashioning a 130-109 record over 15 seasons as a Red. While rarely an ace (only topping 200 IP thrice), Nuxhall was flexible and consistent—he routinely split time between the bullpen and the rotation, and was generally producing numbers consistent with his career (as a Red) 104 ERA+. Additionally, his bat was potent (for a pitcher), hitting 15 career dingers. Also worth remembering with Nuxhall’s numbers is the context of the era: although he only struck out 5.3 batters per 9 innings, he finished five times in the NL K/9 top ten. In his best season, Nuxhall pitched 257 innings over 50 games (33 starts), with a 17-12 record and a 3.47 ERA (120 ERA+). Nuxhall spent 1961 with the KC Athletics, and part of 1962 with the Los Angeles Angels, before returning to the Reds for the remainder of his career.

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50. Ewell Blackwell

Sometimes, the quantitative data doesn’t match up with the qualitative: Blackwell was named to the All-Star team six consecutive seasons with the Reds, and was once referred to by Ralph Kiner as the best RH pitcher who ever lived. However, during that six-year stretch were a couple of pretty bad years (1948-1949: combined 12-14, 4.43 ERA, 90 ERA+, split as a starter and reliever). His good years were spectacular: In 1947, The Whip went 22-8, with a 2.47 ERA (166 ERA+), and 193 K in 273 innings. 1950 was a runner-up not to be ashamed of: 17-15, 2.97 ERA (142 ERA+), and 188 K in 261 innings. In 1952, at age 29, Blackwell basically fell apart and was traded away, but only managed three additional victories before the end of his career.

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More photos » by Mark Duncan - AP

Ramon Hernandez is re-signed by the Reds. Will he be the everyday catcher?

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According to Ken Rosenthal, the Reds have re-signed catcher Ramon Hernandez to a one year deal.  Rosenthal says the deal has a vesting option for 2011 if Hernandez plays 120 games in 2010.  He played in 81 games last season and has played in 120 or more games just twice in the last 6 seasons.  No other details have been released on the terms yet.

The Reds traded Ryan Freel and prospects Justin Turner and Brandon Waring to the Orioles last season for Hernandez.  He came to the Reds and batted .258/.336/.362 in 331 plate appearances last season, which is very similar to the .258/.319/.395 he posted in the previous two seasons combined with the Orioles.  It shouldn't be a surprise then that his projections fall in a similar category.  CHONE has Hernandez at .253/.322/.387 and ZiPS has him posting a .255/.324/.385 line. Neither line is all that impressive.

I'm optimistic that given the budget concerns, the Reds haven't overpaid on this deal.  However, given the $8.5 million option that the Reds had to decline prior to signing Hernandez, I wouldn't be surprised if the dollar amount is more than any of us would have given to him.

The real key though is that Hernandez's playing time needs to be balanced with Ryan Hanigan.  Neither probably deserves the title of everyday catcher, but I think together they could make a decent platoon.  They're not going to hit a ton, but defensively they are solid and I think the Reds could do much worse at the catcher position.

UPDATE: Mark Sheldon has the details on Twitter:

Terms on R. Hernandez signing: $3M for 2010 and $3.250M for vesting option in 2011 that kicks in with 120 games played.