27. Joey Votto

There’s a universe in which there is never any question that Votto will spend his entire career with the Reds, and he goes on to be a top-5 player in franchise history, and they name streets after him. We’re probably not in that universe, of course, having the misfortune of always picking the wrong damn universe to live in.

Nonetheless, Votto’s elite. He picked up some new hardware this year (the Reds have the Gold-Gloviest right side of the infield in all the land), and barely skipped a beat in his MVP remix season. He actually profiles rather well with Jeff Bagwell, who also had an MVP award and a Gold Glove and a career OPS+ in the 150 neighborhood through his age 27 season. Bagwell’s decline from there was long and slow, and accompanied by several trips to October. Would that the two indeed profile that close to one another.

Through 4+ seasons, Votto owns a batting line of 313/405/550 (151 OPS+), and jumps from #64 on the all-time list to #27. He also rises six spots on the list of best first basemen in team history, to #4.

The Top 15 First Basemen in Reds history

1 Tony Perez
2 Ted Kluszewski
3 Frank McCormick
4 Joey Votto*
5 Dan Driessen
6 Jake Beckley
7 Sean Casey
8 Lee May
9 Jake Daubert
10 Dick Hoblitzel
11 Hal Morris
12 Rube Bressler
13 Gordy Coleman
14 Deron Johnson
15 Hal Chase

*active

43. Brandon Phillips

2011 saw Phillips put together a career-best season, setting career highs in batting average (.300), doubles (38), and on-base percentage (.353), while holding on to the Gold Glove perch at second base. From an aggregated standpoint within his Reds’ tenure, Phillips came very close to some milestones this year, standing just three hits away from 1,000, 14 RBI from 500, and 15 steals from 150. He also ended the year with a cumulative OPS+ greater than 100 for the first time. One cracks a smile at the thought of Phillips checking that one off on his to-do list.

Despite the good news on the field, the 2011-12 offseason has suggested not all is well. While the team picked up Phillips’s contract option for 2012, the presumptive contract extension has yet to materialize. While Phillips has steadily gotten better and better over his Cincy career, the track record for 30+ year old second basemen does not inspire confidence. His range in the field has been marginally better than league average lately, and his speed numbers have been declining without a corresponding pickup in power output. The end isn’t necessarily nigh, but there are warning signs afoot.

For now, however, no matter, especially as Phillips has made a career of proving critics and know-it-alls wrong. Putting the numbers aside for a moment, he’s one of the more enjoyable to watch players of my lifetime. In a perfect and just world, he’d get his desired paycheck and the team wouldn’t suffer a bit. On the basis of his 2011 season, Phillips jumps from #69 to #43, and rises one notch on the list of top second basemen in team history.

The Top 15 Second Basemen in Reds history

1 Joe Morgan
2 Bid McPhee
3 Lonny Frey
4 Miller Huggins
5 Johnny Temple
6 Brandon Phillips*
7 Ron Oester
8 Hughie Critz
9 Bret Boone
10 Dick Egan
11 Sam Bohne
12 Tommy Helms
13 Pokey Reese
14 Morrie Rath
15 Tony Cuccinello
*active

Honorable Mention: Bronson Arroyo

Tough year. After five consecutive years of being Cincinnati's most reliable pitcher, Bronson Arroyo hit the wall in a very unfortunate way in 2011, although in typical Arroyo fashion, he tried to power his way through the wall. Falling just one inning shy of 200 (the first time he failed to hit the mark as a Redleg), Arroyo still managed to lead the league in home runs and earned runs surrendered.

The negativity of last year is fresh and overpowering, so let's lay out a rather stunning positive. Did you know that Arroyo ranks 6^th in franchise history for strikeout-to-walk ratio? And that he actually improved this metric in 2011, despite striking out just 108? Quite frankly, it's Arroyo's outstanding control that allows him to stay employed, although even in past successful years he's teetered on the edge of anti-glory. In allowing more than 2 homers per 9 innings pitched during the '11 season, the cliff was no longer theoretical.

Arroyo suffered through mono and back pain this year, so there remains a plausible alibi. If it's injury and illness that's causing the long-ball fever, the numbers may very well fall in line. Cut the home run rate to his historical averages, and the ERA gets close-ish to normal. Getting a little more granular, a typical Arroyo year would see 26 dingers instead of 46...the difference would create about a 2.5 win upgrade. Maybe next year. Hopefully next year.

For his efforts, Arroyo creeped from #113 to #111 on the all-time list.

Honorable Mention: Jay Bruce

The process of writing one of these capsules is generally the same. Open up Baseball Reference, go to the player's page, and then stare at it until some idea arrives. One of the easier avenues is to go to the similarity scores section and see if any thoughts pop up.

Run through these steps for Jay Bruce, and the instant reaction is: Reggie Jackson is Bruce's most comparable player through age 24? That's awesome! Then I begin to dig. The reasons for similarity are clear: both players had exactly 100 home runs through their age 24 season, the accumulated runs + RBI totals are very similar, and many of the other counting stats are reasonably close. Jackson was a slam-dunk hall-of-famer, donchaknow. Of course, before I get too excited, I begin to rationalize. Jackson hit the homers in 200 fewer at-bats in the Age of the Pitcher, had 25% more walks, stole nearly three times as many bases. They're not at all similar, actually. And it seems I've just recreated internally the drama that's been played on the field over the last couple years. The glimpses and the promise are glittering, and then at the end of the year I look at the totals and ask if that's it. I feel guilty for doing so, because he's still the 2^nd best player on the team, but wasn't he the #1 prospect in baseball? Isn't he a sure thing, soon to eclipse Votto? Am I only disappointed because of my expectations? I begin to imagine that if a terrible, nationally broadcast morning sports radio program cared about Midwestern baseball, they might put together a song parody about Jay Bruce. They might use a Soundgarden song as their template: "I'm looking Reggie Jackson / And feeling Tom Brunansky".

The facts are that Bruce has now put up back-to-back full seasons in the 120 OPS+ neighborhood. That's good baseball, but it's not growth and it's not a superstar, not in right field. The defense, by all quantifiable metrics, took a sizable step backwards, as well.

The story is rarely fully written for any 24 year old, and the age curve isn't an inevitability, at least in the short term. He is still liable to break out, become the #1a instead of #2, be the face of the franchise. Which is kind of the rub. If the team doesn't make good in the upcoming seasons, Bruce will probably shoulder a good chunk of the blame. It'll be unfair, but most expectations generally are.

Bruce carries a career batting line of 256/331/474 (112 OPS+). He moves from #205 to #124 on the all-time list, and makes his first appearance on the list of the franchise's best rightfielders, knocking out Tommy Griffith.

The Top 15 Rightfielders in Reds history

1 Ken Griffey
2 Ival Goodman
3 Mike Mitchell
4 Curt Walker
5 Reggie Sanders
6 Dusty Miller
7 Paul O'Neill
8 Dave Parker
9 Greasy Neale
10 Wally Post
11 Sam Crawford
12 Johnny Wyrostek
13 Jay Bruce*
14 Tommy Harper
15 Dave Collins
*active

Honorable Mention: Drew Stubbs

For Drew Stubbs, 2011 was a year of highs (his 40 stolen bases was the most by a Reds player since 1997) and lows (his 205 strikeouts set a new team single-season mark). And somewhere in between lies a player whose value has never been easy to pin down.

Over his career, there have been other extremes, some of which are easy enough to understand. He has hit lefties, his natural platoon advantage, 137 points of OPS higher than righties. His home OPS numbers are 174 points higher than on the road. More perplexing is how weak his numbers in ‘high leverage' situations are: just a 633 OPS, nearly 100 points below his career total.

It's understandable, then, how much controversy Stubbs seems to generate amongst Reds fans. His natural talents: power, speed, defense, are unmistakable. Put him in the ‘wrong' spot, however, and he's as close to an automatic out as there is in the lineup. He's not the X factor, per se, but one of the big questions needing to be answered if the Reds are to break through to perma-contender status is whether or not Stubbs can approach an acceptable level of consistency.

One more note, since it's a big part of Stubbs's game. His ball-hawking ability can be-has been-top tier. In 2010, his per game putout rate was among the best for NL centerfielders. In 2011, below league average. Defense is supposed to be a stable skill, but throw it on the growing pile of head scratchers that is coming to define Stubbs.

In 2+ seasons, Stubbs has played 350 games, and has never played any position but centerfield. His hitting line of 251/325/406 is good for a 96 OPS+. He currently ranks as the #196 player in Reds history.

Honorable Mention: Francisco Cordero

There's an unavoidable paradox in the Francisco Cordero story, so let's begin there. Prior to the 2008 season, Cordero signed a 4-year, $46 million contract with the Reds. As one of the largest contracts ever given to a relief pitcher, and as the largest free agent contract ever issued by the Reds, the deal was intended to make a splash, and it was intended to make the Reds a winning team.

The underlying tautology of ‘winning teams have good closers' can perhaps be examined at a later date. For now, I'm more interested in the resulting analyses provided at the news of the CoCo signing, which were nearly unanimous in their thumbs-down verdicts. And the paradox is this: the analysts were right, in that Cordero was never worth the money thrown his way. And the analysts were also wrong, in that Cordero was everything the Reds could hoped for. Again, this probably isn't the space for a full blown analysis, but Cordero's 150 saves and 141 ERA+ were absolutely in line with what he had done prior to the signing. From a performance standpoint, he simply didn't age. On the other hand, Cordero's bWAR (the more favorable of the competing WAR metrics) credit him with 6.2 wins above replacement. At 46 large, that's a hefty cost-per-win figure, especially for a revenue-strapped club, and not a recipe for sustainable success.

And then, briefly, back to the tautology: the Reds did indeed, briefly, become a winning club during Cordero's tenure.

As for the items not related to Cordero's relative worth, he's been an interesting study over the past few years. He has stopped being an overpowering pitcher before our eyes (his K/9 rate has almost been cut in half), without losing effectiveness. His general numbers, including the save counts, have been good, but he has not been among the elite in terms of save percentage; in other words, he's definitely good for a handful or two of meltdowns each year. He wasn't the best, nor was he quite worth what he was paid, but he may prove difficult to replace.

On October 31, Cordero's option for 2012 was turned down, and he became a free agent. His 150 saves rank 2^nd in franchise history, and is being ranked #197 on the all-time list. He is also being ranked as the 13^th best relief pitcher in franchise history, bumping Rawley Eastwick off the top-15 list.

The Top 15 Relief Pitchers in Reds history

1 John Franco
2 Clay Carroll
3 Danny Graves
4 Pedro Borbon
5 Tom Hume
6 Rob Dibble
7 Ted Power
8 Joe Beggs
9 Jeff Shaw
10 Scott Williamson
11 Norm Charlton
12 Scott Sullivan
13 Francisco Cordero*
14 Jeff Brantley
15 Harry Gumbert
*active

Honorable Mention: Ryan Hanigan

It's a fun and fitting coincidence that the two catchers are posted in consecutive fashion like this, as the two have provided an effective and complementary combo over the last few years. In fact, they have been similarly worthy, albeit in rather different ways.

Hanigan, you likely know, was signed by the Reds a week after his 22^nd birthday, an undrafted free agent in the summer of 2002. An unlikely success story, then, Hanigan advanced steadily through the minor league chain, as his offense progressed, finally earning cups of coffee in 2007 and 2008. From 2009 on, Hanigan's been, more or less, a semi-fixture behind the plate.

Two skills have never been in doubt with Hanigan. His defense is, if not top notch, well above average. And his mastery of the strike zone, evidenced by his career .371 on-base percentage, and low strikeout rate (about 1 per 10 PA). To date, however, Hanigan's power has been nearly non-existent: just 43 career extra base hits, including only 16 home runs. In fact, his OBP exceeds his slugging percentage, for the career totals.

While never a star, and unlikely to become one, Hanigan owns talents which are doubtful to fade quickly. He enters 2012 as a 31-year-old 4th year player (under contract through 2013) and, more importantly, the likely opening day catcher. Even more importantly, perhaps, is his expected role as mentor to the young catching brigade. Should he pass along any batting eye or throwing arm tips, Ryan Hanigan's value, tangible and otherwise, shall far exceed his praises on these pages.

Through his five-season tenure, Ryan Hanigan has played in 287 games, amassing a batting line of 275/371/368 (99 OPS+). He ranks #232 on the all-time Reds list.

Honorable Mention: Ramon Hernandez

From a fan's perspective, there're the games between the lines, which are paramount, and then there are the extracurriculars: roster management, trades, etc. We, the fans, love to see the team win, but we also love to watch good decisions which work out for the best. From that perspective, then, it's hard not to appreciate Ramon Hernandez. The Reds traded for him as he was entering the final year of a contract with Baltimore. The scuttled players: Ryan Freel, Brandon Waring, and Justin Turner, none of whom have yet given cause for regret.

As for the game between the lines, Hernandez was also a win, eventually. His first year as a Red (2009), saw him hit much in the pattern of his years with the Orioles, posting an OPS+ of 85, and looking like his career was ready to dwindle, quickly. Instead, the Reds offered him a two-year, reduced-salary contract extension, and his bat responded as though it were still in its prime, with back-to-back years of OPS+ levels above 110.

He's not just been a pretty bat, either. His defense, most notably marked by his above average caught stealing percentage, has been a significant ingredient in making the Cincy catching a relative strength over Hernandez's tenure.

In the three years he's been here, Hernandez has averaged roughly 90 games per season, with an aggregated batting line of 280/348/413 (103 OPS+). And although his run production has been on the low side (121 aggregated RBI), Hernandez has showed an uncanny knack for the big hit. Clutch Man Monie. While it's not readily apparent to my eye what has rejuvenated Hernandez's career while with the Reds, it's at least plausible that the part-time role was the right tonic at the right time. Kudos, on this point, to the front office for finding a hidden gem.

Through his platoon success, Hernandez is credited with ranking #240 on our list. He was granted free agency on October 30, and subsequently signed with the Rockies.