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Baseball Prospectus on New Red Jerry Gil, and Why the Reds Don't Seem to Care About OBP

By JD Arney

Jerry Gil

I dug out my 2006 Baseball Prospectus to see what they had to say before the 2006 season about new Red Jerry Gil, and it's not pretty:

Offseason knee surgery shouldn't be a factor in his development, because there wasn't much developing going on, anyway. Scouts rave about his defense and particularly his arm, but offensively, his OBP has never topped .300. With the list of hitter friendly leagues and ballparks on his resume, that's inexcusable.

I think we've got to face the fact that getting on base is no longer a priority for the Cincinnati Reds. Let's look at why:

  1. The Reds traded Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez, two guys who OBP a pretty solid .360 in an average year. They replaced Lopez with Royce Clayton, a guy who has a .313 OBP in 16 seasons.
  2. Krivsky signed Juan Castro to a two year contract. He has a .272 OBP in 12 seasons.
  3. Krivsky traded for Cody Ross, who ended the season with a .284 OBP.
  4. He traded for Dave Ross, a guy who had put up OBP's of .253 and .279 in the two seasons before coming to the Reds. This one definitely worked out, but it's certainly worthy of a bullet point in this discussion.
  5. Acquired Todd Hollandsworth, a player with a .328 OBP in 12 seasons.
  6. Dewayne Wise spent significant time with the Reds this season, despite his .236 OBP in 334 major league at bats.
The only point that I can think of in favor of Krivsky recognizing the value of getting on base is the signing of Scott Hatteberg.

I'm sure some will think I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here, and admittedly some of the listed moves were very minor. But I think we're about to see Adam Dunn get traded, and I don't have any confidence in Wayne Krivsky getting full value because I don't think he places enough importance on one of Dunn's biggest attributes.

Dunn just finished up a horrific season, and still managed to get on base at a .365 clip.

This, to me, is the most frightening thing about this organization right now. I have less and less confidence every day that Wayne Krivsky has a clue about putting together a good offense. Let's just hope he can find some more Bronson Arroyo's, because he's going to need quite a few to cover for the offense he's creating.

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