Danchat

The Reds have a lot of youth in their lineup and have another hot rookie coming up. Let's see how well CES converts his AAA dominance to the majors.

Four runs to win 4-3, presumably?

Great day by the hitters, but you have to be concerned with Maeda and Lopez's starts against this A's offense. Meanwhile, the bullpen has been quite solid even down several arms, barring that bad game against the Orioles.

Absolutely not - OPS is not a perfect stat and it doesn't properly encapsulate Arraez's value and Gallo's problems. It doesn't account for run creation, and too harshly penalizes hitters who hit plenty of singles. Case in point - Ichiro Suzuki has a career .757 OPS, even just including his prime years it's about .800 OPS. Old friend Kennys Vargas, a similar power-only / K heavy profile to Gallo has a career .748 OPS, and even a .788 OPS in his last two years in the MLB. One dimensional power hitters are given too much value from it, while OBP machines who take tons of singles and walks like Suzuki and Arraez get penalized for that.

It's truly incredible how un-clutch Correa is. Your MLB GBDP leader!

We have a lot of injuries this year too, it just feels like the whole 'they need to shake things up' ideas were brought up but we kept seeing the same thing every week, Rocco kept using Pagan in short leverage situations, the starters didn't get much rope (not my complain but it felt like most here thought that). They did make changes at the trade deadline, so that's the earliest I expect any changes to be made.

Gameday initially said it was Gallo, but now it says Rudy Hernandez was. I'm just following on gameday, so I retract what I said about Gallo.

They did get Gallo out of the starting lineup... This is the same recipe we've seen the past two (losing) seasons. Keeping the status quo is the FO's highest priority.

That pitch to Gallo wasn't the worst thing... now he's been ejected, Jeffers is the only guy left on the bench unless Miranda is good to go.

Kinda crazy how Julien is our best hitter at this point... dude wasn't even in the starting lineup and has 2 hits by the 6th inning. He's simply a better DH candidate than Buxton is.

Boom, Julien!!

The bullpen is going to have to go quite a few innings today...

They wouldn't dare to bench 3B Andrew Bechtold, a 27 year old non-prospect who is starting practically everyday there!

Yunior Severino in the top 10, huh? As Mike Sixel said, it's odd why he isn't in AAA yet, the front office just must not value him very much. He had been Rule 5 eligible the past 2 drafts and has yet to be protected.

The Rays need a starter, hm? How about we offer them Sonny Gray for the next Joe Ryan and change?

Losing those hitters that looked like they were AAAA talent isn't the problem for me, it's that they can't find any replacements, they can't find anyone else's failed prospects and squeeze some value out of them. We have one notable success in Willi Castro, not a whole lot else since perhaps finding Ehire Adrianza on waivers. And whole bunch of their big deals to hitters have failed, Marwin Gonzalez was a disaster, Andrelton Simmons couldn't hit to save his life, Donaldson didn't quite live up to the hype (but they moved him at the perfect time), and now Buxton/Correa/Vazquez aren't living up to their pay this year.

Sano's showing was pretty good, he just ran into a buzzsaw in Judge. I remember Dozier's being rather embarrassing, it had seemed like he hadn't practiced with his pitcher.

The "mistake" is forgivable for multiple reasons - giving the position to Miranda, a rookie who looked competent last year seemed to be a sound idea with Royce Lewis backing him up. Gio Urshela had a season-ending injury, so even if we retained him he'd be out for the year. And personally I found it very reasonable that one of Spencer Steer or Edouard Julien were traded, and both appear to be solid hitters early on in their careers. As Chief said, the primary issue is that Steer was traded for a poor trade target, in what appears to be this regime's Matt Capps trade. But there was a legitimate logjam in the system that prompted Steer and Urshela to be moved, and it seemed reasonable Miranda or Lewis could hold the spot down... but unfortunately Miranda is a shell of his former self and Lewis can't stay healthy, and I don't know how a front office can reasonably plan a lineup whose players consistently break down physically or hitting-wise.

We gotta get the next generation of LH OFs ready! Can't wait until 2027. Sarcasm aside, it's nice to see them take the top guy off the board, but it's hard to say anything since the MLB draft is such a crapshoot.

Nobody should be surprised about Gallo's play, he's the same guy he was last year. He'll hit a few HRs and take some walks that will make his OPS look acceptable, but he's abysmal at getting hits, moving runners, can't hit a sac fly to save his life. And as most of us anticipated when the signing happened, here we are at midseason - he stinks, but he remains in the lineup due to the front office's hubris. Pretty crazy how the team's best hitters have been Julien, Solano, and Lewis. Kirilloff and Jeffers have been solid, while the rest has been an unmitigated disaster - replacement level hitting from Correa, extreme hot and cold from Buxton, liabilities from the corner OF in Kepler/Gallo, Vazquez is suddenly horrific at the plate, Miranda is a shell of the player he was last year, Farmer is about 70 OPS points below expectation, and backups like Taylor and Castro are playing way too often. Too many injuries, and even when a top prospect is knocking the door down, they refuse to call him up. Say what you will about a rebuild/reboot, but a third straight losing season should get the whole organization walking papers (and also if they eek a little above .500). Their "win now" window has been open for several years and the team is mediocre, the farm system is middling, and the organization itself while modernized since the TR days has stagnated to a point where we have one banner season that is getting farther and farther in the rear view mirror... and even that year didn't win a single bleeping playoff game.

Just checking in... woof. What a way to go into the All Star break!

I wasn't necessarily arguing Julien over Polanco because Jorge isn't one of the veterans who are stinking it up at the plate, but the only other spot he'd probably fit in is DH. When Polanco is healthy they should try to get both of them in the lineup every day, but that will be hard with Buxton locked in at DH.

Julien is already one of the best hitters on this team in his first 150 PAs in his career, and this team is already clogged with a bunch of veteran players who can't hit. Yes he's bad defensively at 2B, but this is giving me flashbacks of people arguing how about we should have kept Schoop at 2B in 2019 over the up and coming Arraez who was doing far better at the plate.

This is now two straight years of Correa being generally terrible with runners on base...

Even with the current hot streak he's on, he's still got a subpar OPS+ of 94 and is still getting on base at a sub .300 clip. At least his power is back, with 12 HRs in 214 PAs compared to 9 last year in 446. Still, I'd trade him while he still has some value, as I wouldn't be shocked if this turns out to be the high point for him this year.