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The Numbers
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Record:
85-77, .525 (tied for 11th overall)
Payroll:
$35.1 million (23rd overall)
Runs scored:
825, 5th in NL
Runs allowed:
765, 6th in NL
Run differential:
60, 11th overall
Starters' ERA:
4.49, 8th in NL
Bullpen ERA:
4.01, 3rd in NL
3-year-record:
258-229, .530 (8th overall)
3-year payroll:
$93.8 million (24th overall)
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2000 in
review
What went right?
Things started off well. Jim Bowden successfully waited out Pat Gillick and picked up Ken Griffey Jr. for a relatively cheap price. None too coincidentally, attendance went up by almost 800,000 fannies. On the non-business end of things, the Reds had a couple of little things work out well. Ozzie Fernandez made a successful return to the big leagues, and Scott Williamson, Elmer Dessens and Rob Bell all made nice debuts as Reds starting pitchers. A bullpen built around Danny Graves and Scott Sullivan was once again one of the best in the National League. Chris Stynes had the best year of his career at 27. If you're a conspiracy buff, the disappointment of winning only 85 games created a handy excuse for firing Jack McKeon.
What went wrong?
Just about everything else. Griffey came in with expectations that he'd compete with Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa for the league home run title, so anything less was going to be a disappointment. Griffey had to settle for a respectable but hardly outstanding season in his first year with the Reds. Pete Harnisch, Sean Casey and Barry Larkin all missed significant portions of the season. Eddie Taubensee went from being Steve Austin stone cold in 1999 to Brian Bosworth stone cold in 2000, before seeing his season end early with back problems.
The injuries contributed to an overall hitting slump from 1999, when the Reds were one of the league's best offenses, to 2000, when they were in the middle of the pack. Other contributing factors to the offensive slump included problems like having Dante Bichette or seeing Pokey Reese come down from his big (by his standards) 1999. A June swoon built around a stretch of losing 11 out of 12 games changed how the Reds perceived their season and their shot at making the playoffs, and a major offensive slump at the start of August killed off their chances of getting back into the wild-card picture.
In retrospect, the critical decisions were:
1. Giving up at the All-Star break. The 2000 Reds were built on the premise that they were going to contend; any team paying and playing Griffey and Barry Larkin should be. The Cardinals busted out to a fast start, which disabused Jim Bowden and the Reds of the notion that they'd win the NL Central. At the All-Star break the Reds were 43-44, which is pretty mediocre, but they were only 5½ games behind the Mets for the wild card. That's a close enough margin that you could come up with good arguments to stand pat, trade to win now, or tank. Jim Bowden tanked.
The morning after the All-Star Game, Bowden guessed he was out of the running, and dealt Denny Neagle to the Yankees for a package of high-risk, high-potential prospects. Despite losing Neagle, the Reds improved their record to 54-51 at the end of July, and were still only 5½ games behind the Mets in the wild-card race. Did Bowden give up too soon? He's one of the best-respected trade mavens in the game today, which would have made it interesting if he had gone for broke instead of giving up. Second-guessing is easy in light of everything we now know, but keep in mind that at the end of July, the Reds did not know that Barry Larkin might have to miss the last six weeks, and nobody could foresee that the Mets were about to have a 20-win month (one of only three in the entire NL in 2000).
2. Trading Gabe White. Sometimes Jim Bowden deserves credit for being an active player in trade discussions, and for having a good eye for bringing in talented players when it doesn't take much to get them. Manny Aybar has been an interesting project for years, and may yet turn into a reliable major league pitcher. Picking him up for White was a risk that ended up looking worse and worse as the season went on. Holding onto White might have made it easier to move Scott Williamson into the rotation earlier in the year, but trading White when his value was at its lowest in two years was ill-advised.
Looking
ahead to 2001
Three key questions
1. Bob Boone? Of all the strange decisions this winter, Bowden's decision to resurrect Boone as a manager may be the strangest. See the "Closer Look" for more on this subject.
2. Picking the rotation. The next two questions are basically follow-up questions to the first one, because anything can happen with a new manager on the scene. Wide-open fights for jobs can create new favorites, even if this wasn't a team with as many potential contenders for the rotation as the Reds do. The only guarantee is that Pete Harnisch will start. Scott Williamson and Rob Bell probably will be starters as well, but bad camps or getting on Boone's bad side or an injury in the bullpen could change that. Ozzie Fernandez and Elmer Dessens both had good stretches in the rotation, and trading Steve Parris and Ron Villone has created opportunities for some pretty talented young starters.
Bowden nabbed two of the better-known lefty pitching prospects in the last five years in Dennys Reyes and Ed Yarnall. In the Parris trade, he brought in a pair of guys who can pitch, Leo Estrella and Clayton Andrews. Minor-league veterans like Larry Luebbers or Jared Fernandez (if the Reds finally sign him) could get taken seriously with good camps. Pitching coach Don Gullett tends to get overlooked while contemporaries like Leo Mazzone or Joe Kerrigan get talked up, but he deserves to be regarded as one of the best in the business. If Boone accepts a lot of input from Gullett about who should be on the pitching staff and how they should be used, expect good things to happen.
3. Designing the roster. Beyond the pitching staff, the Reds have questions in the outfield corners (who plays among four valid candidates: Dmitri Young, Alex Ochoa, Michael Tucker and Michael Coleman?) and catcher (will they sign Kelly Stinnett or some other veteran? Even if they do, is this Jason LaRue's big opportunity?). The bullpen has only three locks, Danny Graves, Scott Sullivan and Mark Wohlers. After that, pitchers like Jeff Taglienti (acquired from the Rockies) or John Riedling or Keith Glauber may get opportunities, but they'll have to fight off losers from the fight for slots in the rotation.
Can expect to play better
Considering that most of the lineup is made up of young veterans, you can expect a lot of the hitters to do better, Ken Griffey Jr. included. However, more than anybody, expect better things from Sean Casey. Although Casey's approach to conditioning draws comparisons to John Kruk, he's a great young hitter at the right age (26 going on 27), coming off of a season where he struggled in the first half trying to play through a nagging thumb injury. Once he was relatively healthy, his second half was outstanding, as he hit .372/.431/.661. Griffey's improvements in his sophomore season in the NL will get more attention, but Casey could be the best hitter in the lineup.
Dave Campbell's
Man on the Spot
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 The leading returning winner on the starting pitching staff is Elmer Dessens who won 11 games. The Reds' starters have to step up this year led by Pete Harnisch. No matter how many Junior Griffeys, Barry Larkins or Sean Caseys you have, if you don't have starting pitching, you can't win. The Reds got rid of Denny Neagle, Ron Villone and Steve Parris in the last year and they were struggling even then. This staff has a ton of question marks. If Harnisch and his compadres don't step up, 60 home runs out of Griffey won't make Cincinnati a contender. |
Can expect to play worse
Barry Larkin. His raw numbers will obviously go up a few ticks if he manages to play in 130 games this year, but he's losing ground to age and the injuries that come with it. He also can't play short like he once did. Last year, Larkin was one of the league's worst in terms of range afield or turning the double-play, finishing close to the bottom in the majors in defensive metrics like Range Factor or the Davenport Fielding Translations. His defense is enough of an issue to consider moving Pokey Reese back to short sooner rather than later, but that resurrects the issue of where to play him. Third, in front of his manager's son? Second, where he'd be at greater risk for takeout slides? The outfield, where his offensive contributions will mean less to the lineup if it means creating regular playing time for Juan Castro and bouncing either Young or Ochoa?
Projected lineup
SS Barry Larkin
2B Pokey Reese
CF Ken Griffey Jr.
1B Sean Casey
LF Dmitri Young
RF Alex Ochoa/Michael Tucker/Michael Coleman
3B Aaron Boone
C Jason LaRue
Rotation
Pete Harnisch
Scott Williamson
Rob Bell
Pick two from Osvaldo Fernandez, Elmer Dessens, Ed Yarnall, Jim Brower, Larry Luebbers, Leo Estrella, Clayton Andrews and Dennys Reyes
Closer
Danny Graves
A closer
look
Bob Boone has been given a second chance to manage. Considering that the Reds will likely have one of the most wide-open camps in baseball this spring, what can Reds fans expect? Let's take the wayback machine to Boone's two-plus season stint as the Royals manager back in 1995-97. Some managers have a few ideas and stick to them. Some managers have lots of ideas, but only use them as needed. Very few managers are as inclined to try to do everything as Boone is.
As an offensive manager, Boone loves to run, bunt, squeeze, pinch-hit, hit-and-run, double-switch, juggle his lineup, and do almost everything within his power to snag a single run possible. There may not be any manager in baseball as inclined to try to make his presence felt on an inning-to-inning basis anywhere on the planet. On a team featuring big-inning operators like Griffey or Casey or even Dmitri Young, it will be interesting to see if his past tactical obsessions get grafted onto a lineup that doesn't look like it's cut out for them.
Unfortunately, the obsession with tactical machinations that characterized Boone's stint was also marked with some strange decisions when it came to handling talent. Entrusted with a rebuilding program in Kansas City, Boone did silly things like play Jose Offerman at first so that he could give playing time to David Howard. He kept Jon Nunnally as an A-ball-to-majors regular in 1995, then dumped him the following year. While no one expected Bob Hamelin to be the next Hank Sauer, he folded up like a pack of cards once Boone took over, and the alternative first baseman-DH, Joe Vitiello, also struggled through sporadic usage patterns that reflected Boone's indecisiveness.
Who was Boone playing instead? He committed major playing time to journeymen like Howard, Tom Goodwin, Craig Paquette and Keith Lockhart, players with whom you can neither rebuild nor win. There's no market for the mass accumulation and development of other people's fill-ins.
On the pitching side of things, Boone was willing to experiment. In 1995, he resurrected the four-man rotation, using Kevin Appier, Tom Gordon, Mark Gubicza and Chris Haney. Haney got hurt within the year, and Gubicza and Gordon both had awful seasons in 1996. Boone inherited a mediocre bullpen that featured closer Jeff Montgomery with middle relievers Hipolito Pichardo, Mike Magnante, Rusty Meacham and Billy Brewer.
By the time Boone left, the pen had gone from adequate to a disaster. Some of the pitchers got hurt, and some of them weren't too good to start out, but what's most important is that Boone did not show any signs that he could identify or use anybody to advantage. In his second year, he used 11 different relievers in 10 or more games. The only ones left in the majors are two of the guys he inherited, Pichardo and Magnante, who are both now with other teams.
Now I know every manager can have his dry spells as far as nurturing talent, and identifying the unknown borderline guys you can use is just as much the province of a GM as it is the manager. That brings us to Boone's worst sins: how he handled the two top prospects he was handed during his brief stint with the Royals. Johnny Damon and Jose Rosado were the two best things the Royals had going for them by 1996. Boone put a major dent in Damon's early career, letting him rot behind people like Bip Roberts while jerking Damon around in the lineup when he was finally allowed to play. Rosado's future looked great: before his 22nd birthday, he'd logged a great half-season in the majors. Before he was 23, he was pitching hurt, overworked by Boone for no obvious objective.
What does all this mean for the Reds? They've got some outstanding young starting pitchers and an outstanding duo in the pen. Boone will have to demonstrate he learned something from his failure to run his pitching staff well in Kansas City. They've got an offense that could do some damage as a big-inning team, and Boone is a manager in love with tactical shenanigans. Again, Boone has to show that he can adapt to the talent he has.
If Boone has any kind of positive learning curve, then he's already logged about as large a catalogue of mistakes that a manager can make in only two-and-a-half seasons, and could argue that he's learned everything he needs to know about managing through trial and mostly error. If Boone hasn't learned anything from his past, Jim Bowden will have to make another one of his quick managerial changes.
Chris Kahrl writes for the Baseball Prospectus team. Look for their 2001 edition in bookstores in early February. To order, click on their web site.
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ALSO SEE
Reds minor-league report
ESPN.com's Hot Stove Heaters
Season in review: Cincinnati Reds
AthletesDirect: Ken Griffey Jr.'s official Web site
AthletesDirect: Danny Graves' official Web site
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