[vigilante225]

Nick's Blog Post #16 - May 2020
May 31, 2020
25-29, 4th in NL Central, 6 GB, 19th in Power Rankings

In Greek mythology, Icarus flies too close to the sun due to his hubris, causing him to drown after his wax wings are melted. Our wings haven't been entirely melted, but they've definitely been singed. My tone heading into May was far too optimistic - cocky, even - and only a 10-3 hot streak to end the month saved us from finishing May as one of the worst teams in baseball. Needless to say, I am a lot less confident in the strength of our team now than I was a month ago, but I still do believe there is reason for cautious optimism about the rest of our season. Hopefully this post won't anger the baseball gods as much as last month's post evidently did...

Team Performance

The month of May began with an excuciating 3-12 stretch, with our only wins in that period coming against the lowly Brigadiers (f.k.a the Marlins). A pair of close losses to the Twins was followed by a clean 3-game series sweep at the hands of the Brewers, who finally seemed to find their footing after a slow start to the season. They outscored us 37-4 in those 3 games, reminding us why they won the World Series last year. Interestingly, they're still in last place in the division, so maybe that series wasn't the turning point for them that I had expected it to be. Following that massacre, we were gifted a 3 game series against the Brigadiers, who we handled easily, only allowing 4 runs across the 3 victories. That series proved to be nothing but a short respite from having our butts handed to us, as the Mets immediately proceeded with a 3-game sweep, followed by a 4-game evisceration by the Dodgers. That series in LA was punctuated by a 24-2 loss in which our overtaxed bullpen gave way to two of our position players, who gave up 8 runs as they tried to get the final 4 outs. That game was our rock bottom, luckily, and our fortunes turned around immedately following it. The next series was in San Francisco against the Giants, who we swept with some impressive offensive performances - we scored 30 runs in 3 games, which is more than the total number of runs we had scored in our last 7 games prior to that series (all losses, unsurprisingly). We then beat the Twins in a 1-game series to make up for a rained out game from earlier in the month, and took two out of three at home against the division-leading Cubs. That felt particularly good, especially since one of those wins was an extra-innings walk-off. Next up was a 3 game home series against the Pirates, which featured two walk-off wins and one loss. We closed out the month with 3 games against the Rockies in Colorado, of which we managed to win two. May was truly a tale of two halves, with a brutal 3-12 start followed by a 10-3 finish. We won 5 series (2 sweeps) and lost 4 (3 sweeps). It was a wild way to get there, but in the end we're pretty much right back where we started - slightly below .500, but not fully out of the playoff picture (only 4.5 GB of a Wildcard spot) and not a top-10 team but probably also not a bottom-10 team. It's been an incredibly stressful and frustrating month, and I'm just glad that it's over now with minimal damage done to anything other than my liquor cabinet.

From a team statistics perspective, everything has regressed back towards the mean and things look much more like they did last season than they did last month. Our OBP-heavy approach is paying off, as we now stand 5th in the NL in that category, which has led us to be 7th in the NL in runs scored. On the flip side, our impressive bullpen ERA has imploded, and we have gone from 1st to 13th in the NL in the span of a month. That's right in line with our starters, whose ERA also ranks 13th in the NL. Our defense hasn't given them much help, as we now rank 14th in efficiency and 12th in zone rating, just one month after ranking 6th. We're hoping some recent roster moves - including the return of Lucas Giolito at the end of the month - will help turn things around a bit.

One area of concern, however, is our run differential. It currently stands at -50, which would imply an expected record of 22-32. In other words, we've been "lucky" to be at 25-32, and have outperformed expectations by 3 wins. This may not be fully accurate, though, as we have had a handful of lopsided losses that skew the picture (for example, the 24-2 drubbing we took in L.A.). The numbers may say that we're worse than our record suggests, but I believe in my heart that we're at least as good as our record, if not better! That's not a very objective way to look at things, admittedly, but what can I say - I believe in this team.

Player Performance

- DH Nate Lowe looked good in his first full month of MLB action, posting a .317/.348/.451 line with 2 homers in 89 PAs. He's one of the most well-rounded hitters in baseball, and will likely feature in the heart of our batting order for many years to come.

- OF Jesse Winkler caught fire in May with a .315/.432/.467 slash line and 3 homers in 111 PAs. He's on pace to be much better this year than he was last year, which is great news to us.

- OF Yordan Alvarez was called up halfway through the month, when things looked dire. The easing up of our schedule was probably the biggest factor in our 10-3 finish to the month, but Alvarez certainly played a key role as well - his .352/.435/.611 line with 3 homers in 62 PAs was enough to earn him NL Rookie of the Month honors, defensive abilty be damned. It'll be hard to justify sending him down again this season, unless he falls apart at the plate, so we'll just have to live with mediocre defense in both outfield corners between him and Winkler.

- C Meibrys Viloria made his major league debut midway through the month of May and has instantly made an impact, with back-to-back walk-off hits in wins against the Pirates. His overall slash line (.225/.279/.350) isn't too hot, but he's only had 43 PAs, and he was hitting at a league-average clip in 116 Triple-A PAs before his promotion, so we aren't too concerned. Besides, it's still better than the production we had been getting from the catcher position prior to calling up Viloria - James McCann now has a 50 OPS+ on the season (although his May was much better than his April, with a .730 OPS in May) and Alex Avila was somehow even worse than that (42 OPS+). We dumped his salary in a trade with the White Sox, so it'll be McCann and Viloria splitting the backstop duties going forward.

- 2B/3B Nick Senzel made his long-awaited MLB debut after finally recovering from his elbow injury. He hasn't exactly set the league on fire just yet - his .195/.244/.220 slash line in 45 PAs is good for a 30 OPS+ - but he's surely still rusty given how long it's been since he last played. Once he shakes the rust off, we're confident he'll start mashing again - and that day can't come soon enough!

- 3B Eugenio Suarez and 1B Ryan McMahon have both struggled to start the season, which has caused us some concern. Suarez hasn't been terrible (80 OPS+ with 8 HR in 215 PAs) and he's a solid defender at 3B but he's certainly not looking like an All-Star at the moment, while McMahon has been pretty atrocious (64 OPS+ with 4 HR in 231 PAs) and is exclusively a first baseman at this point, meaning his value is very limited when he's not hitting well. We fully expect both to revert to their usual selves and start hitting again soon, so neither of their jobs are in jeopardy at the moment, but it's definitely a situation worth monitoring.

- Our starters regressed in May, with each of them hovering around league-average performance, with a few notable exceptions. Martin Perez had a very up-and-down month, with two ugly outings (9 ER in 10 IP combined) and 4 good-to-amazing outings (2 ER in 23 IP combined). He doesn't get a lot of strikeouts, but he does limit homers, so as long as he can keep his walk rate reasonably low and continue to strand baserunners, he should probably be able to keep outperforming his FIP. Cionel Perez (no relation), on the other hand, has suffered a major fall from grace, following up a decent April with an atrocious May and earning himself a demotion to Triple-A. He gave up 16 runs in 9 IP across 3 starts in May, and at that point it was impossible to justify keeping him in the majors given that he's our 5th starter and we'd like to be competitive this year. He hasn't fared much better in the minors since his demotion, with 6 ER in 7 IP, although that may have been a case of bad luck given his 9 K/9 and 1.14 WHIP in the same period. We're hoping he irons things out in the minors and gets himself back to a level that makes him rosterable, but as of now we don't plan to call him up anytime soon barring multiple injuries.

- Our top SP prospect Darwinzon Hernandez was called up for a cup of coffee early on in the month to fill in for the injured Lucas Giolito and Julio Urias - who has a torn flexor tendon in his elbow and will be out for the year, which potentially spells the end of his brief tenure in Cincinnati. Hernandez performed admirably in his brief stint in the majors, with a 2.5 K/BB ratio and a league-average FIP, albeit with a slightly elevated 4.74 ERA. He's back in the minors now but will definitely be the next starter called up in the event of an injury, given Urias's season-ending elbow problems and Cionel Perez's performance woes.

Prospect Performance

- SPs Jonathan Loaisiga (25) and Jackson Kowar (23) continue to look great against Triple-A hitters, with WHIPs below 1.20 and K/BB ratios in the 4-5 range in May. Vladmir Gutierrez (24) and Corbin Martin (24) have now joined them in that regard - Gutierrez was promoted from Double-A at the end of April and hasn't missed a beat, while Martin missed time with a strained triceps suffered in April but has come back strong - and combined with Darwinzon Hernandez (23), they form what has to be the best rotation in Triple-A (technically the team ranks 3rd in the league in starter ERA, but from a talent perspective it's hard to beat us).

- SS Nick Gordon (24) has been on fire to start the season, posting a .362/.380/.522 slash line (157 OPS+) in 71 PAs. His path to more playing time is blocked by several higher-upside prospects, but if he keeps this up he'll be hard to ignore.

- C Daulton Varsho (23) earned himself a promotion to Triple-A with a solid start to the season in Double-A (120 OPS+ as a catcher), which worked out well since Meibrys Viloria got called up to to the majors and left a hole in Triple-A. However, disaster struck and Varsho broke his elbow in what was to be his last Double-A game, meaning he will be out for the rest of the season.

- Similarly, IF Nick Solak (25) was continuing to mash in Triple-A (151 OPS+ in 211 PAs) and was making a strong case for a promotion - he even managed to win the International League's Batter of the Month award for May - until he fractured his wrist on May 31st, which will keep him out at least a month if not longer. His high-OBP approach would be a great fit on our major league team, so we're eager for him to return.

- CF T.J. Friedl (24) and OF Brandon Marsh (22) both looked great in May, and while they had different methods of getting there (Friedl had a 14% BB rate and Marsh had 6 HR), they each ended up with a wRC+ of about 135 for the month. Friedl is probably next man up in centerfield if Daz Cameron goes down, so we're promoting him to Triple-A starting in June to make sure he can handle elevated competition. Marsh, meanwhile, will continue to play in Double-A so that he can get more centerfield reps, as we think he has the tools for it but doesn't have enough experience there yet. If he develops the way we think he can, he could be an elite major league CF as early as next season.

- Our High-A outfield took the Florida State League by storm in May, with Brewer Hicklen (24) and Dashawn Keirsey (23) each winning a Player of the Week award and producing a wRC+ between 140 and 150 during the month. Add to the mix Mike Siani (20) (110 wRC+ in 105 PAs) and OF Cole Roederer (20) (119 wRC+ in 54 PAs following demotion from Double-A) and you've got four outfielders putting up big numbers. It's no wonder the team is 31-20 and just 0.5 GB of first place.

- IF Julio Gonzalez (24) has been the best player on our Single-A team, with a 125 OPS+ on the season and on pace for 5 WAR. He's old for the league, so we're going to move him up to Double-A to see if he's for real.

Trades

No month would be complete without a trade! We only made one trade of note this time around, not including the salary dump of Al Avila mentioned earlier.

Reds receive: SP Cal Quantrill (25), SP David Bednar (25)
Padres receive: SS Orlando Arcia (25), 2B/SS Taylor Walls (23)

When Nick Senzel was ready to make his major league debut, we were faced with a tough choice: we could either demote Tommy Edman - who has played very well so far in the majors (113 OPS+, 0.8 WAR in 30 games) - in order to preserve the lineup spot of Arcia, who hasn't been so great (86 OPS+, 0.6 WAR in 41 games), or we could shift Edman up the defensive spectrum from 2B to SS and cash in on Arcia to upgrade our rotation. Ok, so it wasn't actually that tough a choice. The hard part was letting go of Walls, who looks like he will be a fine SS himself in the not-too-distant future, but we have a lot of light-hitting middle infielders in our system already and his path to a spot in our lineup wasn't very obvious. Quantrill looks like someone who will make us forget all about Arcia and Walls in short order - his most recent start for us was a 6.2 IP, 3 K, 6 H, 1 ER gem, and his season stats thus far are spectacular: 2.52 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, and 2.3 K/BB. His FIP is around league average, which is where it was last year as well, so we're not fooling ourselves into thinking we acquired an ace here, but his 5-pitch repertoire, outstanding control, excellent makeup, relative youth and solid stats to start the year combine to convince us that we have a solid #3/4 starter on our hands. The other player we acquired, Bednar, is a bit of a longshot to reach his potential, given that he's 25 years old, but we see him as a back-end starter if he can hit his ceiling. He'll be starting for us in Double-A.

League News

- Christian Yelich has emerged as a disruptor to Jose Ramirez's Triple Crown bid - Yelich has an incredible .374 batting average on the season, .003 above Ramirez. Meanwhile, Alex Verdugo has become the league leader in OBP at .451 - exactly .001 higher than Ramirez. Obviously Ramirez has unquestioningly been the best player in the league this season - his 4.6 WAR is a full win higher than 2nd place (Yelich, naturally) - and there's lots of time left in the season, but it would be hilarious if he loses out on both the traditional and sabermetric Triple Crowns by such narrow margins. Verdugo is having quite a breakout season of his own - he's on pace for 8 WAR - which hurts a bit to see since we had a chance to acquire him last year, and not a day goes by where I don't regret turning that opportunity down...but that's a story I'll save for my memoir.

- The Cleveland Indians continue to be the best team in baseball, with a 36-15 record. This is despite injuries to 4 (!) of their starting pitchers. Baseball is as much a team sport as any out there, but it really seems like Jose Ramirez has found a way to single-handedly carry his team...

- On the other side of the ledger, the Brigadiers have reclaimed their rightful place as the worst team in baseball. The only things uglier than their 17-35 record are their new name, new jerseys, and new logo.

Next Update

Check back next month for an update on how the month of June goes, including a discussion on the amateur draft that's coming up next week - we have the 4th overall pick, and there's at least 4 or 5 prospects who we'd be happy with in that slot, so we're looking forward to it. Til next time!