Baseball Minutia

My life is made of patterns
That can scarcely be controlled

I’m a pattern guy when it comes to baseball, I look at it in relation to the past, some fans dive head long into the season and they chomp up the foreground like Pac Man or something in The Langoliers. Full of hope, and dreams stirred by memories of the 1951 Giants or some other baseball fairy tale. Me I’m always struck with the sight of the Tigers getting old before my eyes as well as the Reds. Coupled with a decade of second place finishes and wait till next years.

Evidently we are dwelling in what we hope is the end of the next years, a bad 4 act play that has been sort of a Schott and Lindner induced purgatory of inertia and inept baseball. The state of the game in town is highlighted by the fact that the biggest baseball celebrity in the Tri State area these days is the announcer who never played the game.

Though the darkness surrounds us, the patterns emerging out of the darkness on June 1st should tell us a little more about the path this team is taking for at least the rest of this season.

Competing or not?

In it or not?

What do the past 16 years tells us?

XX Denotes a season with a Plus Run Differential on 6-1
+ sign indicates .500 record at the end of the season
++ = Playoffs +++ World Series

YEAR    NLC     W   L    GB      WP      RS      RA
2006    CIN    29  24   5      .547     263     266
2005    CIN    21  32  13.5    .396     247     294
2004    CIN    31  21     -    .596     247     247
2003    CIN    27  29   3.5    .482     279     348
2002    CIN    32  23     -    .582     242     231 XX
2001    CIN    21  32  11.5    .396     227     268
2000    CIN    28  24   1.5    .538     255     271 XX -16 +
1999    CIN    26  22   3.0    .542     237     205 XX +32 +
1998    CIN    27  31   7.5    .466     261     282
1997    CIN    20  35   7.5    .364     202     278
1996    CIN    20  28   3.0    .417     222     273
1995    CIN    20  12     -    .625     169     136 XX +33 ++
1994    CIN    29  23     -    .558     277     236 XX +41 +
1993    CIN    25  27   8.5    .481     225     227
1992    CIN    26  21     -    .553     193     192 XX +1  +
1991    CIN    24  23   2.5    .511     168     180
1990    CIN    31  12     -    .721     205     134 XX +71 +++

First a moment of silence for the .500 record, an animal not seen in Reds country since 2000, making it as fashionable as the Furby and almost as hard to find. Currenty though the Reds boast a positive winning percentage and all that despite a run differential of -2. According to Baseball Prospectus’ Playoff Odds the Reds are heading towards a 83.1 win season with a 14.6% chance of winning the division.
The table above tells me that the Reds are not a true contender like the 1990, 1994, 1995 and 1999 teams, the run differential is too close, plus the Reds pitching will have a hard time overcoming a league worst Home Run allowed total (70) and a 3rd worst hits allowed (509) without a stocked minor league system I don’t see the Reds making moves that can catapult them from an iffy showing in June to a 90 win team like the the 1992 team did.

Chances are more of us remember the teams from 2002 and 2004 who entered June in first place, both straddeled the run differential fence like this years squad has, and both had many of the same warts as this years team does.

Patterns after all are hard to break and with this franchise they are getting hard to ignore.

The question remains is if this team can at least keep the pace and make those BP Odds and be a mirror image of the 2000 team, a team with a 57-53 record after June 1st but a 85 win season in the bucket when the team mailed out the Season Ticket bills in November. Or will it go the path of the 2004 team and go 45-65 the rest of the way?

Me? I’d like to to see a 66-51 run like the 1992 team did.

One last note, each year marked accept for 2002 ended with the Reds having a better than league average era vs the league, and the 2002 season was close to league average. Currently the Reds are .10 above league average in ERA.

CINCINNATI REDS
SEASON
1990-2005

ERA                           YEAR     DIFF   PLAYER   LEAGUE
1    Reds                     1999     0.58     3.99     4.57
2    Reds                     1994     0.44     3.78     4.22
3    Reds                     1990     0.40     3.39     3.80
4    Reds                     2000     0.31     4.33     4.64
5    Reds                     1995     0.15     4.03     4.18
6    Reds                     1992     0.04     3.46     3.51
7    Reds                     1996     -.11     4.33     4.22
8    Reds                     1991     -.14     3.83     3.69
9    Reds                     2002     -.18     4.29     4.11
10   Reds                     1998     -.20     4.44     4.24
11   Reds                     1997     -.21     4.42     4.21
12   Reds                     2001     -.42     4.78     4.36
13   Reds                     1993     -.47     4.51     4.05
14   Reds                     2003     -.80     5.09     4.29
15   Reds                     2004     -.90     5.21     4.31
16   Reds                     2005     -.95     5.18     4.23

Keep your fingers crossed.

But don’t bet your house.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 2nd, 2006 at 4:59 am and is filed under Reds, Reds History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.