AZZ Posters on Big Hoops Recruiting News

There's big Hoops Recruiting News for the Falcons. Nothing official, but it started with this on prepspotlight.com:

"Today is a big day for the Bowling Green basketball staff. Bowling Green Head Coach Dan Dakish has landed his first big recruit from the state of Michigan in his 8th year at the helm. Sunday afternoon, Prep Spotlight learned that one of the top 10 players from the state of Michigan walked into the basketball office's at Bowling Green and said "this is where I want to be."

Reliable sources on AZZ then indicated the player in question was Lionel Sullivan from Detroit St. Martin DePorres. 6'6, 215#. Was a first-team all-state selection as a junior. (!!) Lionel Sullivan is listed in Athlon's Top-300 national players for high school seniors. He comes in at #297. This would be a very nice pick up for BG.

Another AZZ source indicated the following, and to the contrary: "However, it was 6-7 Wilson Chandler that made his decision TODAY, and he is probably top 5 in MI, and is ranked #124 nationally. THIS, my friend, would be a great pickup. In the MAC, only Turner Battle, Keith Triplett, Peyton Stovall, and Danny Horace were rated higher coming out of HS."

So, it sounds like big news either way. I'm betting on Sullivan, and if so, that's another good get. All-state as a junior has to be a positive step. The new assistant coach from Detroit may have paid an early dividend, and if we can start to recruit that area well, it will be a big plus. Stay tuned for a final determination, but that will be four strong athletes for our five scholarships for next season.

UPDATE: Wilson Chandler has committed to DePaul.

Reds Year in Review

It can't be all bad. After all, the team improved 7 games over the year before, and that's something. We're still far from .500, and even farther from contending, but it wasn't a total loss. As a matter of fact, if you want to analyze a trend, the Reds finished 10 games OVER their pythagorean projection. Normally, that calls for a downturn the following year. No real reason for that to happen here, but you're starting from a weak 76, not a strong 76.

We were healthier (though not healthy) in the starting 8--though injuries still hurt--and that is the primary difference. During the year, I tracked pitching stats compared to last year. In the end, it was a grim tale.

Part I: Pitching

Don Gullett, free from the shackles of Boone, supposedly had the pitchers on a new track--pitch to contact. Don't walk guys. And while it worked early, in the end, this team had an abysmal pitching staff. My own opinion is we need new blood at pitching coach, someone who can work with young pitchers. Gully's "strength" was always supposed to be working with the Bowden Retreads...you know, "spotting something in their delivery" and ekeing another year out of them. His success at that is more anecdotal than empirical.


During the year, I tracked Reds pitching against the year before, and against the league average. Early in the year, it was looking good. By October, it was a grim tale of deja vu.

Listed here, 2003, 2004, NL Avg

BB/9: 3.67, 3.57, 3.38
K/9: 5.8, 6.18, 6.74
H/9: 9.82, 9.94, 9.09
ERA: 5.09, 5.19, 4.30
K/bb: 1.58, 1.73, 1.93
Hr/9: 1.3, 1.47, 1.11

Suffice it to say, that pitching was generally worse than the year before, and made only indistinguishable progress against the league. BBs were down a little, and K's up a decent amount, but still well below the league. In the meantime, we gave up more hits, homers, and earned runs than the year before. If you strategy is to pitch in the strike zone, you need more power than that to get by.


Note these other fun facts:

Reds gave up 900+ runs.
They were second to last in runs allowed. Only the Rockies--in their stadium--were worse.
The Reds sported only two pitchers who pitched ANY innings who were beneath the AVERAGE league ERA. And that includes Luke Hudson.

The last one is a kicker. Only Danny Graves (68.3 IP) and Luke Hudson (48.3) were below the league average in ERA. Let's carry this a little further.

ERA between 4.30 and 5.30

Wilson (183.7 IP)
Wagner (51.7 IP)
Bong (15.3 IP)
Harang (161 IP)
Norton (65.7)
Riedling (77.7 IP)
Hancock (63.7)
Valentine (29.3)

ERA MORE THAN 1.00 above league average (those who metaphysically stink)

Acevedo (157.3)
Van Poppel (115.3)
Claussen (66)
Matthews (30)
White (GOD!) (59.7)
Reith (26)
Sanchez (14.3)
Padilla (25.7)
Myette (4.3)
Haynes (15)

513.6 innings, or just over 40% of the season's total came not from pitchers near the league average, but more than 1 run--and in many cases more than that--from the league mean. You can't figure out a better way to lose over a long season.

Most of those guys were in the bullpen, so its no surprise that the bullpen stunk too. I love the BP measure of taking the expected runs in each situation faced by a reliever, and then comparing it to the actual amount allowed. By this measure, the club allowed 48.4 runs more than they should have (on average), a figure placing them at the bottom part of the National League. They converted a paltry 60% of their save opportunities, compared to, for example, the Cards who converted 78%. Graves converted 41 of 50, or 82%, which is somewhere in the vicinity of the league average. His long-term deal remains an albatross around the club's next. His 5.27 K/9, while above his career average, is well below what is needed to survive. You cannot pitch successfully in the bigs without 6-6.5 K/9.

Bottom line. Pitching no better than the year before, and the reason why a .500 season was not achievedd. The pitching is not merely bad--its awful. The strategy is to build the farm system, rather than trying to find the Jimmy Haynes of each season. Is the talent there. Well, there IS talent there. I don't think there's a Zito/Mulder combo, but there is talent there...how much is a topi for another day.

Coming next. The offense.

The Hitters

Bottom line for the hitters is that they were pretty average for the national league, and that's a good point for the team. Still not healthy, Reds fan's best hope is that the team cobbles together average pitching while the main 8 of the lineup stays healthy and scores a ton of runs.

For the year, the Reds were tenth in runs scored. But their OBP was on the league average, and they slugged just ever so slightly BELOW the league average. So, .OPS is pretty near the league average.

Here's a player by player run down, comparing their OPS to the NL average for their position.

Sean Casey--Team MVP. Both OBP and SLG well above league average. Hitting 24 dingers with a .324 BA and 46 walks will make you a valuable producer. 44 doubles don't hurt. A great comeback season for Sean, when many Reds fans were ready to cut him loose.

Adam Dunn--Also well above the league average for LF. His SLG @ .569 is almost a point above the league average, while his vaunted .OBP is a little closer to the league average. He walks plenty (108), but doesn't get that many actual hits (151), a novel concept in BeaneBall. Most of all, he K's (195!!), but if you accept the moneyball philosophy, you have to accept that K's are just like any other out. Which they are not, but they are probably closer than people think.

D'Angelo Jiminez--A surprise. For what we are paying, a fine ballplayer. Right on the league average for 2b.

Ryan Freel--Fans love Ryan. I like Ryan a lot. His OBP is OK for a 3b, but NL teams are getting a lot more power from their 3B than Ryan provides. For that, he is below the league average. We need to figure out how to make 3B a power position to compete, which explains the Kearns experiment. Ryan would be an adequate 2B.

Jason Larue--An above average offensive catcher.

Barry Larkin--even in his last year as a Red, he was above average compared to NL shortstops.

WMP--interesting case here. Depends on the positon. If he's in CF, he's above average offensively, but probably not defensively. If he's in RF, he's not sufficient based on an anemic OBP. His power is above average for the position. In short, even if he doesn't improve at all, he's a RF of the future, and a reward to the Reds for patience.

Junior--An above average offensive CF. All numbers above the average, while healthy. Injuries are a shame, because he was getting the job done.

Juan Castro--Below aveage offensively, notwithstanding a hot start. Don't get me wrong--good teams need guys like this, and he has a spot on our team. What you don't need is five guys like him...makes Ryan Freel expendable.

Felipe Lopez--Another surprise. Felipe is basically on average with NL Shortstops based on the 264 BA's last season. He's still only 24. I have hope he may turn into a decent ML Shortstop.

Austin Kearns--Below average, but I don't think anyone doubts he will rebound and become a top offensive force again.

Valentin, Cruz, Larson, Hummel, Bragg, VanderWal, Romano and Clark--all well below the league average--many woefully so. VanderWal a huge disappointment.

Finally, Anderson Machado. Just a point so it doesn't get under the radar, but he was above average in 56 Abs for NL SS. He could be something if we keep an eye on him.

Final result...a healthy offense for this team could contend, if 3b is shored up and Lopez continues to improve along with WMP. Not healthy--we can't afford depth. We really can't.

Falcons highest ranked team in Ohio

Four points in AP poll, to 2 for the Suckeyes. Ha, ha, ha. If they are bowl eligible, and that's a big if, I would love for NIU or us to beat them in the Motor City Bowl. Now, if Toledo played OSU, that would activate my one exception to the root against OSU rule. In that case, Justin Zwick becomes my favorite player.

Lions thrown to the Packers

Well, we certainly had that wrong. The Packers completely dominated the Lions today, and took serious wind out of the Honolulu Blue and Silver's momentum. This was a game that a team truly on the rise should have won at home, and MUST compete in. Which they did not.

To be fair to Joey, this is essentially the same team they finished with last year. No big play receivers, and no big RBs, either. Pinner was woeful, and Joey was the leading rusher. Joey could find nothing open downfield, often resorting to scrambling fruitlessly for yardage. Finally, he threw a big play pick that is the kind of play they have successfully avoided this year.

Let's be serious. This is a team that made 5 first downs. In....the...game! 1-11 on third down (missing the last 11 of the game). Ran 40 offensive plays, roughly half what the Packers did. Held the ball for 20:19--only one third of the game.

Given that, its hard to be tough on the D. They were up against it. Not that they played very well, but they were up against it. Lots of missed tackles (how does that guy get around Lewis for their second TD?) And explain how Green could run those sweeps, have copious Lion pursuit and still squirt through for 8-9 yards.

The sole bright spot was Eddie Drummond, the Mel Gray of a new century. What a great lift you get when the other team scores, and you run it back into their territory. Going three and out is less of a lift after that.

Well, next is the Giants, a tough team coming off the bye week. We are likely to be .500 after that one--especially on the road. Mooch doesn't know what to make of it all. Simple...its the Lions.

Falcons Stomp Ball State

It wasn't even as close as 51-13 would indicate, and certainly not as close as the stats would indicate. In classic BG fashion, we blew them out by scoring 5 of the first six times we had the ball, and the game was basically over five minutes in. As Ball State's coach said, we didn't do a damn thing right. A blocked punt. A bad snap on a punt leading to a safety. And giving up eight sacks. Ouch.

On the other hand, the Falcons were clicking. BG ran only 59 offensive plays, and scored 51 points. That's a feat. Omar was good. We didn't need to run, but he found PJ loose in the secondary six times, once for a TD. Charles Sharon has some nice YAC, and Steve Sanders had a big catch, too.

Basically, we totally dominated a team tonight, and it was good to see. Next week @ OU is a sleeper, even tough UT stomped them today.

The crowd was 16,669, which was too bad. It was a nasty day. It rained pretty hard in the second quarter, and the wind chill was easily in the 30's. The east side--with the wind on your face--was a lonely place. As I have said before, we will be out of the attendance woods when we draw on bad nights. Today's game was a good example of that.

Its a shame. It was a good show. NIU doesn't show any signs of losing, but anything could happen. All we can do it win out.

Big Day Saturday

Though I think the weather will be shaky, let's hope its at least decent, and on the West Side we are sheleted from the wind! I'm looking for a big homecoming win, but in the league, all wins are wins. Still, I think we torch BSU for at least 60. Like to see the D play well, and some big special teams play. And a sell-out, but I'm not holding my breath.