Billion-dollar babies? Edwin Arroyo joins Boras stable of Cincinnati Reds | Press Box Wag
Think Joey Votto’s $20 million contract option for 2024 is a big financial proposition for the Cincinnati Reds?
Imagine the all-Scott Boras infield that could be on the Reds’ near horizon, depending how team president Nick Krall shakes out his position-player roster in the next few months and years – right before the arbitration ulcers start to hit.
Boras, baseball's record-$etting agent, represents second baseman Jonathan India, the 2021 Rookie of the Year, as well as 2023 freshmen Matt McLain and Elly De La Cruz.
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And the Reds’ top infield prospect, Double-A shortstop Edwin Arroyo – considered by some evaluators the best shortstop in the organization at any level – just signed with Boras’ agency.
About 120 years ago Connie Mack’s juggernaut Philadelphia Athletics had a star-studded foursome dubbed the “$100,000 infield” for its purported hefty market value (a group that included Hall of Famers Eddie Collins and Frank “Home Run” Baker).
De La Cruz at third, Arroyo at short, McLain at second and India at first in a couple years?
What would that be worth if they all hit their talent ceilings?
The $100 million infield? The billion-dollar infield?
Crazy? Boras clients have signed eight of the 11 richest free agent contracts in baseball history.
Two of those are infielders among the top three who have helped drive their teams into this year’s final four in the playoffs: $330 million first baseman Bryce Harper of the Philadelphia Phillies (albeit, an outfielder playing first after coming back from Tommy John surgery) and $325 million shortstop Corey Seager of the Texas Rangers.
Boras did a half-billion dollars worth of contracts for two middle-infield clients with one team alone – on the same day – ahead of the 2022 season (Seager and $275 million for Marcus Semien).
And none of this Reds math counts Nick Senzel, another Boras client, if he's still in Cincinnati and at third base instead of the outfield by then.
All of which actually might make the more relevant question: How long can/will the Reds keep their young group together if it reaches its collective ceiling – and free agency?
Joe-stradamus
Barely 12 hours after the Reds were eliminated with one game to go this season, tenured star Joey Votto expressed disappointment at falling “ever-so-short” of the playoffs, because of the very real chance to do damage in October had they won even two more games to catch the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Those would be the same Diamondbacks who beat the Milwaukee Brewers and then the 100-win Los Angeles Dodgers to earn a spot in the National League Championship Series against the Philadelphia Phillies – another wild-card qualifier.
“You get to the postseason and anything can happen,” Votto said. “I imagine we’ll see that again this year. It’s unfortunate that we’re not part of it.”
He couldn’t have known how right he was. Only one of the six division winners (Houston) is among the final four playoff survivors, and nobody left in the field has more than 90 wins.
Among other things, it means the National League will be represented in the World Series by a wild-card team for the third time in the last four full seasons.
Hey, is it too late for Krall to add a starting pitcher at the trade deadline?
Playoffs? Playoffs?!
For what it’s worth (and it ain’t much), the Reds went 13-7 this year against the four playoff survivors squaring off Sunday and Monday in the openers of the National and American League Championship Series.
That includes 6-0 combined against the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros, and 4-3 against the aforementioned DBacks. They went 3-4 against the Phillies, winning three of the last five meetings.
Hey, is it too late for Krall to add another bullpen arm at the trade deadline?
They Said it
“On the marketing side, one of the first things we decided six weeks in when things (started to change with prospects debuting) was to just get more cameras in the dugout. Because these guys were just living it. There was no need to do anything to amplify anything they were doing. It was just letting them be them.”
*Karen Forgus, Reds vice-president for business operations, on the charisma and energy the increasingly young Reds roster provided beyond its on-field success this year.
Waino's World
Just to set the record straight, Reds rookie Brandon Williamson said he was trying to strike out St. Louis Cardinals longtime ace Adam Wainwright in that last start of the season, regardless of what the message on that signed scorecard might have implied.
And regardless of that little wave Williamson gave Wainwright to indicate fastballs were coming when the pitcher stepped in as a pinch-hitter in a 14-2 game in the sixth.
“Yeah, I told him what was coming,” said Williamson, who needed two heaters to get a sharp groundout to second from the retiring All-Star looking for a final at-bat or two before hanging them up.
Williamson, who keeps scorecards from his wins, asked Wainwright to sign that one afterward, with the St. Louis pitcher writing, “Hey, Brandon, thanks for the heaters. Best of luck.”
That’s the kind of respect Williamson (5-5, 4.46 this season) has for the Cards legend, who already has begun a broadcasting career during this month’s playoffs.
However, “I was trying to strike him out. I was not letting him hit the ball,” Williamson said. “But I was like, ‘It’s your last moment in a crazy career, here you go. If you can hit it a mile, hit it.’ But I was certainly trying to strike him out.”
WAR of the Rose(s)
Reds rookie Spencer Steer led the team in almost every offensive category this season, including home runs (23), doubles (37), walks (68) and RBIs (86).
But when he got the final day of the season off following the Reds’ elimination the night before it meant he fell one game short of Pete Rose’s 1963 franchise rookie record for games played (157).
If it’s any consolation to Steer, his 3.0 WAR for the season (per baseball-reference.com) was better than Rose’s 2.4 mark as a rookie.
Back to the Future
The Reds won’t win another Rookie of the Year award this year despite 23 rookies playing at least briefly for them and despite becoming the first team in MLB history with three rookies producing at least 10 home runs and 10 stolen bases (De La Cruz, McLain and Steer).
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Arizona’s Corbin Carroll is all but assured of the honor after his monster season.
But the Reds landed more players on Baseball America’s 15-man, all-rookie team than any other club, with three: McLain (.290, .864 OPS in 89 games) at second base, Steer at DH and left-hander Andrew Abbott (8-6, 3.87 in 21 starts) among the five starting pitchers.
The Dodgers (James Outman, Bobby Miller) and the Orioles (Gunnar Henderson, Yennier Cano) are the only other teams with more than one.
The Big Number: 5.43
That’s the Reds’ final starting rotation ERA for the season, third-worst in the majors. The five other teams with rotation ERAs of at least 5.00 finished in last place.
And if you don’t like ERA as a good measure of a rotation’s value, how about workload? Only seven teams got fewer innings pitched from their rotations than the Reds’ 787 (4.86 per game) — all of those except the opener-happy Tampa Bay Rays for losing teams.
Or WAR? According to fangraphs.com, only five teams were worse by that measure, and their teams all finished in last place.
If this isn’t the Reds’ top off-season priority, then the analytics department soon will be.
That Took a Lot of, um, Not Strikes
When Reds pitching prospect Connor Phillips failed to throw a strike before being lifted three walks and 12 pitches into his final start of the season, he became the first big-league starting pitcher to pull off that feat in 37 years, per Elias Sports Bureau.
That was San Diego Padres pitcher LaMarr Hoyt – a Cy Young winner just three years earlier – who threw 13 pitches out of the strike zone before being lifted in what turned out to be his final career start.
Thirteen? Hoyt hit the leadoff man with his first pitch of the game, then walked the next three.
In other words, that's right: It could have been worse.
Did You Know?
The Reds set a franchise record by beating 28 different teams in 2023.
Big deal? It was the first year in MLB history that every team played everybody else, so that was bound to happen, right?
Sure. But only four teams beat all 29 opponents at least once, including two division winners that earned playoff byes (Orioles and Dodgers) and a third playoff team (Toronto Blue Jays). The San Diego Padres also beat everybody.
The only team the Reds didn’t beat: the Yankees during their three-game Fred Stanley revenge tour in May.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Did Cincinnati Reds buy an all-Scott Boras infield? | Wittenmyer
