Cincinnati Reds'

Cincinnati Reds Press Clippings February 22, 2017

THIS DAY IN REDS HISTORY 1946 - The Reds open spring training in Tampa, Florida, the first spring training held in peacetime, in five years

MLB.COM Arroyo faces batters as comeback attempt continues Reds starter hasn't pitched in Majors since 2014 By Mark Sheldon / MLB.com | @m_sheldon | February 21st, 2017 + 57 COMMENTS

GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- Reds hitters facing Bronson Arroyo during batting practice on Tuesday weren't being fooled, and that's exactly how the veteran starting pitcher wanted it.

Arroyo threw 40 pitches to Brandon Dixon, Aristides Aquino and Gabriel Guerrero. The almost 40-year-old knows hitters like to face him in BP, and the Minor Leaguers now know why.

"It was good. I just always pump fastballs in there for those guys to hit," Arroyo said. "For one, it's another level up from the bullpen as far as intensity. Just purely going out there and throwing 40 pitches like that gets you tired; you get winded when you're working pretty fast. I like when guys hit the ball. I don't want to be trying to trick them. It gets a lot more daunting to have guys take stuff. A bunch of four-seamers right down the middle, and kind of build the intensity as I go."

A non-roster player attempting a comeback after not pitching in the Major Leagues the past two seasons, Arroyo is trying to earn a spot in the Reds' rotation, which he was part of from 2006-13 while winning 105 games. He's competing against several younger pitchers, including prospects such as Amir Garrett, Cody Reed and Robert Stephenson.

Tuesday's session was not meant for Arroyo to have to impress the Reds' decision-makers.

"As many years as he's been in the professional game, he's built a routine that's worked for him," Reds manager Bryan Price said. "For me, it's more of an endurance challenge for Bronson than it is mixing up all of his pitches."

There was no radar gun on Arroyo's session, but he certainly wasn't powering in any high-velocity fastballs.

"As long as it's pain-free, I'm good. As far as the ball coming out, it's kind of a subjective word. It's not going to be coming out like compared to everybody else in this camp. It doesn't mean you can't get outs with it," Arroyo said. "I don't think I was even throwing 88 [mph]. It might have been 78, I have no idea. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter. You've got movement, you've got command, you find a way to get people out."

Arroyo signed as a free agent with the D-backs in 2014, and tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow after 14 starts and needed Tommy John surgery. He also later needed right shoulder surgery. On a Minor League deal with the Nationals last season, he pitched in two Minor League games before being shut down.

The plan is for Arroyo to get one more session against Reds hitters before he gets a start in a Cactus League game.

"Maybe I will flip a few curveballs next time," said Arroyo, who will earn the Major League minimum of $535,000 if he makes the team. "It's so awkward with the screen. You don't want to hit your own guys and stuff. Most of the time, I throw all fastballs, and as soon as we go one inning in a real game here, I'm usually just game on.

"At this point, I kind of need to get a feel of everything early on. You get out in those games, that's when the intensity goes up much more. There's more adrenaline because people are watching, your stride length goes out a little bit. That's really the test; I need to see if my arm is going to handle it. And then if your arm can handle it, can you get somebody out? There's a progression there."

Mark Sheldon has covered the Reds for MLB.com since 2006, and previously covered the Twins from 2001-05. Follow him on Twitter @m_sheldon and Facebook and listen to his podcast. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. Reds leaders don't want to settle for 'moral victories' Price, Williams focusing on winning, not just rebuilding By Mark Sheldon / MLB.com | @m_sheldon | February 21st, 2017 + 5 COMMENTS

PHOENIX -- As Reds manager Bryan Price and general manager and president of baseball operations Dick Williams gathered with their peers at the Cactus League Media Day event on Tuesday afternoon, many of the reporters' attention was trained on the teams that are viewed as contenders in 2017.

Meanwhile, the Reds are still largely viewed as a rebuilding club. Both Price and Williams would like to see that tag removed, but realize it has to be done by team performance on the field.

"The players are going to tell us this season as we get into it, exactly where we are in the life cycle," Williams said. "I don't want the players in the clubhouse thinking about it being a rebuild. For them, it's a season. And we're going to go out and win games and play. They shouldn't have any preconceived notion about what the team is supposed to be like this year, or where it is in the life cycle [of a rebuild]. They can just control how prepared they are for the season and how well they play. The more they do that, the better they do that, the more we can accelerate."

One reason Price was given a one-year contract extension in September -- with a club option for 2018 -- was his team played well in the second half last season. Cincinnati was 36-37 after the All-Star break, and the front office felt that momentum in its rebuild was upon the club.

Unfortunately for the Reds, that came after they were 32-57 in the first half. They finished with the second-worst record in the Majors overall.

Price wants a better start this year, so the Reds can be in better contention for the second half, but didn't concern himself about his job security.

"I'm going to manage the team the best way I can, regardless of circumstances," Price said. "I don't have a lot of this back-of-my- mind stuff. What's going to happen is going to happen in regards to me. They'll buy into that Bryan Price is the right guy to manage the team, or they don't. That may have a number of wins on it, or it may not. But my focus is on really playing good baseball on a consistent basis. I'll be patient, but 68 wins, being in last place and sitting in last place, isn't anything that any of us want to sign for another year. We want to see significant improvement, and we want to talk about what we can do to improve our club in August and September because we are in the conversation."

Price felt the continued growth of position players like Billy Hamilton, Jose Peraza, Adam Duvall and Scott Schebler, a developing young rotation led by Anthony DeSclafani and the potential luck of better health will make his club better.

"There's a lot of reasons for optimism. But if you start to buy into 'rebuild,' it really lowers the bar," Price said. "It makes it OK to have these moral victories of playing a good series against the Cubs, but losing by a run three games in a row. That's not a moral victory. A victory is winning two out of three. We have to set our sights on that type of play."

Mesoraco progressing, taking it slow early in camp By Mark Sheldon / MLB.com | @m_sheldon | February 21st, 2017 + 20 COMMENTS

GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- Through a week of workouts, catching bullpens and taking batting practice, all seems to be progressing with Reds catcher Devin Mesoraco. The plan is to bring Mesoraco along slowly, and that is working well.

In May 2016, Mesoraco had an operation to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder, then underwent a labrum surgery in July on his right hip. Back in June 2015, the labrum in his left hip was repaired.

"It's a longer spring, so there's no impetus to turn up the speed of the rehab," Reds manager Bryan Price said on Tuesday. "Right now, it's really durability and stamina we're working on. So his workload, you may not see it initially with the game work. You'll see him catching more bullpens, hitting for a longer duration. Yesterday, he hit early, and then he tracked pitches in the live batting practice group."

The initial plan for the early season is for Mesoraco to catch 50-60 percent of games in tandem with Tucker Barnhart. Mesoraco, a 2014 All-Star, has caught 19 games over the past two seasons because of injuries.

"We're trying to avoid the too much, too soon issue," Price said. "We'll just stay with the plan we have set for him, and that's to incrementally increase his workload until he's ready for games. We'll do the same thing when I meter out the innings for him."

Worth noting

• On Monday, the Reds held their first live batting practice session with their pitchers facing the hitters. A few of the young pitchers stood out, as Price roamed the practice fields to watch.

"I wasn't disappointed with anybody," Price said. "Rookie Davis had a nice day, as well as Amir [Garrett]. I'm bouncing back and forth, so I'm catching three, four and maybe five minutes per pitcher if I was lucky."

• Two other pitchers Price noticed were relievers Barrett Astin and Kevin Shackelford. Both were acquired in an Aug. 31, 2014, trade that sent veteran reliever Jonathan Broxton to the Brewers.

Astin is on the 40-man roster, and posted a 2.26 ERA last season at Double-A Pensacola. Shackelford, a non-roster invite, had a 2.03 ERA last season in 35 games between Pensacola and Triple-A Louisville.

"We weren't pulling out of their Top 20 Prospects list, really, when we made that deal," Price said. "Last year, with both Shackleford and Astin throwing the ball so well, I think it really kind of highlighted that these are the two guys we got in the trade for Jonathan back in '14, which was such a painful deal to make at the time. It's nice to see that it looks like we've gotten a nice return."

CINCINNATI ENQUIRER Reds paying more attention to pitch-framing Zach Buchanan , [email protected] Published 3:47 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2017 | Updated 14 hours ago

GOODYEAR, Ariz. – Over the offseason, Tucker Barnhart studied film. Not of the Cincinnati Reds pitchers he’d be catching, nor of opposing pitchers he’d be facing. He watched his fellow catchers.

Barnhart had the front office cut up video of him of several of the league’s top defensive catchers. He watched perennial MVP candidates Yadier Molina and Buster Posey. He watched former Reds farmhand Yasmani Grandal, and he watched Venezuelan backstops Miguel Montero and Francisco Cervelli.

To the untrained eye, they do things differently. Posey has a squared stance, both toes pointed toward the mound. Montero loves to catch with one knee hovering above the dirt. Cervelli staggers his stance, much like Barnhart does.

But all of them had one trait in common – they were good pitch-framers. After a successful year in the majors as a starting catcher, with a solid defensive reputation to hang his hat on, Barnhart was looking to take the next step. The 26-year-old wanted to be a better framer.

“The less movement there is back there, the better you make the pitch look,” Barnhart said. “The better you make the pitch look, the easier it is for the umpire to call a strike.”

Pitch-framing has become a hot topic across baseball in recent years, with new technologies creating new ways to measure what was previously unquantifiable. Thanks to Pitch f/x, hard data can be found on which catchers fool umpires most often.

Barnhart is not one of them, nor is starter-if-healthy Devin Mesoraco. Last year, Barnhart was rated as costing the Reds 4.4 runs because of his framing, according to Baseball Prospectus. In about a month of action before his surgery, Mesoraco cost the team 1.9 runs.

Both recognize the importance of improving the skill, but neither believes pitch-framing is the end-all when it comes to catching. As an organization, the Reds are right there with them. The franchise has its own proprietary versions of pitch-framing statistics, and pulls pitch data from the major leagues down to rookie league.

But the Reds don’t make pitch-framing the top priority when evaluating catchers. It’s a piece of a much greater whole. Sam Grossman, the team’s assistant general manager who runs the analytics department, figures the Reds fall somewhere in the middle of the league when it comes to emphasis on framing.

“It sort of goes into our overall value equation,” Grossman said. “It’s there. But we’re also trying to think about how a guy interacts with the pitchers, how he helps guys get through games and innings.”

To Grossman, receiving and framing are separate skills, and is unsure that the latter can be taught. To Corky Miller, former Reds catcher and the team’s roving catching instructor, you can’t talk about one without the other. A catcher who is a poor receiver has no prayer of ever being a good framer.

Miller is wary of the run values assigned to catchers for their framing skills – ironically, he consistently rated highly by those same metrics as a player, despite limited playing time – but recognizes how the new technology can help a catcher get better. Like hitters, any catcher in the organization can look at a zone profile and learn on what pitches and in what locations they have trouble getting strikes compared to other catchers. Then Miller can help them get better.

As far as teaching framing specifically, Miller prefers to let that wait until catchers have built a solid defensive foundation. It’s why Barnhart feels it’s something he can attack this spring, and why Mesoraco feels it’s something he can’t touch just yet after two full years without regular catching time due to his surgeries.

“I’m just trying to get back into a stance. I’m trying to figure that out,” Mesoraco said. “At this point, I can’t really work on it. I’m on a limited number of reps. But it’s something that I’m definitely curious about.”

But Barnhart has built that defensive foundation, and now has set upon improving his framing deficiencies. The basics are easy to communicate – beat the ball to the spot, catch the outside edge of the ball – but harder to incorporate. In particular, Barnhart is working on framing the low pitch.

He used to try that by pulling the ball softly up, almost like he was trying to catch an egg instead. But umpires notice that pulling motion, however subtle, and don’t like being tricked. It wasn’t unusual for an ump to tell Barnhart to cut it out.

But Miller offered another method – place the glove slightly under the ball’s trajectory, and push out and up when it’s caught. It gives the impression of a firmly caught, surefire strike. It may only work once in a blue moon, and the batter may hit a homer on the next pitch, it but adds up over time.

“It’s something that can obviously change an at-bat, which in turn affects the game,” he said. “That one at-bat may affect whether you win or lose.”

Reds notes: Bronson Arroyo throws live batting practice C. Trent Rosecrans , [email protected] Published 4:00 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2017 | Updated 18 hours ago

GOODYEAR, Ariz. – At least one veteran was hoping he’d get to see Bronson Arroyo in Tuesday’s live batting practice because he knew what he’d be getting – a steady diet of fastballs down the middle.

All 40 of Arroyo’s pitches to Aristides Aquino, Gabriel Guerrero and Brandon Dixon were fastballs. The intent of Arroyo’s batting practice isn’t to judge himself against hitters, but against himself – how his arm feels, how the tempo feels and more than anything, an endurance test. By those measures, Arroyo said he felt he passed with flying colors.

“I threw the ball about where I wanted to most of the time. As long as it’s pain-free, I’m good,” Arroyo said. “As far as the ball coming out, it’s kind of a subjective word. It’s not going to be coming out like compared to everybody else in this camp. It don’t mean you can’t get outs with it.”

Arroyo has another live batting practice session before he’ll pitch in an exhibition game. The Reds open Cactus League play Friday against the Giants.

“You get out in those games, that’s when the intensity goes up much more,” he said. “There’s more adrenaline because people are watching, your stride length goes out a little bit. That’s really the test I need to see if my arm is going to handle it. And then if your arm can handle it, can you get somebody out? There’s a progression there.”

Because of his history with the Reds and manager Bryan Price, Arroyo has the luxury of not having to impress anyone. Price said he knows what he’s going to get from Arroyo in that setting and won’t be quick to make any judgments based on a batting practice session against minor leaguers or even early spring results.

“As many years as he's been in the professional game, he's built a routine that's worked for him,” Price said. “I anticipate he'll utilize a similar routine.”

Elizalde added to Team Mexico

Outfielder Sebastian Elizalde has been added to Mexico’s World Baseball Classic roster, bringing the Reds’ number of participants to four.

In addition to Elizalde, second baseman Dilson Herrera (Colombia), reliever Jumbo Diaz (Dominican Republic) and catcher Shawn Zarraga (the Netherlands) will play in the WBC. Pitcher Scott Feldman is in Israel’s pitching pool, but he said he will not play, even if asked.

Elizalde, 25, hit .297/.324/.387 with five home runs and 54 RBI for Double-A Pensacola last season.

Mexico starts WBC play March 9 in Jalisco, Mexico, against Italy. Pool D also includes Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

Fansided: Reds can win 2017 World Series if ... Dave Clark , [email protected] 3:14 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2017

Fansided gave one reason each Major League Baseball team can win the 2017 World Series, and Joshua Sadlock wrote that the Cincinnati Reds can do it if first baseman Joey Votto bats .400.

MLB Network recently ranked Votto 10th in its Top 100 Players Right Now.