February 11, 2025 • 16 mins
Gordon Wittenmyer of Cincinnati.com joined us from Goodyear to discuss a whole slew of Reds-related issues as spring training begins.
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Podcasts of The Mo Egger Radio Show are a service of Longnecks Sports Grill.
Listen to the show live weekday afternoons 3:00 - 6:00 on ESPN1530.
Listen Live: ESPN1530.com/listen
Get more: https://linktr.ee/MoEgger
Follow on X: @MoEgger
Instagram too: @MoEgger
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
College entered this nationwide keyword on our website. Green that's greed.
Enter it now. You found Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen Thirty's.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Right, it's a four oh four of This is ESPN
fifteen thirty on Moweger. Thank you so much for joining us.
We're done early UK basketball at five thirty Wildcats taken
on Tennessee. So you and I between now and then
and our friend Gordon Wittmeier, the Cincinnati Inquirer Cincinnati dot
com standing by Reds are in Goodyear. Pictures and catchers
have reported physicals today. Reds are still signing guys, including
(00:35):
another reliever, Scott Barlow, who comes over on a on
a one year contract, two and a half million dollar deal,
a two and a half million dollars. He is a
former closer. Gordon has a piece up right now Cincinnati
dot com about this and what it might mean for
the incumbent closer, Alexis Ts. Let's bring in Gordon now
from beautiful Goodyear. It's snowing out here. What's the weather
(00:57):
out there at Gordon?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh my gosh, you don't want to know. It's yeah,
it's about it's pushing seventy degrees and not a cloud
in the sky, delightful.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, I'm happy for you and happy we get your
dispatches from Goodyear, and happy that you've been nice enough
to give us a few minutes. Is there going to
be like a competition to be the closer over the
next six seven weeks?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Look, the simple way to put this is it's Alexis
d As his job to lose. A year ago, he
came in and the feeling was that maybe he felt,
I don't know if entitled is too strong of a
word coming off the All Stars, that maybe he wasn't
as prepared as he should have been. And we saw
(01:41):
him struggle often last year, not always in closing situations
or safe situations, but anytime they needed him to keep
a game close close when it was tied, or maybe
one run the wrong way or something, he struggled. And
so they brought in some options this year. And if
(02:03):
that lights a fire under his butt, then that's not
a bad thing. That's the way they look at it.
And if he comes in and supposedly he's in great
shape coming in this time around, if he comes in
and does what he did the first half of twenty
twenty three and when he was a rookie in twenty
twenty two. Then you've got yourself an All Star looking closer.
(02:23):
And then you've got two guys like Taylor Rodgers and
Scott Barlow who also have experienced closing games, who can
be the guy when Alexis Diez is maybe gas a
little bit after maybe three days in a row or
three out of four days or something like that. You
got somebody like that. Plus you've got guys that can
just handle the hotspots lad in games, and maybe you're
(02:45):
in better shape than you were coming in last year.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, no, it feels like that's the case. That was
one of my questions as the offseason started to unfold,
and they've addressed it here late top to bottom. Do
they have the potential to have a pretty good bullpen?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I think so, you know, looking at it, they've got
experienced guys. You know, Brent Souter is another one. Sam Maul,
we saw what he could do, Emil Pagan. They've got
these guys that are experienced veterans who have done it before,
some of them in the playoffs even and it's it's
(03:19):
a little bit different feel than it was either of
the last two years, I mean two years ago. You
had a bunch of basically cast offs that overperformed, and
then last year a lot of those guys were back
and they were Okay. I think this has the potential
for being maybe a higher floor and a higher ceiling.
(03:44):
So I guess that's the definition of being better, right.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, it's been a busy last couple of weeks. The
big headline move was still Terry Francona. You wrote this
weekend about spending some time with him in Tucson, a
very good piece. Terry Francona's baseball bona fides are impeccable,
and there's still so much excitement for the fact that
the Reds were able to lure him out of retirement.
(04:09):
Give me one or two takeaways from spending time with
him just during the off season.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, I think that this guy is so relatable to people,
And this is this is what I've been told from
people that have been close to him over the years,
worked with him and for him. He's so relatable to
so many kinds of people. And I think that's just
because he's he's one of those, uh, one of those
(04:35):
people that's just so comfortable in his own skin. He
is just who he is. And you know he's he's
not going to b s yet. Uh you know, and
he's not. And at the same time, if you play
for him and if you work hard for him, he's
also not going to bury you. So he's just a
(04:56):
He has a natural way about him that all the
best manager in any walk of business path is the
way they deal with people. He's extremely gifted at that.
He's really good at that, and I think that's something
that's going to translate this year with this club. So
that's my biggest takeaway is just seeing that up close,
(05:20):
with having a chance to spend a couple of hours
with him one on one, and all of a sudden,
all these things that people talked about that I hadn't
seen firsthand, I started to understand what they meant. And
I do think it's going to be a different here.
This guy has won everywhere he's been with different kinds
of tea, well except Philly the first time around. But
(05:42):
he had two entirely different teams in Boston and Cleveland,
two entirely different cultures sports markets, and had success, had
some I would argue that he came away from each
of those places as that franchise is a manager in history.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Gordon Wittmeyer of The Inquirer and Cincinnati dot Com from
Goodyear at the end of the year last season, when
the starting pitching fell apart and they were deploying relievers
to start a whole lot of games, Ret Louder shined,
and admittedly during a period of time where maybe people
weren't paying us close of attention, and I think a
(06:23):
lot of us walked away from what he did in
September and said, there you go. That guy should be
in the starting rotation in twenty twenty five. It feels
like the battle for him to make that happen in
spring training this year is an uphill one. How much
of an uphill battle is it?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Well, you're referring to what we found out today that
he's dealing with the group. What happened. I talked to
him a little bit after we were told this. He
about a month ago. He said he just wasn't recovering right.
He was throwing bullpens and everything seemed to be going fine.
He just wasn't recovering perfectly. And so you know, he
(06:59):
told him about it. I've got an MRI, no structural damage.
They shut him down for a few weeks. He's ramping
back up starting this week, but they're not going to
rush him. Kids only twenty two years old, and they've
got five other starters in camp who are healthy right now.
Wade Miley's also around some figures to be in the
(07:21):
mix of things maybe by mid May, so they're not
feeling rushed with him. I don't think they. I don't
think anybody's viewing it at this point as anything serious.
But it could be something that maybe just because of
how cautious they're playing, it could wind up putting him
on the ten day or the fifteen day il when
(07:45):
the season opens. That could happen. And there's also the
possibility that he could be healthy when the season opens too.
It's one of those things. They're just playing it super
cautious right now because he is so young. And to
your point, I was one of those people that this
guy's got to be in the rotation coming in this year.
(08:06):
He had won seventeen ERA and six starts in his
debut last year, and you know, just all he did
was back up everything they already thought about him as
a number seven overall draft pick. So I think they
still think all that. I think I think if this
team is good this year, he's going to be a
part of why they are. It just may not happen
(08:29):
out of the shoot, all right.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So with Rhett, it's just elbows soreness, but an MRI
that showed no real major structural issue. So I shouldn't
lose sleep over it yet, is what you're.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Saying, right And he says right now, he says, I
feel great. This is what That's a direct quote from
him today, and he's ready to He's ready to go
for what it's worth.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I will take that for what it's worth very much.
So at things at the end of spring training last
year started to devolve with injuries and their death got
tested early once the real games began and they struggled. Well, yeah,
exactly right, And so they were cycling through this endless
line of They brought Mike Ford back, and we had
Connor Caple and Jacob Hurdab. He's nothing against those players individually,
(09:16):
but I've wondered all off season are they going to
be better prepared for when death gets tested? Have they
accomplished that this offseason? And what has to happen in
the coming weeks to ensure that when injuries start to
take hold. This team is better prepared.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Well, they can still only withstand so many injuries. But
I do think that they've done a much better job
of creating depth. When I say that, I mean you
look at last year and until Noelle Martee got popped
for steroids in March, he looked like, well, he's going
to come right in and play third base, and Jamer
(09:56):
Candelario comes in from the outside of the organization and
he'll play some I heard Hurston DH and you got
Kristin and Carnacion who broke in in twenty three, who's
gonna start? At first, it looked like and McClain. You know,
mccraine was going to be McLain and Ellie were going
to be your middle infield. Two guys that broke in
in twenty three. You were counting on guys that debuted
(10:17):
in twenty three. And then of course McClain gets hurt,
and Karnacion Stram doesn't perform. Marte steroids and then he
doesn't perform. They weren't. Not only did they did those
guys not represent depth. They were supposed to be your starters,
and they didn't produce enough or play enough to even
(10:38):
be considered good enough to be debt. This year, they've
gone out and got guys like Gavin Luxon and Austin Hayes,
backup catcher Jose Travino, who just got done playing in
a World Series along with lux and was an All Star.
Hayes was an All Star. They've built themselves up more
(11:02):
of a floor. I believe when it comes to the lineup,
you still don't have that you know, or you've got
the high ceiling, but you still don't have, you know,
the you know, three or four MVP candidates or anything
like that, or somebody that's gonna win a batting title
for you. But you've got more guys that you think
(11:24):
you can count on for minimal competitive big league production.
And if you get the pitching that you think you
have got, if you both tend performs like you think
you've prepared it to and you catch the ball even
a little bit better across the board, then when you
do score some runs, they're all going to matter. And
(11:45):
that's kind of where they've how they've built the team.
I do think there's more depth because of that. Some
of those guys that were in the starting lineup last
year on opening Day probably aren't going to be on
the roster on opening day. That's that's the difference.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, and you mentioned something that I and I'll let
you run after this that I I don't know how
much Spring is going to give us an answer, But
I've been asking all off season, well they catch and
throw the ball better, will they? And it's errors, but
it's also throwing the ball to the right base. It's
it's not you know, it's it's giving away outs when
an error is not a sign like this team at
(12:23):
times last year drove me out of my mind. Defensively,
I'm really interested to see how much that improves, because
it's badly needed.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
I agree with you that. I mean that was probably
the single biggest flaw that team had, you know, just
mistakes in general, because mistakes on the base pass too.
I think the mistakes on the base pass can get
cleaned up because I think they have talent in that,
in that regard and that and that's just keeping your
head in the game. I don't know how much better
they're going to be defensively. Austin Hay should help a
(12:55):
little bit. Prevenia should help behind the plate when he plays,
McClain should help just by showing up whatever. But McClain
was their best player in twenty three when he was there,
even as a rookie. But that was only three months,
basically three months in the big leagues, So we don't know.
Is he gonna hit, is he gonna is he gonna
struggle at all, as the league addressed to him as
(13:17):
he comes back. I don't know. But if he just
shows up, he's going to improve them defensively. That I
think we can count on if he's there. So between
that and TJ. Friedl being back in center field, assuming
that he stays healthy, which he was he had a
hard time doing much the last season, that's gonna improve things.
They got a Rule five kid who give I give
a chance to make the roster only because he's a
(13:40):
plus defender. Never plays a day in the big leagues.
I don't even remember his name, but because he's a defender,
he's gonna be in play for that roster if he's
if he can compete at all as a hitter, if
he's just not overwhelmed as a hitter. So these are
the things that you're looking at for defense. The improvement
(14:01):
Terry Frank Coda can only do so much that way,
no matter what his credentials are, and so I do
think that's still gonna be a potential weakness for this
team no matter what the roster looks like on opening day.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Cooper Bowman, I believe is the young man you're talking about. Yes, Gordon,
I can't thank you. That's right.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I remember him because you wrote about him when they
acquired him. So you know, I bookmark stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Summer right about Rule five.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Guys, there's your byline from December the eleventh, So there's
an imposter. I know you have a lot going on.
I appreciate you carving out some time. Thanks so much.
Enjoy the nice weather and spring training, Gordon, thank you,
thanks for having me. You got it. Gordon Wittmeyer covering
the Reds for The Inquirer and Cincinnati dot Com. He
(14:51):
is in good year Reds pitchers and catchers. They're doing
physicals today. I had the Red Louder News. I saw
it just before we put Gordon on the air. So
he is, and look man, you are probably you are,
probably just like me. I saw it initially from Mark
Sheldon of MLB dot Com. He put it on a
social media that he is dealing with some elbow soreness
(15:13):
and is being limited with his program. Mri showed no
structural issues, according to Nick Krawl, and like, you see that, right,
and it just it evokes, it evokes so many memories
of like, I don't know, I'm not even gonna make
a direct comparison because there are so many of a
guy in spring training. It's just it's no big deal,
(15:35):
it's fine. He just he's gonna be limited. He feels fine,
and then it turns out that like he never pitches.
So we'll be paying very close attention to this. It
is interesting. Rehet Louder at the end of the season
last year was really really good, and it did feel
like even prior to this he had a little bit
of an uphill battle to make the starting rotation. He
is one of their prizes. He is one of their
(15:58):
absolute organizational gem and so this is one of the
news stories of spring training. Rent loud or how and again,
he may be totally fine, but I mean, come on, man,
if you're a Reds fan, if you're a baseball fan,
but I think, frankly specifically, if you're a Reds fan,
how many times has the it's okay, this is no
(16:19):
big deal thing in spring training turned out to be
something that's a little bit more significant. I'm certainly not
rushing to conclusions here, but we've been burned before, so
we'll be paying attention to this again. Thanks to A.
Gordon Whittmeyer for joining us Reds working out tomorrow. First
Cactus League games are a week from Saturday. It's twenty
minutes after four o'clock. My name is Moggar. We have
(16:41):
a lot to get to between now and five point thirty.
We're beyond calling them must wins. We'll call it a
prove it game tonight. Next Cincinnati's
College entered this nationwide keyword on our website. Green that's greed.
Enter it now. You found Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen Thirty's.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Right, it's a four oh four of This is ESPN
fifteen thirty on Moweger. Thank you so much for joining us.
We're done early UK basketball at five thirty Wildcats taken
on Tennessee. So you and I between now and then
and our friend Gordon Wittmeier, the Cincinnati Inquirer Cincinnati dot
com standing by Reds are in Goodyear. Pictures and catchers
have reported physicals today. Reds are still signing guys, including
(00:35):
another reliever, Scott Barlow, who comes over on a on
a one year contract, two and a half million dollar deal,
a two and a half million dollars. He is a
former closer. Gordon has a piece up right now Cincinnati
dot com about this and what it might mean for
the incumbent closer, Alexis Ts. Let's bring in Gordon now
from beautiful Goodyear. It's snowing out here. What's the weather
(00:57):
out there at Gordon?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh my gosh, you don't want to know. It's yeah,
it's about it's pushing seventy degrees and not a cloud
in the sky, delightful.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, I'm happy for you and happy we get your
dispatches from Goodyear, and happy that you've been nice enough
to give us a few minutes. Is there going to
be like a competition to be the closer over the
next six seven weeks?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Look, the simple way to put this is it's Alexis
d As his job to lose. A year ago, he
came in and the feeling was that maybe he felt,
I don't know if entitled is too strong of a
word coming off the All Stars, that maybe he wasn't
as prepared as he should have been. And we saw
(01:41):
him struggle often last year, not always in closing situations
or safe situations, but anytime they needed him to keep
a game close close when it was tied, or maybe
one run the wrong way or something, he struggled. And
so they brought in some options this year. And if
(02:03):
that lights a fire under his butt, then that's not
a bad thing. That's the way they look at it.
And if he comes in and supposedly he's in great
shape coming in this time around, if he comes in
and does what he did the first half of twenty
twenty three and when he was a rookie in twenty
twenty two. Then you've got yourself an All Star looking closer.
(02:23):
And then you've got two guys like Taylor Rodgers and
Scott Barlow who also have experienced closing games, who can
be the guy when Alexis Diez is maybe gas a
little bit after maybe three days in a row or
three out of four days or something like that. You
got somebody like that. Plus you've got guys that can
just handle the hotspots lad in games, and maybe you're
(02:45):
in better shape than you were coming in last year.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, no, it feels like that's the case. That was
one of my questions as the offseason started to unfold,
and they've addressed it here late top to bottom. Do
they have the potential to have a pretty good bullpen?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I think so, you know, looking at it, they've got
experienced guys. You know, Brent Souter is another one. Sam Maul,
we saw what he could do, Emil Pagan. They've got
these guys that are experienced veterans who have done it before,
some of them in the playoffs even and it's it's
(03:19):
a little bit different feel than it was either of
the last two years, I mean two years ago. You
had a bunch of basically cast offs that overperformed, and
then last year a lot of those guys were back
and they were Okay. I think this has the potential
for being maybe a higher floor and a higher ceiling.
(03:44):
So I guess that's the definition of being better, right.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, it's been a busy last couple of weeks. The
big headline move was still Terry Francona. You wrote this
weekend about spending some time with him in Tucson, a
very good piece. Terry Francona's baseball bona fides are impeccable,
and there's still so much excitement for the fact that
the Reds were able to lure him out of retirement.
(04:09):
Give me one or two takeaways from spending time with
him just during the off season.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, I think that this guy is so relatable to people,
And this is this is what I've been told from
people that have been close to him over the years,
worked with him and for him. He's so relatable to
so many kinds of people. And I think that's just
because he's he's one of those, uh, one of those
(04:35):
people that's just so comfortable in his own skin. He
is just who he is. And you know he's he's
not going to b s yet. Uh you know, and
he's not. And at the same time, if you play
for him and if you work hard for him, he's
also not going to bury you. So he's just a
(04:56):
He has a natural way about him that all the
best manager in any walk of business path is the
way they deal with people. He's extremely gifted at that.
He's really good at that, and I think that's something
that's going to translate this year with this club. So
that's my biggest takeaway is just seeing that up close,
(05:20):
with having a chance to spend a couple of hours
with him one on one, and all of a sudden,
all these things that people talked about that I hadn't
seen firsthand, I started to understand what they meant. And
I do think it's going to be a different here.
This guy has won everywhere he's been with different kinds
of tea, well except Philly the first time around. But
(05:42):
he had two entirely different teams in Boston and Cleveland,
two entirely different cultures sports markets, and had success, had
some I would argue that he came away from each
of those places as that franchise is a manager in history.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Gordon Wittmeyer of The Inquirer and Cincinnati dot Com from
Goodyear at the end of the year last season, when
the starting pitching fell apart and they were deploying relievers
to start a whole lot of games, Ret Louder shined,
and admittedly during a period of time where maybe people
weren't paying us close of attention, and I think a
(06:23):
lot of us walked away from what he did in
September and said, there you go. That guy should be
in the starting rotation in twenty twenty five. It feels
like the battle for him to make that happen in
spring training this year is an uphill one. How much
of an uphill battle is it?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Well, you're referring to what we found out today that
he's dealing with the group. What happened. I talked to
him a little bit after we were told this. He
about a month ago. He said he just wasn't recovering right.
He was throwing bullpens and everything seemed to be going fine.
He just wasn't recovering perfectly. And so you know, he
(06:59):
told him about it. I've got an MRI, no structural damage.
They shut him down for a few weeks. He's ramping
back up starting this week, but they're not going to
rush him. Kids only twenty two years old, and they've
got five other starters in camp who are healthy right now.
Wade Miley's also around some figures to be in the
(07:21):
mix of things maybe by mid May, so they're not
feeling rushed with him. I don't think they. I don't
think anybody's viewing it at this point as anything serious.
But it could be something that maybe just because of
how cautious they're playing, it could wind up putting him
on the ten day or the fifteen day il when
(07:45):
the season opens. That could happen. And there's also the
possibility that he could be healthy when the season opens too.
It's one of those things. They're just playing it super
cautious right now because he is so young. And to
your point, I was one of those people that this
guy's got to be in the rotation coming in this year.
(08:06):
He had won seventeen ERA and six starts in his
debut last year, and you know, just all he did
was back up everything they already thought about him as
a number seven overall draft pick. So I think they
still think all that. I think I think if this
team is good this year, he's going to be a
part of why they are. It just may not happen
(08:29):
out of the shoot, all right.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So with Rhett, it's just elbows soreness, but an MRI
that showed no real major structural issue. So I shouldn't
lose sleep over it yet, is what you're.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Saying, right And he says right now, he says, I
feel great. This is what That's a direct quote from
him today, and he's ready to He's ready to go
for what it's worth.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I will take that for what it's worth very much.
So at things at the end of spring training last
year started to devolve with injuries and their death got
tested early once the real games began and they struggled. Well, yeah,
exactly right, And so they were cycling through this endless
line of They brought Mike Ford back, and we had
Connor Caple and Jacob Hurdab. He's nothing against those players individually,
(09:16):
but I've wondered all off season are they going to
be better prepared for when death gets tested? Have they
accomplished that this offseason? And what has to happen in
the coming weeks to ensure that when injuries start to
take hold. This team is better prepared.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Well, they can still only withstand so many injuries. But
I do think that they've done a much better job
of creating depth. When I say that, I mean you
look at last year and until Noelle Martee got popped
for steroids in March, he looked like, well, he's going
to come right in and play third base, and Jamer
(09:56):
Candelario comes in from the outside of the organization and
he'll play some I heard Hurston DH and you got
Kristin and Carnacion who broke in in twenty three, who's
gonna start? At first, it looked like and McClain. You know,
mccraine was going to be McLain and Ellie were going
to be your middle infield. Two guys that broke in
in twenty three. You were counting on guys that debuted
(10:17):
in twenty three. And then of course McClain gets hurt,
and Karnacion Stram doesn't perform. Marte steroids and then he
doesn't perform. They weren't. Not only did they did those
guys not represent depth. They were supposed to be your starters,
and they didn't produce enough or play enough to even
(10:38):
be considered good enough to be debt. This year, they've
gone out and got guys like Gavin Luxon and Austin Hayes,
backup catcher Jose Travino, who just got done playing in
a World Series along with lux and was an All Star.
Hayes was an All Star. They've built themselves up more
(11:02):
of a floor. I believe when it comes to the lineup,
you still don't have that you know, or you've got
the high ceiling, but you still don't have, you know,
the you know, three or four MVP candidates or anything
like that, or somebody that's gonna win a batting title
for you. But you've got more guys that you think
(11:24):
you can count on for minimal competitive big league production.
And if you get the pitching that you think you
have got, if you both tend performs like you think
you've prepared it to and you catch the ball even
a little bit better across the board, then when you
do score some runs, they're all going to matter. And
(11:45):
that's kind of where they've how they've built the team.
I do think there's more depth because of that. Some
of those guys that were in the starting lineup last
year on opening Day probably aren't going to be on
the roster on opening day. That's that's the difference.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, and you mentioned something that I and I'll let
you run after this that I I don't know how
much Spring is going to give us an answer, But
I've been asking all off season, well they catch and
throw the ball better, will they? And it's errors, but
it's also throwing the ball to the right base. It's
it's not you know, it's it's giving away outs when
an error is not a sign like this team at
(12:23):
times last year drove me out of my mind. Defensively,
I'm really interested to see how much that improves, because
it's badly needed.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
I agree with you that. I mean that was probably
the single biggest flaw that team had, you know, just
mistakes in general, because mistakes on the base pass too.
I think the mistakes on the base pass can get
cleaned up because I think they have talent in that,
in that regard and that and that's just keeping your
head in the game. I don't know how much better
they're going to be defensively. Austin Hay should help a
(12:55):
little bit. Prevenia should help behind the plate when he plays,
McClain should help just by showing up whatever. But McClain
was their best player in twenty three when he was there,
even as a rookie. But that was only three months,
basically three months in the big leagues, So we don't know.
Is he gonna hit, is he gonna is he gonna
struggle at all, as the league addressed to him as
(13:17):
he comes back. I don't know. But if he just
shows up, he's going to improve them defensively. That I
think we can count on if he's there. So between
that and TJ. Friedl being back in center field, assuming
that he stays healthy, which he was he had a
hard time doing much the last season, that's gonna improve things.
They got a Rule five kid who give I give
a chance to make the roster only because he's a
(13:40):
plus defender. Never plays a day in the big leagues.
I don't even remember his name, but because he's a defender,
he's gonna be in play for that roster if he's
if he can compete at all as a hitter, if
he's just not overwhelmed as a hitter. So these are
the things that you're looking at for defense. The improvement
(14:01):
Terry Frank Coda can only do so much that way,
no matter what his credentials are, and so I do
think that's still gonna be a potential weakness for this
team no matter what the roster looks like on opening day.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Cooper Bowman, I believe is the young man you're talking about. Yes, Gordon,
I can't thank you. That's right.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I remember him because you wrote about him when they
acquired him. So you know, I bookmark stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Summer right about Rule five.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Guys, there's your byline from December the eleventh, So there's
an imposter. I know you have a lot going on.
I appreciate you carving out some time. Thanks so much.
Enjoy the nice weather and spring training, Gordon, thank you,
thanks for having me. You got it. Gordon Wittmeyer covering
the Reds for The Inquirer and Cincinnati dot Com. He
(14:51):
is in good year Reds pitchers and catchers. They're doing
physicals today. I had the Red Louder News. I saw
it just before we put Gordon on the air. So
he is, and look man, you are probably you are,
probably just like me. I saw it initially from Mark
Sheldon of MLB dot Com. He put it on a
social media that he is dealing with some elbow soreness
(15:13):
and is being limited with his program. Mri showed no
structural issues, according to Nick Krawl, and like, you see that, right,
and it just it evokes, it evokes so many memories
of like, I don't know, I'm not even gonna make
a direct comparison because there are so many of a
guy in spring training. It's just it's no big deal,
(15:35):
it's fine. He just he's gonna be limited. He feels fine,
and then it turns out that like he never pitches.
So we'll be paying very close attention to this. It
is interesting. Rehet Louder at the end of the season
last year was really really good, and it did feel
like even prior to this he had a little bit
of an uphill battle to make the starting rotation. He
is one of their prizes. He is one of their
(15:58):
absolute organizational gem and so this is one of the
news stories of spring training. Rent loud or how and again,
he may be totally fine, but I mean, come on, man,
if you're a Reds fan, if you're a baseball fan,
but I think, frankly specifically, if you're a Reds fan,
how many times has the it's okay, this is no
(16:19):
big deal thing in spring training turned out to be
something that's a little bit more significant. I'm certainly not
rushing to conclusions here, but we've been burned before, so
we'll be paying attention to this again. Thanks to A.
Gordon Whittmeyer for joining us Reds working out tomorrow. First
Cactus League games are a week from Saturday. It's twenty
minutes after four o'clock. My name is Moggar. We have
(16:41):
a lot to get to between now and five point thirty.
We're beyond calling them must wins. We'll call it a
prove it game tonight. Next Cincinnati's
Mo Egger News
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