How do the Reds stack up in MLB at pitching development?

How good are the Cincinnati Reds at developing pitching? It’s an interesting question. It’s also one that isn’t easy to answer. There are a whole lot of things that go into developing pitching and acquiring pitching, too. With that said, someone tried to get some answers.

Lance Brozdowski, who is a player development analyst for Marquee Sports, as well as having his toes in plenty of other baseball player development and analysis waters, recently sent out a survey to 68 people who were either coaches within affiliated baseball (31), front office members in affiliated baseball (25), or “facility owners/non-MLB trainers/agents” within baseball (12). From that group he was able to get 54 responses.

The Los Angeles Dodgers were at the top of the list for having the best pitching development and acquisition with 42 votes. The Cincinnati Reds had one vote. But it’s not quite as simple as just the vote totals. Each respondent was able to vote for the top five teams they felt were the best. That’s obviously still not a good look for teams like Atlanta, Cincinnati, or Texas who only received one vote (or teams that got none). But in theory at least, a team could be the consensus #6 organization in everyone’s mind and in this voting format get no votes and appear to be “at the bottom”, but the reality would be quite different.

That, of course, is incredibly unlikely. But even so, it seems that there’s a disconnect somewhere along the lines. One could argue that the Cincinnati Reds had the best pitching staff in the entire league last year. The Reds led Major League Baseball in ERA+, which is a team’s ERA after being adjusted for all of the ballparks they pitch in throughout the year. It certainly seems strange that the team that could do that somehow only got one vote from 54 people who should know a whole lot about baseball, right? If they were so poor at developing and acquiring pitching one would think that their pitching staff would stink. That is obviously not the case here.

One of the other questions that was asked was who is the worst at pitching development and acquisition. That response rendered two votes for the Cincinnati Reds (they were somewhere in the top five for two people, but not necessarily ranked the worst from either respondent). 15 teams were included in at least three voters top five, so there are a lot of teams that rank much higher than the Reds in the “worst” category. That certainly feels more realistic based on the recent on-field results from the pitching staff.

As stated above, this is a difficult thing to answer. There are a lot of things that go into it. And some of those things are disconnected from one another, too. Development and acquisition are two very different things. Acquisition could mean you have the money to sign Tarik Skubal as a free agent next year. Not every team can do that. Does it mean those teams are bad at acquisition or just that they don’t have the capabilities to do that?

There’s also the luck factor. In today’s game pitchers get hurt. Nearly all of them. Sometimes the injuries are more serious than others, but with how pitchers both have to pitch to be successful (full effort against every batter – the days of facing the pitcher and two position players who basically hit like pitchers are over), and how teams use pitchers – guys simply don’t hold up as much as anyone would like them to. There’s certainly an argument that can be made that some teams are keeping guys a little healthier than others are, but no one seems to be keeping guys healthy as a whole.

An organization can do everything right when it comes to drafting/signing a pitcher, and then developing that guy, but then he hurts his elbow or shoulder or back and just isn’t the same after that. Is that because they didn’t acquire the right guy? Is it a “you can’t develop pitchers” problem? Or did they just find bad luck in that the guy got injured and wasn’t able to return to the guy he was in the past?

Then there’s also the “development” part of the equation. It’s easier to “develop” a Hunter Greene or a Chase Petty or a Rhett Lowder than it is to “develop” a 14th round pick who threw 91 MPH with a solid baseline of secondary pitches. If your team is overwhelmingly drafting high end pitchers in the first round instead of position players it’s probably going to look better on your “development” scorecard. Your team could actually develop quite well, but if they are starting with lower level players at the get-go, the “end result” probably won’t look as good. That’s not necessarily a “development” issue as much as it is an acquisition issue, and while the scouts and the coaching/player development staff do generally have an understanding of what the others are doing, they are still two different parts of an organization. They are not the same things and one can make the other look very good or not-so-good depending on how things work out.