July 31, 2006
Germano, We Hardly Knew Ya; Welcome Cormier
By
Amanda
Posted at 10:00 am
After making the start on Saturday against the Milwaukee Brewers, Justin Germano was optioned back to Louisville. Brandon Watson was called up to take his place. It seemed sort of odd since Germano had performed relatively well (better than Joe Mays, anyway) but Narron said that had been the plan all along.
I guess the rest of the plan unfolds today as Germano has been traded to the Phillies for 39-year old left-hander Rheal Cormier (thx Marc). You'd think we'd have had enough with 39-year old lefties but apparently you can never have enough.
Cormier brings a 2-2 record with a 1.59 ERA this year, down from his 4.01 career average. Hope he can keep it going.
He was hitting 91-93mph on the clock yesterday and his offspeed was down at like 77mph… he was baffling hitters… he struck out the side in the second and third innings. I can’t believe you are choosing this guy as your goat… he is the savior of this team. And it is totally understandable that he would be distraught by a trade that came out of nowhere…leaving a city at the top of its peak competitive level for a city that hasn’t made a blip on the baseball map in 26 years. He signed a 3 year bargain contract with the RedSox because he enjoyed playing for them, not because that was his true market value which is looking a lot higher than that. from what I can tell he is taking to Cincinnati very well and doing his best to fit in… he just got featured in the Kentucky Enquirer… he did a sports broadcast for channel 4, etc.
Sorry, I meant to say 16 years not 26 years!
I know: he can walk on water and spin gold out of straw. What the hell was I thinking??
I should also point out that there has been no indication that Arroyo requested Ross as his personal catcher. Similiarly Valentin catches everytime Elizardo is on the mound — does this mean the rookie pitcher is fussy about his battery mate also? I think it is just Narron’s way of keeping them all in the cycle in a predictable manner. Valentin is useful as a pinch hitter and can also provide depth at 1B so carrying 3 catchers is perfectly understandable — and Ross apparently calls a good game and does have 3 home runs. This just seems like a biased sour grapes attack based on the fact that Arroyo didn’t do his interview with you. I certainly sympathize that you received shoddy treatment, but as a fan I also realize that these players have tremendous demands on their time and you also have to consider that he is in the process of moving his family and adjusting to a new life.
Hello? I just said you were right and that I was a fool. Can you stop rubbing it in please??
Oh, I thought you were being sarcastic. Sorry!
Wow, I didn’t see that one coming at all. I wish Germano all the luck in the world, he seemed to have some decent ability. At the same time I hope Cormier can help us out.
Welcome Johnny! Always nice to see a new commenter.
I guess we could have figured that something was up when Germano was sent back down so abruptly. Germano is 23 and wasn’t awful on Saturday; he potentially could have helped the team for a while to come. I hope this Cormier character turns out to be worth the price.
Thanks for the welcome, just found your site a week or two ago. Like all the other moves made recently, only time will tell if this helps the team.
This one also has me baffled. This amounts to getting Chris Hammond back.
Kriv-dawg is running out of time to make that next move that makes these two make perfect sense. Of course, he has a history of not dropping that other shoe all season.
O’Krivsky is an assbag.
Now wait a minute, folks.
They needed bullpen help and picked up a guy with a sub-2 ERA, and yes, they had to give up on a young guy. What’d you want, them to pickup Barry Zito for Watson, LaRue, and the leftover Lopez bobbleheads?
Last time I checked the Reds didn’t have good success on young guys with funky deliveries. Scott Williamson, Ryan Wagner, etc. Reports on Redszone say Ward had control issues too.
“But what about the future?” Folks, we waited on the future since 1999. This is the future.
[quote]O’Krivsky is an assbag.[/quote]I believe you’ve referred to him as such before, Geki. For something more constructive, here’s a useful assbag.
[img]http://www.b0g.org/wsnm/uploads/photoshop/depends.jpg[/img]
This amounts to getting Chris Hammond back?
Check the ERAs of both players please.
Well, ERA is far from being the best way to measure a pitcher’s effectiveness, especially for relief pitchers. But if you insist, OK…
<KC2HMZ checks baseball-reference.com, clears his throat, and continues undaunted, reporting the following results…>
Looking at career stats in order to avoid being misled by the (relatively) small sample size of using the stats from half a season, we find:
Chris Hammond’s career ERA in 13 seasons: 4.0685
Rheal Cormier’s career ERA in 14 seasons: 4.0823
Furthermore:
Hammond’s career ERA+ = 101
Cormier’s career ERA+ = 102
Oddly enough (additional evidence to back up my initial evaluation of the trade, discovered while following your advice to check their ERA stats), Baseball Reference lists each of these guys as the other’s “most similar pitcher” using the similarity scores concept introduced by Bill James some 15-plus years ago.
Now, not to change the subject, but Jerry Narron recently made the comment that he’d have loved to start the season with the bullpen the Reds have now. I find that interesting. At the start of 2006 you’d tend to look back at their 2005 stats. So, I just did and found that Hammond’s 2005 ERA was 3.84, and his WHIP was 1.108. Cormier’s 2005 ERA was 5.89 and his WHIP was 1.521. Which of the two would *you* have expected to be more effective coming into the 2006 season, based on those stats?
Finally, some additional food for thought as far as the small sample results of 2006 are concerned:
Hammond: 23 strikeouts, 5 walks in 28.2 IP.
Cormier: 13 strikeouts, 13 walks in 34 IP.
(Courtesy of the sortable player stats on MLB.com)
Now, obviously Cormier has had a much better 2006 with the Phillies so far than Hammond had while he was with the Reds. I’m just crossing my fingers that the bottom doesn’t fall out on Cormier’s season. After all, this is a guy who allowed the NL to hit .293 with a .783 OPS when pitching away from the (relatively) friendly confines of Citizens Bank Park, which is listed on ESPN as being 7th in the NL (by park factor) as opposed to GABP’s 2nd in the NL (as a hitters’ park). At CBP his numbers were .161/.510, so I’m holding my breath when Narron puts him in the game.
Good to see Cormier come in with the bases loaded and two outs and promptly walk in a run then give up a 3-run double. Maybe somebody should tell Wayne that picking up shitty pitchers isn’t going to improve the bullpen.