September 7, 2006
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Ryan Franklin
By
Amanda
Posted at 2:54 pm
I'm among the many people who are quickly losing hope for the 2006 season. Hell, maybe all hope is already all gone. Whatever.
But just because the team's in a free fall doesn't mean we shouldn't enjoy the ride. Sky-divers, bungee-jumpers, and roller-coaster-riders pay good money for this sensation. So I say, let's whoop and holler! Yee-ha!
A lot of skydivers and bungee jumpers splat, too.
The problem is, we are doomed in 2007 if Narron is still the manager. He showed a complete lack of ability at handling the bullpen. How many times do Franklin and Majewski have to choke before you stop putting them in critical situations? The definition of insanity is repeating identical actions and expecting different results. Narron is bonkers. The team gave up because they lost faith in him, IMO. We need to purge the entire coaching staff for 2007 and get proven winners.
Thing is, Narron didn’t seem to suck at the beginning of the season. Or last season. I’m not sure what’s gone wrong, but he’s definitely lost the team a statistically significant number of games lately.
He does so many things well, and I’m just not convinced that there’s anyone better available. Maybe the team could get a bullpen management specialist to call the shots in that part of the game.
Well I like to explain things from a psychological standpoint, since that was my major… and I think Narron had no pressure when he took over last year… anyone would have been a welcome change over Dave Miley… the team was underachieving so badly they could only get better with just average managing skills. Same thing at the start of 2006 since all the so-called experts predicted a 5th or 6th place finish… it was easy to motivate the boys who were much better than the media realized… but as soon as people started taking the Reds seriously the pressure was on them, the spotlight was shining on them and they choked. The bullpen was bad all year and were improperly handled all year with the one exception of Coffey in the first two months… but the offense made it less noticable. The west coast trip was basically a prolonged exposure to quality pitchers in pitching parks, and the Reds offense was not up to the challenge, and the defense and relief was bad all year so the results in hindsight were predictable (even though I was crossing my fingers and being optimistic, as were most of us I think…)
Without a doubt Hume needs to go. Whatever he is telling Narron and the pitchers isn’t working a bit. It certainoy isn’t entirely his fault, but we need a top notch bullpen coach to maximize whatever potential we have in that area and to provide Narron with better insight on who should get the call. If they want Hume to stay since he is a stand-up guy, then he can work exclusively with the starters, who have been a big pleasant surprise this year.
They also need to replace Chambliss, because our hitters get overmatched by rookies and frontline pitchers far too often. We don’t have a prayer of advancing in the playoffs even if we somehow slipped in. In my opinion, hitting coaches should be replaced frequently no matter how good a job they are doing, just to offer different perspectives to the developing players. Dunn is far too patient to begin with and with Chambliss preaching patience all the time Dunn looks clueless and slow most of the time. I want a more aggressive to work with these guys. They will always remember what Chambliss taught them, but I want additional philosophies introduced so our guys can be more flexible in their approach.
If Narron can surround himself with better coaches maybe he can focus on the areas that he excels in: motivation, keeping the clubhouse together, etc. He also needs to get in the umps faces more and protect his guys. he did that early in the year and the guys responded by winning a bunch of games. I don’t think he got ejected during that painful West Coast trip and the games I watched I saw terrible nonsensical strikezones that clearly bothered a lot of our players. If Narron doesn’t have the balls to get in the umps faces then we need someone who will, because I don’t believe we will ever get the calls, because we are always going to be a young team because of our small market salary situation.
Narron’s inability to adapt this season was very disturbing. His poor judgement of Ryan Franklin and Gary Majewski leads me to believe he ain’t the sharpest nail in the box. Sparky Anderson said in one of his bios that his best attribute was handling a bullpen. Lou Pineilla was also excellent in that area (the Nasty Boys)… not coincidentally they won world championships. If Narron can’t handle a pen we aren’t going to make it. Sure we might squeak into the playoffs, maybe even win the division with some luck, but we won’t go all the way. Unfortunately Narron got a renewed contract so we are probably stuck with him for at least 1 more year. That will be his last chance hopefully and if he can’t adapt he should be out of a job.