As I mentioned in the recaps below, Josh Fogg was something special to behold last night: two innings, nine runs, seven hits, two walks, a home run, four doubles, and he hit a guy for flavor. No one with half a brain expected Fogg to actually, you know, be good this year, but his performance thus far has been bad even by his own standards.What to do? Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News notes that the Reds have options in the form of Homer Bailey, Matt Belisle, Justin Lehr, or even Daryl Thompson:
• Bailey is 2-1 with a 1.42 ERA in three starts at Class AAA Louisville, and his one loss was on a home run that hit atop the wall and skipped over.
• Belisle, on rehab for a sore arm, is 3-0 with a 1.09 ERA in starts at Class A Sarasota, Class AA Chattanooga and Louisville.
• Lehr is 2-0 with a 0.60 ERA in two starts at Louisville and was International League Pitcher of the Week.
• Thompson is only at Chattanooga, but he is the guy during spring training who faced the New York Yankees in Tampa and struck out the side, then faced them again and went 1-2-3. He is 2-0 for the Lookouts with a 0.51 ERA and was Southern League Pitcher of the Week.
Given that one of my cats would do better than Fogg, if I were Wayne Krivsky, I'd call up either Belisle or whichever of the two AAA guys match up best against the next opponent (confidence matters), think hard about promoting Thompson to AAA to see if he's for real, and then send Fogg out on an ice floe where he can die with dignity or, at the very least, less collateral damage.
2 comments:
At least Fogg is only making $400,000 this year and dumping him wouldn't be a big deal. I never understood why teams would sign veteran guys who would perform on the margin when they have young guys in their system who would perform just as well (or poorly) and be paid the league minimum. Of course, Fogg's only making $400,000, so this argument applies against veterans who are making millions. Just a thought.
By all acounts, Fogg was projected to be a league average pitcher with 160 IP this year. Over the past 4 years, the Reds would have killed for that - indeed, Bronson "I was the #7 starting pitcher in Boston" Arroyo has been elevated to near-ace status because of his merely above average performances. $400k for a 75% chance of league average was a great investment by the Reds even if the experiment fails because the problem with young pitching is TINSTAPP. You just never know. Sure, Bailey has a 20% chance of being Nolan Ryan, and a 30% chance of being Bob Welch, but he also has a 50% chance of being a used car salesman in 3 years.
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