Reds fan here, and I think we are going to be very competitive in the NL Central - just watch. We were 10 games under .500 even with:
1) A shitload of injuries to Griffey, Kearns, Dunn, Casey, etc.
2) Worst pitching in the majors, almost record breaking amount of homeruns given up. I think we were only a couple away from breaking the NL record for homeruns given up.
3) One of the league's worst team batting averages, and one of the leagues worst fielding percentages.
Actually looking it up - here is where we were in stats last year (out of 30 teams):
27th in league batting average
29th in team ERA with a 5.19 (only ahead of the perpetually Coors Field doomed Rockies)
29th in the league with 30, count em, 30 blown saves by the worst bullpen in all of MLB (only ahead of the Rockies, again)
22nd in the league in fielding percentage
And we were STILL only 10 games from .500. That's 5 blown saves if we coulda held onto, would have been .500.
I think we will finish 2nd or 3rd in the NL Central this year. We get rid of super terrible pitchers like Phil Norton, Todd Van Popple, and Gabe White - add decent starters like Milton, Ramon Ortiz, and add Mercker, Weathers, and Ben Weber to the bullpen. I'm not saying any of these guys are anywhere near Cy Young candidates, but lets be honest - with how many terrible pitchers we had last year, these guys are gold compared to the shit we had. If we could improve just a little bit of the terribleness we had, and if a few of our guys stay reasonably healthy - we could surprise a lot of people.
