Think Again – a Big Think Podcast

The 1994 Reds: The Ultimate â€Å"What If?”

Every spring, fifty-fifty the most cynical fans let for fleeting moments of optimism. After all, projections are based on past operation, and at that place'south always the possibility of multiple players having breakout seasons and carrying their teams to unexpected postseason glory. It happens almost every twelvemonth – prior to last flavor, for example, Baseball game Prospectus guesstimated that the Baltimore Orioles would terminate final in the AL Eastward and win simply 72 games, 17 fewer than they'd tally in reality on their manner to securing a Wild Carte berth – and with one-3rd of major league teams now playing at least 163 games, it'due south simply natural at this time of twelvemonth to consider the romantic notion of, â€Å"What if?”

Nosotros'll acquire soon plenty just how foolish information technology volition be to ask that of the 2017 Cincinnati Reds, but whenever I remember about how an upcoming season might play out, I inevitably think back to the strike-shortened season of 1994. Like final year's Orioles, the '94 Reds weren't expected to make much dissonance in the newly-created NL Central, having won only 73 games during the previous flavor. But following a quick start, the Reds bolted to the summit of the sectionalization and were nonetheless in that location – if but by the slimmest of margins – when the longest work-stoppage in major league history began on August 12.

Of form, it'south possible that the Reds would have crashed and burned during the final half-dozen weeks of the regular season and missed the postseason entirely, especially considering that there was only one Wild Card squad in each league at the time. I've always preferred to imagine the contrary, though.

Background

1993 was a disappointing, albeit transitional, year for Cincinnati. Coming off a 92-win flavor in 1992 – an 18-game comeback over the Reds' 1991 campaign – new GM Jim Bowden made a flurry of moves in the offseason, including trading Norm Charlton to Seattle for Kevin Mitchell, trading Paul O'Neill to the Yankees for Roberto Kelly and signing costless agent pitcher John Smiley. Meanwhile, Reds legend Tony Perez succeeded Lou Pinella as manager, yet afterwards just 44 games (a stretch during which Cincinnati went 20-24), Perez was fired and replaced by Davey Johnson. From that indicate, the team played .500 ball through Sept. 3, simply the season's final month was an eyesore, as the Reds lost 19 of their last 26 games.

Going into 1994, when the Reds moved out of the NL Due west and into the newly-created NL Key, Cincinnati made but a handful of transactions, most notably signing veteran gratuitous agent third baseman Tony Fernandez and trading reliever Bobby Ayala and catching prospect Dan Wilson to Seattle for 2nd baseman Bret Boone and starter Erik Hanson. Still, even though they no longer had to compete in the aforementioned partitioning as the Braves (who began an astonishing 14-year segmentation championship streak in 1991), the Reds weren't viewed every bit serious playoff contenders going into 1994, especially considering the degree to which the previous flavour ended in a thud.

Hot Start

While Opening Day didn't inspire much optimism as the Reds made iii errors in a 6-4 loss to the Cardinals, the next three games – non counting an April 6 game that was suspended in a 6th-inning tie due to rain – saw the squad win 1-run nail-biters. Games five through seven, meanwhile, were won emphatically past a combined margin of 23-10, and later the first week of the season, the Reds were atop the Central with a record of 6-1. They cooled off a bit throughout the residuum of April, simply by calendar month'southward terminate, the team had won fifteen games, lost but vii and held a 2.5-game atomic number 82 over 2nd-place Houston, then a member of the National League. Smiley had pitched well to that point, with an ERA under 3, while Boone and first baseman Hal Morris sported batting averages due north of .300.

Slow and steady

In May (when Bowden sent Kelly to Atlanta for Deion Sanders) and June, the Reds went a combined 29-26 – nothing special, but skillful enough to withal enjoy a 1.five-game lead equally of June xxx. The team padded that total by one boosted game prior to the All-Star intermission, yet just Barry Larkin (who, later on a slow start, sported a solid .286/.386/.409 line at the break en route to his commencement Gold Glove) and Jose Rijo (8-four, iii.06) earned invitations to Pittsburgh for the midsummer classic, and neither actually took the field on July 12 due to â€Å"sore elbows.”

Then 17 games over .500, the Reds began the 2nd half with a i-run loss to Chicago before going 9-7 over the remainder of July. Heading into August, the team enjoyed a ii.five-game lead over Houston. They then completed a half-dozen-ane W Coast road trip by sweeping the Giants, including a 17-four shellacking on Aug. 3 that extended their division pb to 3.5 games. That win saw Mitchell become five for 5 with 5 RBI, bringing his flavour line to a robust .328/.430/.686 – numbers that really exceeded his totals during his 1989 MVP campaign.

Signs of trouble?

On Aug. v, the Reds returned to Riverfront Stadium, where at that indicate they had won 35 of 52 games. Against a tough Atlanta rotation, however, the team dropped iii of 4 just as the Astros were hitting their stride. After winning half-dozen in a row, Houston — led by eventual league MVP Jeff Bagwell — found themselves a mere half-game back of the Reds when they began a three-game serial with the lowly Padres on Aug. 9 every bit the Reds hosted the W-leading Dodgers. That dark would run into the Reds' final victory of 1994 – a five-3 win over knuckleballer Tom Candiotti that was highlighted past Reggie Sanders' 17^th homer of the yr. 24-twelvemonth-old rookie starter Kevin Jarvis, who would go on to pitch another 52 games for Cincinnati before being waived in early 1997, earned his get-go major-league win.

Nursing a one.v-game lead, the Reds sent Smiley to the mound on Aug. 10. For seven innings, he was superb, assuasive just three singles and one intentional walk. He fifty-fifty helped his own crusade at the plate, singling to score Eddie Taubensee in the bottom of the five^th. The clock struck midnight in the eight^th, nonetheless. With the Reds clinging to a 2-1 border, Smiley gave upwardly a leadoff double earlier retiring the adjacent two batters. After walking Delino DeShields on a full count, he was lifted for reliever Hector Carrasco, who gave upwards a game-tying unmarried to Mike Piazza on his first pitch.

After the Reds eked out a run in the bottom of the inning to regain the lead, Jeff Brantley promptly prepare the dumpster burn ablaze by giving up a home run to Eric Karros. Two batters afterwards, he was lifted for Chuck McElroy, who was unable to retire any of the four batters he faced. By the finish of the half-inning, the Dodgers had rallied for four runs and the Reds lost six-three. Houston, meanwhile, downed San Diego 3-1, cutting the Reds' atomic number 82 to a half-game one time again.

The following mean solar day, although Sanders, Boone, and Fernandez had ii hits apiece, the Reds couldn't plate a run, wasting an 8-inning, 12-strikeout get-go past Rijo. Their 2-0 loss was rendered moot, however, every bit the the Padres bested Houston 8-half-dozen. As the strike began on Aug. 12, the Reds led the NL Central with a record of 66-48. But over a month afterwards, acting commissioner Bud Selig formally canceled the residue of the season. For the first time since 1904, there would be no Globe Serial.

And so, what if?

Baseball seasons are marathons, not sprints. Yeah, the Reds had a lousy final week of the flavour, simply during the prior week, they reeled off a six-game winning streak – and on the road, at that. That said, while it's entirely possible that the Astros would accept overtaken Cincinnati at some indicate during the season's terminal 6 weeks, I prefer to wait at the larger sample size of 114 games – and if the Reds connected to play at the same level, they'd project to a record of 94-58, one game ahead of Houston. (Interestingly, the teams were due to face each other at the Astrodome in the concluding weekend of the regular flavour — likely a de facto postseason play-in serial.)

When the strike took result, Atlanta was the leading Wild Bill of fare contender, with a ii.five-game lead over the Astros. By the same logic, permit's give the Braves the benefit of the dubiety and presume that they would have also earned a slot in the postseason. In the W, the Dodgers were only two games over .500 merely still held a 3.5-game lead over San Francisco, so it seems prudent to pencil them in too. That brings the states to the NL East, where the Expos sported a gaudy 74-40 record (which, at 162 games, projects to 105-57) and would have surely ended the Braves' partition title streak at three had the season not been cutting short.

Almost manufactures about the 1994 season assume that Montreal would take won that yr'southward World Serial had the strike never taken place. Because they couldn't have faced a Wild Carte du jour team from their own division, they likely would have faced the Dodgers in i of the two inaugural National League Sectionalization Series, leaving the Reds to face the Braves. While Cincinnati would accept likely been considered the underdog in the latter series, the playoffs are predictably unpredictable, so allow'south presume abode-field advantage meant more in Oct than it did in August and that — different the following year — the Reds managed to overcome Maddux, Glavine and visitor. Let'southward also assume the Expos got by Los Angeles. Could the Reds have stood a chance confronting Montreal?

At the risk of reading too much into small sample sizes, the teams played each other six times in 1994. In April, the Reds took 2 of three at Olympic Stadium and only lost game #3 in dramatic style as Carrasco yielded a walk-off unmarried. The following calendar month, the Expos traveled to Cincinnati, where they again dropped the first two games before Carrasco struck again, giving up three runs on three hits in a ten-9 loss. That said, the Reds more than held their own against the league's top team, and bold Johnson would have but used Carrasco for mop-upwardly duty, it would have been exciting to see if the same held true in Oct.

Team stats pointed toward a close matchup likewise. The Expos were first in the league in run differential; the Reds, 2d. The Reds led the league in hits and had its highest squad batting boilerplate; Montreal ranked 3rd and 2nd in those categories, respectively. The Expos had the league's best team ERA; the Reds ranked third. The Expos' had the edge in the outfield, where their commonage WAR was ix.2 to Cincinnati'southward iii.7; the Reds had a better infield, with a commonage War of 4.0 to Montreal's 0.1. The Expos had a stronger starting rotation co-ordinate to WAR; Carrasco meltdowns notwithstanding, State of war considered the Reds' bullpen superior. And so on.

I'chiliad sure fans of the Expos, Dodgers, Braves and Astros all accept their own â€Å"what if?” scenarios in which their preferred team faced the American League pennant winner in the 1994 World Series That Never Was. It still stings that nosotros'll never find out what would accept really transpired, especially considering that only three of the following 22 seasons ended with the Reds atop the NL Key.

And while it'southward highly unlikely that this season will interruption that trend, it's even so fun to conjure upwardly means in which the 2017 Reds might manage to defy expectations: What if Devin Mesoraco and Homer Bailey finally get salubrious? What if Joey Votto has more than a torrid second half? What if Anthony DeSclafani turns into a truthful ace? What if Bronson Arroyo tin outwit Begetter Fourth dimension? We'll learn the answers to these and other questions over the next half dozen months, simply for now, anything is possible.

Let the games begin.

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Source: https://www.redlegnation.com/2017/03/31/the-1994-reds-the-ultimate-what-if/