What if you could do it over?
Jwperry was
an owner here from season 1 thru 41. He
won 90 games with this team twice and never made it past the Division
Championship Series. Playing as the Rochester Red Wings or sometimes Redwings
he had a combined win percentage below .450
To say this team was a disappointment
would be an under statement. With this deep dive I thought I would go
take a look at three year period that could have turned this team into a
serious contender.
Rochester Red Wings Seasons 16-18
Season 15
ended with Rochester going 72-90, this was two years after one of their 90 win
seasons. They would be drafting 10th
due to their weak finish but also drafting 18/24/26/35/43/47/53/68/76/80/81
thanks in large part to letting all their Free Agents walk and picking up 11
additional Type A/B and even a 1 Type D pick. This draft could be the type of
draft that would set this team up for the next 10 to 20 seasons if handled
correctly.
With there
12 first round picks they selected players who played in the majors for a
combined 56 Seasons+. However 36 of those were from the top two picks, Ed Treadway and Gil Gibson. I don’t think
there could be many complaints about those two picks as both were eventually
selected to the Hall of Fame, though neither would go in wearing a Red Wings cap,
more on that later.
Treadway
was an MVP and Silver Slugger who had a strong arm in RF but was probably
better suited to play 1st base. His best season probably came in ’25
when he hit 51HR-143RBI with 15 steals and a 303/371/615 Slash line. He also only
made 5 negative plays in RF while picking up 8 assists. But all this came with
Jackson as berrysboys had traded for Treadway in ’18. In return Rochester received 4.5 million and
Junior Leroux. He went 11-9 with a 3.52 in his only full season with the Red
Wings, the next season he was 1-8 before being traded to Iowa with Arthur Keagle for Randy Tucker and Howard Epstein in season 19. None of those trades
would work out well for Rochester
Taken 18th
overall Gil Gibson might be the greatest closer this world has ever had. 652
Career saves and a 2.79 in 988 games. The same season Treadway would win his
MVP Gibson would win one of his 5
Fireman awards. 47 saves in 51 chances with a 2.67 ERA and a 1.08 WHIP. Not his
best season by far but it matches well with Treadway in season ’25. Of course
as mentioned before, like Treadway, Gibson was traded before ever reaching the
majors. Jwperry acquired two players in return for GG, Paul Stevens a solid arm
who won 32 games over his three year career with Rochester, also an ERA around
4. He went unsigned when he became a free agent. Also in the deal was Efrain Ueno a third baseman who twice hit over 20 homers with Rochester but was at
best an average player who also was released to Free agency.
Now that we
have reversed trading away those two great players, lets see what we can do
with the other ten picks?
24th
Don Kelleher Now I don’t think its fair
to replace a pick with someone taken 50 picks later, so lets say we can only
replace them with a pick within 5 later from where they are taken. Kelleher was
a fine defender at 3rd and a ok bat. I am going to flip him out for
#27 Spike Forbes by no means an amazing pitcher in ’25 he went 11-11 with a
3.81. I think a nice piece to slide into the back of any rotation
26th
Buck Kuttler never reached the majors so it’s a easy trade out for #29 Rob Farr. In ’26 he would throw a no hitter and make the All-Star team. But lets
match him up with everyone else. In ’25 he went 13-11 in 211 innings with a 3.03 ERA. This rotation is starting to
look good.
35th
Everth Reyes I will actually keep this guy some pretty good pop and would be a
nice bench piece on this new team I am building. Hit 85 homers his first three
years in Rochester but was a part time player in ’25 hitting 308 with 13HR and
50 RBI in 85 Games while playing 1st/2nd/3rd/LF/CF
43rdLuigi Barcelo played 52 uneventful games in the majors. Not a lot to choose
from in the next five so I took #45 Morgan Miller. Pitched out of the bullpen
for parts of four season with ’25 being his last and best season. 7-4 with a
4.02 ERA in 123 Bullpen innings.
47th
Buddy Kimbrel might be the easiest trade for a draft pick. Kimbrel never
reached the majors so switching him for Roscoe Barkley #51 is a no-brainer.
Barkley was a 3 X All-Star and 2 X Fire man. In season ’25 he was truly awesome
pitching in 93 games going 12-3 with a Sub 1 WHIP and an ERA of 2.72
53rd
Deacon Basile went 1-8 in his short career.
So flipping him out for #56 Heath Ray is a gimme. If you
will let me take him from season ’26 when he drove in 103 runs it makes it even
easier.
68th
Sergio Ferrell was a smooth fielding Middle Infielder who was not much with the
bat so lets trade him for a Catcher #73 Ringo Flood ’25 was his last season in the majors and he
wasn’t much of a defender but he could hit.
76th
Alvin Newhouser never pitched in the majors, so lets flip that pick for #78
Stryker Pagan In season ’24 he made 22+
plays at first knocking out 24 homers.
80th
Hersh McGraw and 81st Benji Alomar had no major league service but honestly I don’t see anyone worth taking
in their places
Now that we
have 40% of this new roster figured out lets see what we could do next year
One of the
side effects of letting all your free agents go is usually your team will take
a bit of a stumble that season…and stumble they did. Dropping from 72 wins all
the way down to a last place finish with 45 wins and got themselves the 1st
pick overall.
Rochester
had a solid pick and grabbed Nipsey Paulsen.
Nispey was a big hitting COF but I think we have enough of those on
Rochester already so lets grab the 2nd player overall Bart Saunders.
He was a smooth fielding 3rd Baseman, but I think for the sake of
this team we can move him over to SS where his bat looks even better. In ’25 he
had a career season batting 306 with 28HR and 102 RBI.
Jwperry had
another pick in the 1st round taking Arthur Keagle, who only played
1 season in the majors and was traded away anyway so lets flip him out for a
pick just 3 later Vladimir Calvo. While
he had a sub par career win loss record of 133-175 if we take him in season ’25
he had a career year going 15-12 and looks good closer to the top of this new
rotation.
Oddly
enough the team didn’t bounce back to respectability right away and got the 4th
and 50th picks in season 18. The one pick never signed and the 50th
had very little impact at the big league level…so lets switch them out. The 4th
pick is a tough one to choose from Rick Gentry? PT Lopez? Antone Gardner?
Edward Hughes? None are bad choices and I
would love to see a lineup with Hicthcok and Gentry this team probably needs
another arm. So if we are playing the What If game let me take Gardner and What
if that he doesn’t get horribly injured in ’24 and lose 5 overall points and
put him as our teams Ace.
Now with a
pick at #50 you cant really expect to hit a winner but the player that was
selected signed for almost 1.5 Million which is a big bonus for that part of
the draft. So at 4 picks later and for just about a third of the cost they
could have had Mikey Milton. Not a game changer but 376 career steals and very
good glove man at 2nd base isn’t bad for I pick in the 50’s
So I cant
say that I have solved every problem with the Rochester roster but its got to
be better then the team that lost 100 games 4 times and 90+ 3 other times in
the 20’s. A solid rotation, the
foundation of a great bullpen and a majority of the lineup filled by solid
players and some super stars. The holes left could be easily shored up by some
moderate free agent signings.
1st-Pagan’24 24-62 1-4 244/301/417
2nd-Milton
’25 5-37 36-8 220/272/293
SS-Saunders
’26 28-102 2-4 306/346/505
3rd-Ray’26 17-103 11-11 304/373/453
RF-Treadway
’25 51-143 15-6 303/373/615
MVP
C-Flood ’25 22-69 0/0 276/346/802
Bench-Reyes
’25 13-50 0-3 308/367/491
SP-Gardner-23 19-9 0/0 221IP
74BB-178K 1.37-3.34
SP- RobFarr ’25 13-10 0/0 210ip
60BB-147K 1.18-3.03
SP-Calvo ’25 15-11 0/0 212IP 64BB-153K 1.25-3.52
SP-Forbes
’25 11-11 0/0 184ip
74BB-127K 1.44-3.81
LR-
Miller’25 7-4 1 save 123IP
86BB-96K 1.46-4.02
SU-Barkley ’25 12-3 2/8 86IP 19BB-76K 0.98-2.72
CL-Gibson’25
0-1 47/51
57ip 20BB-52K
1.08-2.67
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