#122T Jeff Treadway

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Treadway was a league-average 2B for the Reds for one season in 1988 plus his cup of coffee in 1987.

#98T Chris Sabo

IMPACT FACTOR 6/10: Sabo was the NL Rookie of the Year in 1988, played a big part in the 1990 World Series victory (batting .563 with 2 HR and 5 RBI in the 4-game sweep), and was a very good player for the Reds for 6 years before leaving as a free agent. Unfortunately, he was never an effective player after leaving Cincinnati.

#92T Jose Rijo

IMPACT FACTOR 8/10: Rijo was a so-so major league pitcher until he joined the Reds, when he was a dynamite anchor of their rotation for years. After 8 seasons, he disappeared due to injury but came back after missing 4 seasons to pitch quite effectively in a brief stint in 2001. He was a big, big reason why the Reds won the 1990 World Series, holding the Athletics to 1 earned run over 15.1 innings in two starts. In short, Rijo was the kind of ace pitcher every baseball fan should want his team to have, with the possible exception of his injuries.

#55T Danny Jackson

IMPACT FACTOR 5/10: Jackson came over in the Ted Power / Kurt Stillwell trade, having one excellent year (1988), one decent year (1990), and one crummy year (1989) for the Reds. He helped the Reds beat the Pirates in the 1990 NLCS but was ineffective in the World Series, deserving little credit for the Reds' championship. He departed as a free agent.

#19T Jeff Branson

IMPACT FACTOR 4/10: Branson took a while to get to the big leagues. He was a decent part-time player for the Reds and then got packaged with John Smiley to pick up 4 players, including Danny Graves and Damian Jackson. Graves was a very effective reliever for the Reds and Jackson ended up being part of a trade that brought Greg Vaughn.

#6T Jack Armstrong

IMPACT FACTOR 4/10: Armstrong didn't do a whole lot for the Reds but he did have one good year in 1990, when he in fact started the All-Star game for the National League. He had trouble staying healthy, but they did trade him along with Scott Scudder for one good year of Greg Swindell.

#773 Frank Williams

Why this card is awesome: Because Williams is oh so close to giving the finger to the camera.

Cool stat: Williams, interestingly enough, was one of the top relievers of the 1980s. In fact, among non-closer, only my man Mark Eichhorn had a higher ERA+ for guys with at least 400 IP.

#730 John Franco

Why this card is awesome: Because somebody's wearing Chris Sabo's goggles! Also, what is that knobby thing behind the fence?

Also, that's s pretty bad trade for the Dodgers mentioned on the back. Franco went on to have a very long and productive career. Landestoy had 22 hits over parts of two seasons for the Dodgers.

It's also kind of interesting to see what Cincinnati did with Franco. Eventually, they traded him for Randy Myers and Kip Gross. They traded Myers and turned him into Bip Roberts (WAAHHHH! MORE BIPS!!) Meanwhile they packaged Gross with Eric Davis and picked up Tim Belcher and John Wetteland. Belcher was later traded to the White Sox for Johnny Ruffin and Jeff Pierce. Wetteland was later traded with Bill Risley to Montreal for Dave Martinez, Scott Ruskin, and Willie Greene. Greene got traded straight up for Jeffrey Hammonds. Hammonds was packaged with Stan Belinda and traded to Colorado for Dante Bichette. Later, they traded Bichette to Boston for Chris Reitsma and a minor leaguer. Reitsma was flipped to Atlanta for Jung Bong and a minor leaguer named Bubba. Bong was released in 2006.

Whew, that's a long chain.

Cool stat: Franco has the most career games pitched without ever making a start.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Franco comes up for the HOF vote. It seems that voters don't really know how to handle closers yet, with guys like Sutter and Gossage getting in fairly late, and Lee Smith not getting much support so far. Franco was the active saves leader for 7 years after Smith retired although he led the league only 3 times. His HOF stats on B-R.com are weird. His HOF Standards are only 11.0, with an average HOFer at 50. But his HOF Monitor, a better judge of how likely he is to be elected, is 124.0, with a likely HOFer at 100.

#686 Terry Francona

Why this card is awesome: Because I guess this must have been Santa Claus day at the ballpark, given that there are two of them in the stands.

This is a nice card of another future manager, the current Red Sox skipper.

Francona is also the son of All-star outfielder Tito Francona.

Cool stat: It would seem pretty rare to have more doubles than RBI in a season, and in fact Francona has one of just a handful of seasons with 19 or more RBI and 18 or fewer RBI. I'm not able to search in general for years with more doubles than RBI, but I bet they are pretty rare.

#666 Mario Soto

Why this card is awesome: Because this is card #666 and it's a huge red guy. Must be Satan. No, it's just Mario Soto.

Cool stat: Soto was a fantastic pitcher who is hugely underrated. Instead of posting more about it here, I'm going to refer you to a piece I wrote here. He was one of the best starters in baseball from 1982 to 1985. It was injuries that kept him from having a long career. His neutralized career W-L% is 106-88, .546, as compared to the actual 100-92, .521.

#644 Terry McGriff

Why this card is awesome: Because of those two dudes hanging out behind the lesser cousin McGriff. They look like they just stepped out of the 1970s.

Cool stat: McGriff got 23% of his career RBIs in just two of his games played.

#622 Kal Daniels

Why this card is awesome: Because of the mention of future Pittsburgh GM, Cam Bonifay, on the back. It's interesting how varied the scouts are--some are future GMs, working their way up the ladder, while many are former players or executives, effectively working their way "down the ladder" to retirement. This card also has an all-black background just like Barry Larkin's.

Cool stat: Daniels is one of just 10 players to have multiple seasons since 1901 with 25 HR, an OPS+ of 150, but no more than 450 AB. That's a pretty nice list to appear on: 3 HOFers (Ruth, Ott, and Williams) plus 4 more with at least approximate HOF-caliber careers (Ramirez, Thome, Bonds, and McGwire.) Daniels' problem was that he couldn't stay healthy.

#603 Rob Murphy

Why this card is awesome: Because what exactly is that scary demon-looking thing behind Murphy, wearing a Reds uniform, starting directly at the back of his head? And what exactly is the demon doing with its hand?

Cool stat: Murphy's got one of 32 seasons since 1901 with at least 20 IP and an ERA under 1.00. At this writing, Brad Ziegler has a 0.00 ERA over the first 34 innings of his career, all coming in 2008.

#577 Tom Browning

Why this card is awesome: Because of those two dudes chillin' in the background, arms folded and relaxing in the sun.

Cool stat: Browning's reputation is better than he deserves due to the perfect game that he threw. But he was quite solid. From 1985 to 1990, he was good for 200 innings and an ERA+ between 100 and 110. He did that 5 times and nobody else did it more than twice. Good, yes. Great, no.

#553 Tracy Jones

Why this card is awesome: Because like Bob Brower, this shot of Jones shows his knee nearly touching the ground. It gives him a real sense of motion and is an overall very nice photo. I also like his splayed fingers as his lead hand comes off the bat.

I understand that Jones as a radio talent has quite a following these days.

Also I noticed that Jones was traded in three consecutive seasons. Anybody know of other players to whom that has happened?

Cool stat: Jones once had 7 RBI in a game, which itself is pretty good. But he also did it without a single extra base hit. Check out the box score--he had 3 different 2-run singles and then a single RBI single.

Holy crap, I just checked, and that performance by Jones is the only time it's been done since 1956!

#517 Ron Robinson

Why this card is awesome: Because something tells me that with red hair, Robinson would have looked better in any jersey other than those of the Reds.

If you haven't been reading this blog since the beginning, be sure to check out Robinson's Happy Clown Action card, as well as his main competition for pret-a-porte clown in this set.

Cool stat: In 1986, Robinson had one of the best years of the 1980s by a relief pitcher. It was one of just 9 seasons where a reliever appeared in at least 70 games, had an ERA+ of 120 or better, plus had at least 1 K per IP.

#496 Guy Hoffman

Why this card is awesome: Because the card notes his first major-league complete game in 1986, but does not note that that was his only major-league complete game.

Cool stat: In fact, that complete game didn't even earn Hoffman his best career game score.

#475 Pete Rose

Why this card is awesome: Because it's pretty sweet that they gave Rose card #475, one of the 31 best numbers in the set. (Of course, they also gave Glenn Hubbard one of them.) It's not often you see a manager on such a nice card number.

Cool stat: Since 1956, Rose has the 3rd-most games with at least 3 hits and 3 runs scored. Amazingly, #1 is A-rod, who presumably will add a bunch to his total before he retires.

Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame...hmmm. We could have a pretty long discussion about that one, I think. The only thing I'll say is this: he clearly belongs in the HOF based on his on-field accomplishments, and clearly belongs out of the HOF for breaking one of the most well-known rules in baseball. If over the last 15 years he had shown any sort of contrition at all--such as actually apologizing--he'd either be in already, or have a clear path to getting in. But instead, he lied and lied for years about it, and when he finally admitted it, he sold autographed baseballs and books to make cash instead of apologizing. What a monumental ass.

#447 Jeff Montgomery

Why this card is awesome: Because it's really damn weird to see Montgomery in a Reds' uniform. What a terrible trade they made for Van Snider.

Cool stat: Montgomery was fourth in saves in the 1990s. And he did that while pitching for a team that was pretty crappy most of those years. Over that same period, he was #1 in games finished, meaning he probably had fewer save chances than a lot of those other guys.

#422 Dave Concepcion

Why this card is awesome: Because Concepcion sure looks like a coach in this photo, hitting infield grounders. He wasn't retired as a player quite yet, though.

I like that this set has both the Reds' SS of the past (Concepcion) and the Reds' SS of the future (Barry Larkin.)

Cool stat: Here's an awesome trivia question. Name the only 6 players to homer every season from 1970 to 1987. Concepcion is the really hard one. The easiest one is Reggie Jackson. The others are somewhere in between.

Concepcion is not in the HOF but I hope he is one day. It would have to come from the Veterans Committee at this point.