| 22 February 2010
Gomes, 29, batted .267 with 20 home runs and 51 RBIs in 281 at-bats with the Reds last year (with an OPS of .879). Cincinnati decided to not offer Gomes arbitration after the 2009 season, which made him a free agent. However, somewhat surprisingly, there was not a single team that snatched him up on the open market. Therefore, the Reds were able to get him back at a discount price (what is expected to be around the veteran minimum of $700,000).
The Reds now have four legitimate candidates for what will likely be a platoon situation in left field this year. Two of them are right-handed hitters (Gomes and Wladimir Balentien) and two of them are left-handed batters (Chris Dickerson and Laynce Nix).
Maybe this is a homer point of view, but I firmly believe the Reds can make something position out of that situation. One of the right-handed hitters and one of the lefties will make the Opening Day roster and they will platoon as the starting left fielder. Gomes or Balentien would start against left-handed pitchers, while Dickerson or Nix would start against righties.
There are also three young players in the mix for the left field spot: Juan Francisco (who has played mostly third base during his minor league career), Todd Frazier (who also has played mostly infield, but was moved to left field last year) and Chris Heisey. There is reason to be excited about each of them, but I bet they will all start the season in Louisville at the AAA level.
As for Gomes, a lot of people incorrectly assume 2009 was a career year for him and he'll never be that productive again. However, it wasn't even his best season in the Major Leagues.
In 2005 with Tampa Bay, he hit .282 with 21 home runs and 54 RBIs in 348 at-bats (with an OPS of .906).
Does the guy have his faults? Yes. He's not very good defensively (which the Reds can live with this year since they are solid defensively in every other position on the field). He also doesn't hit righties well. However, his main role will be to hit against lefties (either as a starter in a platoon role in LF, or as a power-hitting pinch hitter) and there is no question he does that well. Gomes can flat out rake.
Entering the 2010 season, my biggest concern about the Reds is run production. The pitching staff is solid (rotation and bullpen). The defense is finally up to par (at least it's expected to be). However, this is a team that will struggle scoring runs on occasion and Gomes is a player that can help out quite a bit in that department.
This was a very solid offseason for the Reds, highlighted by the signing of pitcher Aroldis Chapman. He is a left-handed Cuban defector that can get his fastball up near 100 miles per hour, but he likely won't be ready to help the Reds very much until 2011 (although there is an outside shot he could win the No. 5 spot in the rotation this year).
The team also addressed its glaring hole at shortstop with the signing of Orlando Cabrera, and they filled in some other holes with bargain-basement signings like Nix and Gomes (who were each pleasant surprises last year ... although Nix did fade after a hot start). They also re-signed catcher Ramon Hernandez (who forms a nice tandem with Ryan Hanigan) and now they enter the season with the belief that they might actually have their first winning season since 2000.
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