Castellini to be -on- 700 WLW very soon!

[LoganBuck]

Sadly, my friends (many of whom are casual Reds fans), are happy only because Adam Dunn is gone. Marty did a very effective job of blaming the Reds woes on one guy. The guy who just happened to be their best player.

This used to be a great baseball town, with intelligent baseball fans. No longer.

Let the winning begin.

I hear you. My best friend, keeps telling me that. He puts a whole bunch of stock into what happened during the last six weeks of the season. I keep reminding him about not over valuing what happens in September. He isn't buying. He is just ecstatic that Dunn is gone. He rubs my nose in it whenever he can. He actually thinks Wily Taveras is what this team needs.

[Chip R]

I hate that we can't edit thread titles. I just caught that.

[Caveat Emperor]

You wouldn't want to confuse him with Admiral James Stockdale.

At this point I see him as more of a Captain Peter Peachfuzz:

[SteelSD]

If you're going to lie, lie big.

And lie a LOT. That way, if you get caught you only have to own up to one or two of them to get everyone to keep believing the rest.

Well, either that or just blame the media for taking your exact words and pulling them out of context.

[membengal]

Exactly steel. Lie. Lie big. And when called on your lie, blame others. The media. The fans. Whomever. Always someone elses fault.

Lying. Because you can.

[SteelSD]

Exactly steel. Lie. Lie big. And when called on your lie, blame others. The media. The fans. Whomever. Always someone elses fault.

Lying. Because you can.

Told 'em we're gonna start winnin' (It wasn't me)
Heard me lyin' about payroll (It wasn't me)
Even signed Willy Taveras (It wasn't me)
Now we'll field a contender (It wasn't me)

[princeton]

most things are costing more across the board.

lotta deflation out there, actually

Adam Dunn's salary, for instance. my house. even my new hybrid that I'm hoping to still have a job for three years in order to finish the payments

in spite of deflation, Reds fans are going to get about the same team (minus Adam Dunn) for about the same money.

I can't say that's bad GMing, because I think that Cast's budget caught WJ by surprise. But it's not great GMing, either. And the Reds need a great GM.

[Jpup]

From C-Trent's Blog:

Bob Castellini was on Bill Cunningham's show on 700 WLW this afternoon and this is what he had to say:

Cunningham: There's a story here in the Enquirer that says, "Win Now, Goes By Wayside" -- is that true?

Castellini: No. (chuckles)

Cunningham: That's what the headline says in the Enquirer

Castellini: I guess it does say that, but if you read the article it doesn't say we're not going to win this year. It's minimized. It maybe says we haven't given up on this year. And we certainly haven't given up on this year. On the other hand, we're ecstatic about what we’re going to put on the field this year.

Cunningham: Do you think you've done enough with additions like Willy Taveras and Ramon Hernandez and resigned Jerry Hairston, Weathers and Lincoln, is that upgrading? What happened to the leftfielder with all the power you were going to get?

Castellini: Well, there's still possibly a leftfielder, a right-handed batter out there. It's getting late. We tried to get that spot filled. In the meantime, when we signed Willy to play center field and we've got Jerry to play left field with Chris Dickerson and (Norris) Hopper if Alex comes back at shortstop. But we feel we've really sured up our center with our catcher and Taveras and whoever plays shortstop, whether it's Hairston or Alex -- that's our one big question mark.

Cunningham: One thing I like about you, which I don't like about Mike Brown, when you had a chance to go get a baseball announcer, you go get Thom Brennaman. When you had a chance to go get a manager, you got Dusty Baker. When you had a chance to go get a G.M., you got Walt Jocketty. In other words, you change. You have three G.M.s, three field managers -- I don't see that as change, as much as I see Bob Castelllini working hard and you get the right people in place. I'm thinking if you fail again this year, will we have four general managers and four field managers? Because failing is winning and losing and Bob Castellini's not had one winning season in three years.

Castellini: You're absolutely right. But we’ve built an organization with these people you talk about and they're here for a long, long time. We're not looking to change. We feel very, very confident for this year. The second part of that article, I probably asked for myself. I was funning with John (Fay) and I said, you know when I told you we're going to win right away and you took it out of context, what I really meant was the interpretation was wrong and maybe that's my fault too.

Cunningham: Seg-man Dennison told me you said, "We've come to a point where we're just not going to lose anymore."

Castellini: Right, we were losing with our organization. We didn't have a winning attitude, we didn't have a winning organization. We changed all that. We're on the right track. What really irritates me is people think we're writing off this year. We have an excellent team. We have a contender. Barring injuries, we're going to be in there at the end. You can quote me on that, at the end of the year if we're not in there at the end, you can play it back forever. But I really feel that way and our organization feels that way.

Cunningham: Last year the Reds finished 23-and-a-half games out of first and you had Griffey and Dunn as your marquee players. Every organization needs a star, like here, I'm a star. You need a star. Griffey and Dunn, those guys are now done. Is Dunn possibly coming back to play left field?

Castellini: I wouldn’t say that.

Cunningham: How about Griffey?

Castellini: I wouldn't say that, but we've got a budding star in Joey Votto, I think he's going to break into stardom this year. We've got Jay Bruce and I think he's in the same category. And we’ve got the Gold Glover (Bandon Phillips) who is outstanding. And on top of that, we've got a starting rotation with four people and three very, very viable people to be the fifth starter and we've got the best bullpen in the division.

Cunningham: Are you having fun Bob Castellini?

Castellini: I'm having a lot of fun.

Cunningham: Are you sure?

Castellini: I'm just so pumped up about this team, I'm getting excited about it, Bill.

Cunningham: Are you sure?

Castellini: Yeah.

Cunningham: I'm not so sure. You took over in January 2006 and you said things like "we're going to win, we're going to win now. My wife Susie has a pillow that says, 'if Momma's not happy, nobody's happy.'" I don't think Bob Castellini is happy.

Castellini: I wouldn't say that at all. In fact, you're wrong. Articles like that, if I'm part of the problem, I apologize, but those kind of articles make the fans unhappy. In fact, the fans are pretty darn happy. The feedback we get from our fans for tickets and so forth, are very positive and the people that are cutting down on ticket purchases are still buying tickets and telling us it's the economy, it's not the direction of the Reds.

Cunningham: How many season ticket holders do you have?

Castellini: We'll find out in a couple of weeks.

Cunningham: Is it up or down from last year?

Castellini: We don't know, but it's not going to be that far off. And I'll tell you something else, Bill, our sponsorships are up.

Cunningham: Really?

Castellini: I'd say that the Reds are perceived to be going in the right direction. If the owner fouls up with an interview and sets them back, I'll have to get on the most publicized show in town and try to correct it and I appreciate you letting me come on and say a few things.

Cunningham: I have the upmost respect for you and Phil… You do everything first class except the team. You do everything first-class except for what's between the white lines.

Castellini: Maybe we'll have to get rid of the owner if it doesn't work out this year.

Cunningham: Do you see yourself selling if it doesn't work out?

Castellini: Absolutely not.

Cunningham: No?

Castellini: No.

Cunningham: You're going to stay with it for the next five-to-10 years no matter what?

Castellini: You betcha.

Cunningham: And you're going to win?

Castellini: You betcha.

Cunningham: You're going to win?

Castellini: Yes sir.

Cunningham: You're going to win this year?

Castellini: We're going to win this year.

Cunningham: You are?

Castellini: We're going to have a winning record this year, Bill. And we're going to be contenders and we might well be into it at the end of the season. I told everyone in Louisville that we hope to see them up at Great American Ball Park in October.

(Here they talk about RedsFest and the Caravan -- I didn’t type it up -- Castellini talks about the fans in Louisville where he was last night )

Cunningham: Bob, you’re a Cincinnatian from birth, like me, and been around your whole life and I'm thinking the Bengals have stunk for 20 years, UC Bearcat basketball is in the crapper, Xavier's good but a lot of people don't care, but we are Reds country and you haven’t had a winning season since you've owned the club, we've only had one the entire century and we're dying and starving for a winner and I think we have the right organization, all you need is a few better players. That's all you need. I can agree with you, why do you want to spend $100 million when you're going to lose $30 or $40 million a year, you can't do that, right?

Castellini: Right. But in all seriousness, Bill, we're high on this team that we’re putting on the field this year.

[_Sir_Charles_]

Enlighten us. What has The Big Man, and his sidekicks WonderWalt and DustMan, done to shine the "best light possible" on this team? Sign Wily Taveras?

The team would have money for a useful bat in left and more money to spend, had they not traded for Hernandez, signed Taveras, Lincoln, and brought back Weathers.

They could have brought in Pudge Rodriguez or Varitek (via some sort of creative trade with the Redsox) for peanuts (they seem to have financial diarrhea from the peanuts they did eat), kept Freel to be Dickerson's caddie in CF, used other bullpen alternatives from within or the outside at much lower prices.

Suddenly a Bobby Abreu or Pat Burrell would be signed very easily.

Wily Taveras will be the albatross of this season. Dusty, Walt, and Bob C, should all have to wear shirts with the letters WT on them. Sometime in May the general fan consciousness, will realize those letters really mean "Worthless Turd".

You misunderstood me. When I said he's trying to put the best light on his team, I'm talking about spin. He's doing the PR stuff to make the team look better to the fans. I wasn't talking about actual moves.

[Chip R]

"If you believe it, it's not a lie."

[Ltlabner]

I understand he has to put the best face on everything since it's his product. He's not going to come out and say, "yep, we blow...".

So it would seem the best option is to say nothing. Do no interviews. Continue going through the motions and pretending everything is dandy. Just keep quiet and act as if all is well. See you again in offseason 2009/2010 (maybe).

If you absolutely, positively must give an interview maybe focus on how wacky the market has been and how it's made team building "challenging" or something. But for God's sake don't try to sell me on this pile of warm feces you claim to be an MLB team.

I posted elsewhere on a different thread about how the Great Punt of 2009 was bad enough, but the real insult would come when the Reds try to tell me how great of a team they have, how they really put together a solid squad, how this team will be exciting. All in the face of mountains of evidence to show they've done diddly thus far.

My friends, we have just been insulted.

[Jpup]

I understand he has to put the best face on everything since it's his product. He's not going to come out and say, "yep, we blow...".

So it would seem the best option is to say nothing. Do no interviews. Continue going through the motions and pretending everything is dandy.

If you absolutely, positively must give an interview maybe focus on how wacky the market has been and how it's made team building "challenging" or something.

I posted elsewhere on a different thread about how the Great Punt of 2009 was bad enough, but the real insult would come when the Reds try to tell me how great of a team they have, how they really put together a solid squad, how this team will be exciting. All in the face of mountains of evidence to show they've done diddly thus far.

My friends, we have just been insulted.

They are "baseball men" and they know more than we do. Just ask them.

[Krusty]

There is plenty of time between now and Opening Day to pick up that power hitting leftfielder whether it's Xavier Nady, Jermaine Dye or someone else.

I just don't understand why people are panicking when it is only January.

[Always Red]

There is plenty of time between now and Opening Day to pick up that power hitting leftfielder whether it's Xavier Nady, Jermaine Dye or someone else.

I just don't understand why people are panicking when it is only January.

Maybe because they told us yesterday they were done, they couldn't afford more, and this is the team they were putting on the field for 2009?

panic? No, I think we're further up the scale towards apathy of late...

[Unassisted]

"On the other hand, we're ecstatic about what we’re going to put on the field this year."

"But in all seriousness, Bill, we're high on this team that we’re putting on the field this year."

I wish Cunningham would have had him lock in the context of those sentences for us, so that we don't get accused of taking them out of context later.

I suspect that he will tell us later what he really meant to say was "We were high when we thought this should be the team we would put on the field this year."