Not that it's any great shock to those paying attention over The Lost Decade, but the Reds as an organization are a mess.
Some various examples:
While there's been some small improvements in the pitching realms, generally speaking the Reds have been very weak at pitching development & coaching. How many times have we watched a pitcher flounder here only to go be effective/serviceable elsewhere? How many times have we watched pitching coaches doze on the bench when it's obvious a trip to the mound is warranted?
Talent evaluation has been suspect. This is the franchise that has targeted such luminaries as Corey Patterson, Paul Bako, Juan Castro, Deangelo Jameniz (sp?), JHJ and Edabb's favorite player of all time, Willy Taveras. Yes, the buck stops at the GM, but what about the lower level talent scouts, advisers, etc. I can't believe they didn't play some sort of role in suggesting and campaigning for these players.
Resource management. You would think it would take an act of congress to get the Reds to move players to new positions. How many years did we hear that it was impossible to move KGJ to RF? Although I've argued against it, why not move BPhil to short stop for a year to try it out? If it fails, move him back. Why was Edwin E glued to 3B when he could have at least been moved to LF as an experiment? Not saying all of these are no-brainer moves, but IMO the Reds have missed the boat in simply changing a players position to solve a problem rather than trying to bring someone new in.
Scouting: Other teams seem to have the book on us from the get go, while we seem mystified when we face other teams. It's likely more of an issue of talent and a lineup of hackers, but the advance scouting area seems weak (at best).
Ownership: We've gone from Linder who didn't seem to care, to Bozo Bob who doesn't want to deal with the reality of the state of his company. He simply refuses to understand his "win now" attitude, while admirable, isn't helping his company. Not much we can do about ownership, but it effects the organization as a whole.
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Each of these areas are worthy of their own separate discussions (and have been many times over the years), and I'm sure people can take issue with any or all of the examples I've given. But I don't think many people can argue that the Reds, from top to bottom, are a deeply flawed organization.
Sadly, other than simply boycotting the product, there is little as fans can do. More sadly is that the Reds are way down the list of entertainment options and for people born in the 1980's they simply don't know winning baseball in Cincy. They don't care. Meanwhile, the older folks are starting to not care.
Without something radical, I don't see how The Lost Decade isn't going to become The Lost Generations.
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