Phil Castellini surprised that Opening Day tickets still unsold

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Originally Posted by missionhockey21

The biggest thing Bob could do to show that what happened was unacceptable is to get his son out of that position. Transition him to something to save face, I mean I wish he wouldn't, but we know at bare minimum that would happen. It is a joke to have someone as COO who said what he said.

Show to the fans that what he said was so out of line from what the ownership feels, and that it is so unacceptable, that he can't be in a position to represent the Reds like he has.

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Since Bob's the one being called out by name, maybe he's more irritated about it than Phil is? Hard to imagine that Phil is the only member of the family bothered by the calls for it to sell.

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Originally Posted by Reds Freak

They definitely drafted and traded very well starting with the mid 2000s. But the Castellini's also doled out some big contracts to keep that home grown talent like Votto, Bruce, Phillips, Cueto, Homer, Cozart, Arroyo, Chapman, etc. It seems like something changed in 2015. They made some bad and/or unlucky deals, gave it another try in 2020, then have since given up again.

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I agree that later on in that run they paid out some money, to their credit, but it was late in that run. That's also when things started turning south again.

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Originally Posted by REDREAD

There was good trades too.. in addition to what you mentioned, if BP counts, than so does Arroyo
Latos was a key move. Also Broxton and Ludwick. The two high ticket relievers that got hurt.. one was Marshall, the other name escapes me.. had those
2 guys been healthy, they would have made an impact.

IMO, there was a lot of homegrown talent on the roster, but a good GM was required to fill in the gaps. For example, if Krall inherited the same team that Walt did, I doubt the Reds make the playoffs.

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Good point...I forgot about Arroyo and Latos.

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Originally Posted by REDREAD

The Reds have been trying to build a pipeline of young talent ever since Leake was traded.
There's been some success, but recently the Reds have shown cost cutting takes precedence over keeping that talent.
Every guy that left the team was a salary dump, not a good baseball team.
Then how do they "fix" the team after the fans get mad? They sign a bunch of mediocre at best stopgaps.
There is no plan.
If last offseason becomes the model, it will be impossible for the farm to produce enough talent to even replace what is leaving.

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Who would have actually added longer term additional talent to the team at a price worth paying?

Cast….yes. Never coming back regardless so it’s moot
Barnhart. No. Plus better replacement in house.
Miley. No. No way he repeats last year and would be blocking Greene and Lodolo
Suarez….no. Was an anchor
Shogo…see Suarez
Gray…would have provided some value this year but the wrong side of 30, recent injury history and young stud pitchers in the pipeline.
Winker…best player to go, but very one dimensional. Just for perspective. Last year was his career year. 2.7 bWAR. Billy Hamilton had a year were he topped that. Think about that for a second.

So sure, those moves saved money. But who are you really going to miss in the long run. Hell, outside of Winker and Gray, I’m not missing anyone in that group this year. Things can occur for both baseball and monetary reasons. Look at the big picture. The Kids are being given room to grow. There is ample free payroll space in the years to come. And we are all getting in a tizzy because the Reds broke up a team that had so many things break right for them just to barely finish above .500.

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Originally Posted by Unassisted

I can't blame Phil for being salty about the increasingly loud shouting to sell the team. How much an owner spends on their business is never the customers' call.

But most owners respect the emotional bond that fans have with the team and don't lay things out in those stark terms. Phil let his guard down and showed that his emotional attachment is to the budget. I'm going to guess that he heard from some Hamilton County commissioners, who went out on a limb to issue the taxes that funded the construction of GABP. They probably reminded him that those fans who don't control his budget are paying for the building that his business operates in. That's the context that I frame the apology in.

I do think moving the team is an option and if the Castellinis intend to remain the majority owner for the foreseeable future, it will be their initiative that makes it move. There are too many larger media markets with major league teams in other sports that don't have MLB. If fans actually follow through with hastily-formed plans to abandon ship on the Reds, my guess is the team starts griping about the shortcomings of GABP, as a precursor to finding a new home for the team.

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And it's always the customer's call on where they spend their money. I spend mine on club seats for the Bengals and Bearcats. I won't spend a dime on the Reds. They lost that spend.

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Originally Posted by Old school 1983

Who would have actually added longer term additional talent to the team at a price worth paying?

Cast….yes. Never coming back regardless so it’s moot
Barnhart. No. Plus better replacement in house.
Miley. No. No way he repeats last year and would be blocking Greene and Lodolo
Suarez….no. Was an anchor
Shogo…see Suarez
Gray…would have provided some value this year but the wrong side of 30, recent injury history and young stud pitchers in the pipeline.
Winker…best player to go, but very one dimensional. Just for perspective. Last year was his career year. 2.7 bWAR. Billy Hamilton had a year were he topped that. Think about that for a second.

So sure, those moves saved money. But who are you really going to miss in the long run. Hell, outside of Winker and Gray, I’m not missing anyone in that group this year. Things can occur for both baseball and monetary reasons. Look at the big picture. The Kids are being given room to grow. There is ample free payroll space in the years to come. And we are all getting in a tizzy because the Reds broke up a team that had so many things break right for them just to barely finish above .500.

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I think a lot of your analysis is fair; Barnhart should be here (good catcher, reasonable deal, DH and 1B mean Stephenson had available ABs while taking strain off him) but a decent chunk of the other moves could, with some distance between them and now, be justified.

But it just shows how bad these people are at interacting with their fans. When they traded Barnhart, they never should have been talking about "aligning payroll to resources." How about, "We love Tucker, he's been great for us. But we think Tyler is going to be an All-Star and very soon; he needs to be the catcher something approaching every day. Once we made that decision - which we really believe is right - then it made sense for us to look to get Tucker somewhere else."

Same with the pitchers: "Wade Miley was great for us. I'm always going to remember his no-hitter and everything he gave us last year. But we've got Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo kicking down the door. Those guys don't have anything left to prove to us in the minor leagues and they are going to be given every shot at being big performers in our rotation. As we move towards making the next truly great Reds team, and when it came to freeing up spots in the rotation, emphasizing the young guys made the most sense to us."

On Nick: "Look, when we brought Nick in, we could only get a deal done with the opt-out structure we landed on. We knew there was a risk that if he performed well, he would opt out. I know it's hard to look at it this way but in some ways, his opting out means we identified someone who could be really good for us and then he was. We intend to be in the mix to bring him back but we also know he's going to have a lot of suitors. We'll see."

On money, payroll: "Our job is to plan for more than just one season. I actually love the position we're in right now. We have really good young talent up and down the roster. And find me a club that has cleaner books than ours into the future. You literally will not find one. You know what that means? The players we have now are going to be getting really, really good right at the time we have a serious capacity to invest in additional outside help. It reminds me of building the great teams we had in 2010 and 2012. It's going to be awesome. I'm super excited and hope you can be too."

All of that sells so much easier than what they've been peddling; and, conveniently, it's all true! Yet they just stammer out a bunch of incomprehensible and (if you can make heads or tails of it) offensive silliness.

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Originally Posted by muethibp

I think a lot of your analysis is fair; Barnhart should be here (good catcher, reasonable deal, DH and 1B mean Stephenson had available ABs while taking strain off him) but a decent chunk of the other moves could, with some distance between them and now, be justified.

But it just shows how bad these people are at interacting with their fans. When they traded Barnhart, they never should have been talking about "aligning payroll to resources." How about, "We love Tucker, he's been great for us. But we think Tyler is going to be an All-Star and very soon; he needs to be the catcher something approaching every day. Once we made that decision - which we really believe is right - then it made sense for us to look to get Tucker somewhere else."

Same with the pitchers: "Wade Miley was great for us. I'm always going to remember his no-hitter and everything he gave us last year. But we've got Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo kicking down the door. Those guys don't have anything left to prove to us in the minor leagues and they are going to be given every shot at being big performers in our rotation. As we move towards making the next truly great Reds team, and when it came to freeing up spots in the rotation, emphasizing the young guys made the most sense to us."

On Nick: "Look, when we brought Nick in, we could only get a deal done with the opt-out structure we landed on. We knew there was a risk that if he performed well, he would opt out. I know it's hard to look at it this way but in some ways, his opting out means we identified someone who could be really good for us and then he was. We intend to be in the mix to bring him back but we also know he's going to have a lot of suitors. We'll see."

On money, payroll: "Our job is to plan for more than just one season. I actually love the position we're in right now. We have really good young talent up and down the roster. And find me a club that has cleaner books than ours into the future. You literally will not find one. You know what that means? The players we have now are going to be getting really, really good right at the time we have a serious capacity to invest in additional outside help. It reminds me of building the great teams we had in 2010 and 2012. It's going to be awesome. I'm super excited and hope you can be too."

All of that sells so much easier than what they've been peddling; and, conveniently, it's all true! Yet they just stammer out a bunch of incomprehensible and (if you can make heads or tails of it) offensive silliness.

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They definitely could have sold it in a way softer manner. Some of the things Krall said, while bluntly true, were also face palm worthy. Same with the things Phil said yesterday.

As far as Your Barnhart take. I’d have loved to have him back, but not for the price. $7-8M is a steep price for a backup player. It was Stephensons time.

I shudder at the prospect of Phil owning the team in ten yrs :yikes:

That's what bothers me about all of this

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Originally Posted by Unassisted

I do think moving the team is an option and if the Castellinis intend to remain the majority owner for the foreseeable future, it will be their initiative that makes it move. There are too many larger media markets with major league teams in other sports that don't have MLB. If fans actually follow through with hastily-formed plans to abandon ship on the Reds, my guess is the team starts griping about the shortcomings of GABP, as a precursor to finding a new home for the team.

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Major League Baseball has had exactly 1 franchise move in my lifetime, and moving the Reds would require litigating against the State of Ohio re: "Modell's Law." Major League Soccer thought better of their chances on that front a few years back when they decided to leave the Columbus Crew in place and just award Austin an expansion spot instead of a relocated franchise.

The threat to move the Reds is as empty as their free agent budget.

I'll give my two pennies, even though no one asked;

Without looking up the specifics of the 2010-2013 run, this is what I recall;
Dan O'Brien - Drafted Well
Wayne Krivsky - Did well turning over rocks and finding gold
Walt Jockety - Took all the assets the team had and moved them to the MLB team. I always felt that he got too much credit. He took a nice foundation, traded basically any prospect that wasn't nailed down for major league talent, and then reaped the rewards. I'm not saying anyone could have done it, but it wasn't the hardest turnaround job either.

The county that I live in gifted the Cincinnati Reds a stadium, on the promise that the team would have a higher payroll and better results. The results never came and the payroll is debatable at best. Then the owner's son said eat the turd on the plate or we're leaving. Classy. I'm beyond over both of Cincinnati's pro teams.

If they want to move, c-ya. I'm guessing that the majority of the people that still live in Hamilton county cannot afford to attend Reds or Bengals games regularly. The upper middle class has largely moved out of the county, I'm guessing. The Hamilton county residents don't need to keep funding stadiums that largely get used by neighboring counties. If a new stadium is needed/wanted it should be a joint effort by NKY, Hamilton County, Butler County, and Clermont. Unrealistic, I know.

I can see the vision of what Nick is trying to do with the roster. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I get it. It seems like the thought is to clear out any long term payroll and acquire prospects while doing so. The thought is reasonable. The execution, we'll see. The delivery of said plan was horrid.

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Originally Posted by REDREAD

There was good trades too.. in addition to what you mentioned, if BP counts, than so does Arroyo
Latos was a key move. Also Broxton and Ludwick. The two high ticket relievers that got hurt.. one was Marshall, the other name escapes me.. had those
2 guys been healthy, they would have made an impact.

IMO, there was a lot of homegrown talent on the roster, but a good GM was required to fill in the gaps. For example, if Krall inherited the same team that Walt did, I doubt the Reds make the playoffs.

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Ryan Madson was the other reliever. Had he not gotten hurt, Chapman likely would have remained in the rotation.

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Originally Posted by Old school 1983

Who would have actually added longer term additional talent to the team at a price worth paying?

Cast….yes. Never coming back regardless so it’s moot
Barnhart. No. Plus better replacement in house.
Miley. No. No way he repeats last year and would be blocking Greene and Lodolo
Suarez….no. Was an anchor
Shogo…see Suarez
Gray…would have provided some value this year but the wrong side of 30, recent injury history and young stud pitchers in the pipeline.
Winker…best player to go, but very one dimensional. Just for perspective. Last year was his career year. 2.7 bWAR. Billy Hamilton had a year were he topped that. Think about that for a second.

So sure, those moves saved money. But who are you really going to miss in the long run. Hell, outside of Winker and Gray, I’m not missing anyone in that group this year. Things can occur for both baseball and monetary reasons. Look at the big picture. The Kids are being given room to grow. There is ample free payroll space in the years to come. And we are all getting in a tizzy because the Reds broke up a team that had so many things break right for them just to barely finish above .500.

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I would have kept Miley , Gray and Winker. Maybe Suarez..
Gray and Miley wouldn't have blocked Greene or Lodollo.. Right now we have Vlad and San Martin in the rotation (I think).
The rotation could have been Castillo, Mahle, Gray, Lodollo and Greene.
It usually takes more than 5 starting pitchers to make it through a season.
One of Lodollo or Greene could have pitched in relief this season.
I can understand Barnhart and Castanallos not coming back, and I applaud Shogo getting cut.

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Originally Posted by Bob Sheed

Look... If the Castellini's want to buy K-Mart and use it as a tax write-off or whatever... fine. No one is rooting for K-Mart. But this is baseball. There's only one hometown professional baseball team to root for. It's a legal monopoly.

To hold an entity that involves fan experience hostage, just so all the owners can pocket the profits made... well, like I said before, there's a special place in hell for people like that. I'd say they need to go buy some business that doesn't have a fanbase. But of course that wouldn't be a monopoly so you know...

As it stands now, they are cashing in by worsening the fan experience. Shame on them.

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.PREACH.

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Originally Posted by Z-Fly

I'll give my two pennies, even though no one asked;

Without looking up the specifics of the 2010-2013 run, this is what I recall;
Dan O'Brien - Drafted Well
Wayne Krivsky - Did well turning over rocks and finding gold
Walt Jockety - Took all the assets the team had and moved them to the MLB team. I always felt that he got too much credit. He took a nice foundation, traded basically any prospect that wasn't nailed down for major league talent, and then reaped the rewards. I'm not saying anyone could have done it, but it wasn't the hardest turnaround job either.

The county that I live in gifted the Cincinnati Reds a stadium, on the promise that the team would have a higher payroll and better results. The results never came and the payroll is debatable at best. Then the owner's son said eat the turd on the plate or we're leaving. Classy. I'm beyond over both of Cincinnati's pro teams.

If they want to move, c-ya. I'm guessing that the majority of the people that still live in Hamilton county cannot afford to attend Reds or Bengals games regularly. The upper middle class has largely moved out of the county, I'm guessing. The Hamilton county residents don't need to keep funding stadiums that largely get used by neighboring counties. If a new stadium is needed/wanted it should be a joint effort by NKY, Hamilton County, Butler County, and Clermont. Unrealistic, I know.

I can see the vision of what Nick is trying to do with the roster. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I get it. It seems like the thought is to clear out any long term payroll and acquire prospects while doing so. The thought is reasonable. The execution, we'll see. The delivery of said plan was horrid.

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FWIW Indian Hill, Hyde Park, Terrace Park, Mariemont, Madeira are all in Hamilton County, plenty of "Upper Class"


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My issues with the Reds isn't as much who they got rid of it's with the guys they're trying to sell us. Tommy Pham and Jake Fraley aren't major league players and they're getting defacto starting time so far this season and that's not likely to change. They don't understand windows and timing on trades with regards to player value and when it's at it's highest. You can't build a perpetual winner by a good minor league system simply on drafting. You have to continually reload it by trading some of your top MLB players when thier value is at it's peak. I have zero confidence that the bumbling stumbling Nick Krall can get the job done, especially with impulsive owners that are constantly waffling on being in or out. It's total ineptness, and it's a shame for the young core of this team that it's going to be wasted just like the young core of players they had back in the early 2010's.