Time to blow it up!

[MM83]

They’re like a middling team this year, especially given their runs scored vs allowed. They were truly awful from 2015-18. They were at least respectable if not outright good at times this season. They have enough pieces were they could be legitimately great next season if they make the right moves.

Downright good and they have the 4th worst record in the NL

Yikes

[Wonderful Monds]

Downright good and they have the 4th worst record in the NL

Yikes

They’re also 16th in run differential in all of baseball, which basically means they couldn’t be more average.

[Sea Ray]

Who the heck is Randall Simon? But I agree, Reds should NOT be trading prospects for one-year vets.

Alfredo Simon

- - - Updated - - -

It takes a few years to get from 95 losses to contention. The Reds made their first step this year.

An eight game pickup is meaningful. Maybe it will get to ten games, 77 wins, that’s what I hoped for when the season began.

That they traded some prospects doesn’t bother me in the least. The problem with the Reds was the total absence of serious veteran additions for years. You can’t compete with the contending clubs without those additions.

Prospects are there to keep or to trade. If they guess wrong on a few, that’s unfortunate, but it’s not worth all this cyberspace. It’s part of doing business.

I think Reds are in good position to add several more good major league players and improve again next year.

Understand they made a lot of that progress by just letting the kids play like Aquino and Ervin. The new pitching coach helped immensely too. The one yr rentals did next to nothing to improve the team.

[kaldaniels]

Who the heck is Randall Simon? But I agree, Reds should NOT be trading prospects for one-year vets.

He’s a sausage assassin.

[MM83]

That's the plan that failed so spectacularly in 2015-18. Continuing to try that and expecting different results is baseball orthodoxy, but while we're complaining the Reds might have crossed halfway across the void to respectability. I'll take this over the death march they were on.

Actually. The plan that failed miserably was the reds trading their assets for the obvious rebuild

Cueto. Chapman. Bruce. Frazier. Leake. The return of those miserable trades is the reason for the 6 year rebuild

Now all of a sudden, you think they can magically make smart trades? Lol. Nah

[Tom Servo]

Actually. The plan that failed miserably was the reds trading their assets for the obvious rebuild

Cueto. Chapman. Bruce. Frazier. Leake. The return of those miserable trades is the reason for the 6 year rebuild

Now all of a sudden, you think they can magically make smart trades? Lol. Nah

But...isn't your argument that they need to make trades of the good players now? Won't they just screw that up too then?

[MM83]

But...isn't your argument that they need to make trades of the good players now? Won't they just screw that up too then?

No.

[Tom Servo]

No.

Not sure which question you are answering. If you DON'T want to "blow it up", which is the easy impression from your posts about the importance of prospects, maybe you could instead tell us with what you think the best path forward is instead of the "it's all hopeless" bit.

[MM83]

Not sure which question you are answering. If you DON'T want to "blow it up", which is the easy impression from your posts about the importance of prospects, maybe you could instead tell us with what you think the best path forward is instead of the "it's all hopeless" bit.

Trading top 10, high upside prospects, for little controlled, MLB players to add a few wins to a 95 loss team isn’t the way.

How don’t you understand this?

[Tom Servo]

Trading top 10, high upside prospects, for little controlled, MLB players to add a few wins to a 95 loss team isn’t the way.

How don’t you understand this?

You’ve made your feelings about those trades abundantly clear. What that doesn’t do is answer my question, looks like I’m speaking to a brick wall.

[mth123]

I'm not in favor of blowing it up because I don't have the patience to wait for another 4 or 5 year plan of tanking and drafting. I do see the logic in it though.

This team's position player group has a lot more downside than upside even though they are 12th in the NL in runs scored.
- At 1B, the declining star will be another year older and more likely to continue see his skills erode as the nagging aches and pains increase with age and another year of mileage.
- At 2B, this team has no obvious in house choice and they did get quite a solid stretch from Dietrich for a couple of months and some fairly decent production from VanMeter for a while. It hasn't been great overall, but with the current roster, there is a lot more possibility of even worse production (or a repeat of what has been routine without the massive hot stretches) than an improvement.
- In RF, Aquino seems to have come back to Earth and just for the team to break even with this year, they would need an .800+ OPS with 38 HR (So far) and pretty solid defense. I'm not seeing an overall improvement likely there and more likely a sizable production drop.
- The team's top young hope is now recovering from a torn labrum. Something that will effect how he swings the bat and how and where he plays defensively.
- Its hard to expect a repeat from Eugenio Suarez. He'll probably still be good, but does anyone expect 45 HR (and counting) again next season?
- Jose Iglesias, IMO, has been the team's 2nd best position player. He's a FA and though I kind of like Freddy Galvis warts and all, there is no way he has the overall season that Iglesias had this year.
- I do think we'll get more out of Jesse Winker in LF next year, but I also think Phillip Ervin is unlikely to repeat. I don't see hoping for anything other than a wash here.

I just don't see where the product on the field is going to improve. They do have some money to spend, but I don't think they can bring in enough talent to upgrade from the terrible overall result we've seen and offset some of the likely drops in production noted above. Even if all of these don't go south, any drop in production makes it that much more difficult to move the team's overall output from awful to contender worthy. I'm less optimistic than I was last year at this time when I was freaking out about the rotation (which still has some questions of it's own).

[M2]

They are still awful
They will be awful next year
At least with young talent you have the chance to be good for a long time

Now we get to be ****ty for a few years but not a laughingstock.

They're quite literally not awful. A bit disappointing because they've lost too many close games, but they're a team flirting with competency. We've seen enough truly pathetic baseball in recent years to recognize 2019 as a decided upgrade.

[mth123]

They're quite literally not awful. A bit disappointing because they've lost too many close games, but they're a team flirting with competency. We've seen enough truly pathetic baseball in recent years to recognize 2019 as decided upgrade.

I'm hoping this is correct, but with what this team has on the field, do we really expect an upgrade next year? Is there enough money to add two or three bats, two or three relievers and possibly another starting pitcher? A lot of what went right in 2019 is unlikely to repeat itself (Puig/Aquino in RF), Dietrich's hot start, the overall play received at SS, Suarez' likely career year. Prodcution from role players like Phillip Ervin, Josh VanMeter, Curt Casali and Kyle Farmer. What of Senzel's situation? Will Gray and Castillo be as good next year? Expecting so is pretty optimistic. Not saying they are bad, but matching what they did this year is an awfully high expectation. If 2019 is the jumping off point, I just see more downside than upside going forward.

[M2]

Actually. The plan that failed miserably was the reds trading their assets for the obvious rebuild

Cueto. Chapman. Bruce. Frazier. Leake. The return of those miserable trades is the reason for the 6 year rebuild

Now all of a sudden, you think they can magically make smart trades? Lol. Nah

Cueto, Chapman, Bruce, Frazier and Leake were botched deals for prospects. So they can't trade for prospects, but also can't trade them away? That seems like a bit of Catch-22. The Reds are better than they've been in years. That's not hyperbole. It's a simple statement of fact.

Can they take the next step? No idea, but I'm interested to see them try. They've got something. Beats the roadkill they served up in previous seasons.

[M2]

I'm hoping this is correct, but with what this team has on the field, do we really expect an upgrade next year? Is there enough money to add two or three bats, two or three relievers and possibly another starting pitcher? A lot of what went right in 2019 is unlikely to repeat itself (Puig/Aquino in RF), Dietrich's hot start, the overall play received at SS, Suarez' likely career year. Prodcution from role players like Phillip Ervin, Josh VanMeter, Curt Casali and Kyle Farmer. What of Senzel's situation? Will Gray and Castillo be as good next year? Expecting so is pretty optimistic. Not saying they are bad, but matching what they did this year is an awfully high expectation. If 2019 is the jumping off point, I just see more downside than upside going forward.

I don't know. I don't think they get there without making a non-conventional move or two. I take some solace in that they've been willing to make moves for the past year. There's a lot of different stuff they could do. I figure they'll try something.