David Bell Needs to...Stay?

[JFLegal]

Yep. Also, ownership allowed this team to go into the regular season without an actual SS on the roster.

and i can't believe i'm defending bell here, but ownership also tied one hand behind his back when they gave away iglesias for free and went into the season with the worst bullpen in MLB. took them 4 months to address it with givens and cessa. it's definitely mostly on ownership. if the reds had a good manager, things would be better, but ownership and poor decisions by the front office are far more the culprit than david bell.

[boxseat]

Fire him and move on

[mth123]

This one of many loses resulting from poor defense, poor fundamentals.

That’s on the manager. I think Bell has done a good job so far, but this is his and the team’s biggest weakness, imo.

I disagree about it being on the manager. These are major league players not little leaguers. Fundamentals should be a given. Lack of fundamentals is squarely on the players IMO. That's nothing more than a professional being professional. Bell can be responsible to a degree on who plays where, but sometimes you have a lot of flawed choices to make and you pick the best one knowing that the flaws can come back to bite you. Bell made some choices like that. Schrock has ittle OF experience and botched a play. Looking at the alternatives on the roster, I'd have made the same choice to play Schrock out there. If teh situation is the same next time, I'd run him out there again in spite of what happened Wednesday.

I maintain that the manager means very little. The front office is responsible. You want players with solid fundamentals, get players who have solid fundamentals when assembling the roster. The big league roster is no place to be teaching that stuff. You want the manager to avoid making bad choices, give him a roster with good players to choose from.

I've never been a fan of the Bell . I think it was driven by his name and the fact that his grandfather was a Reds All star about the time most of this teams ownership group was growing up as Reds fans. Still, I don't think any of this is on him. He's not the reason the OF is so thin. He's not the reason Suarez, Senzel, Aquino, Garrett and Moose have provided a huge below replacement negative on the season. He's not the reason Castellanos got hit by a pitch and went into a funk for a while and he's not the reason Castellanos hits so well when he does. He's not why Jesse Winker has been out with a couple of injuries. He's not why Joey Votto was hitting HRs every day in July and he's not the reason he stopped hitting them in August.

Bell can stay or Bell can go. It's not impacting this team's won loss record until some personnel on the roster change or change how they perform.

[Tom Servo]

Going up there and hacking away at the first pitch is not a recipe for success.

Their approach largely worked for them for the better part of 5 months.

[RedsManRick]

I don't want Bell gone because I know (we all do) just how bad the alternatives can be. But, my God, stop playing replacement level veterans when you have top prospects sitting there ready to contribute.

[Wonderful Monds]

I don't want Bell gone because I know (we all do) just how bad the alternatives can be. But, my God, stop playing replacement level veterans when you have top prospects sitting there ready to contribute.

I could almost understand the steady hand approach before when the team was playing well to justify it, but it’s been 3 weeks of total collapse at this point. There’s zero reason for Kyle Farmer to be starting over Barrero by now.

[M2]

Tight? I'd say playing without a sound approach to hitting is more like it. Maybe even selfish. Going up there and hacking away at the first pitch is not a recipe for success. Swinging at pitches above the chest, when pitches are at the knees -- tv crew mentioned the league had peeped out Castellanos hammering high fastballs -- is not a good approach. I attribute tight to teams with lots of talent. This team doesn't have lots of talented hitters.

Tight teams have bad ABs. Tight teams make crucial mistakes at crucial times. Tight teams get leads and their pitchers cough them up. All of that is happening right now. The Reds weren't playing lucky before they hit this wall. They were eating what they killed, at least in terms of run differential. They've stopped being the team they were for almost five months of this season. We shouldn't sleep on how bizarre that is.

[Chip R]

I was in favor of keeping Bell but the way this team has played down the stretch makes me not care if they bring him back. It will be interesting to see what happens if Larkin is indeed the heir apparent.

[westofyou]

I was in favor of keeping Bell but the way this team has played down the stretch makes me not care if they bring him back. It will be interesting to see what happens if Larkin is indeed the heir apparent.

Larkin eh?

The baseball platitudes would be burdensome with their heaviness

[westofyou]

Their approach largely worked for them for the better part of 5 months.

They are hitting like they did in May, with a lower OB%

In between they did fine

[mth123]

Tight teams have bad ABs. Tight teams make crucial mistakes at crucial times. Tight teams get leads and their pitchers cough them up. All of that is happening right now. The Reds weren't playing lucky before they hit this wall. They were eating what they killed, at least in terms of run differential. They've stopped being the team they were for almost five months of this season. We shouldn't sleep on how bizarre that is.

I think its just hot and cold streaks for some players. Winker and Votto were both hot. Farmer was on fire. Naquin was hot. Stephenson had a huge June, cooled in July, was awesome again in August and has been bad in September. They all got hot at the same time and all cooled (or were injured) at the same time, Votto and Farmer have cooled from an unsustainable run, Winker and Naquin are hurt. Suddenly the offense isn't out hitying the rest of the rest of the team's flaws. Most teams that win have a few guys hot at the same time, but not always the same guys. Guys who are hot go cold and others heat up to replace the production. Its the guys who've been consistently bad - Suarez, Moose, Aquino, Senzel, Shogo who haven't been able to pick up any slack that are the problem. I have a hard time thinking any of that is on the manager,

[757690]

I disagree about it being on the manager. These are major league players not little leaguers. Fundamentals should be a given. Lack of fundamentals is squarely on the players IMO.

This has always been your stance, and I firmly disagree.

MLB players are jocks. They aren’t deep thinkers. They generally do as they are told. There are exceptions like Votto, but for the most part, they don’t think too much about anything, even the game they are paid to play. If they aren’t being told to work on their fundamentals, they will not work on their fundamentals. They need a manager and an organization to emphasize fundamentals if they are to work on them.

[RedsFanInMS]

I don't want Bell gone because I know (we all do) just how bad the alternatives can be. But, my God, stop playing replacement level veterans when you have top prospects sitting there ready to contribute.

Are you saying Asdrubal Cabrera and Deshields Jr aren't the answer?

[mth123]

This has always been your stance, and I firmly disagree.

MLB players are jocks. They aren’t deep thinkers. They generally do as they are told. There are exceptions like Votto, but for the most part, they don’t think too much about anything, even the game they are paid to play. If they aren’t being told to work on their fundamentals, they will not work on their fundamentals. They need a manager and an organization to emphasize fundamentals if they are to work on them.

Its the basics of their profession. They have been playing all their lives. If they don't get it by the time they reach the big leagues, the Manager isn't going to change anything. The way to address it is to get different players. The Manager doesn't really have the right to hire and fore people like your manager at work may have. If some organizational prospect doesn't get it, the only way that is changing is for the organization to move on. If some veteran on a long term deal is a bonehead, the Manager can't change it and can't get rid of him.

Every profession has professional standards and every profession has individuals who can consistently meet those standards and others who don't care enough to be able to. In MLB, those standards are what we refer to as fundamentals. You can try to teach those in the minor leagues, but by the time a guy is a big leaguer he should have them. The responsibility for lack of fundamentals may lie somewhere in the organization, but the big league Manager has little to do with it.

[757690]

Its the basics of their profession. They have been playing all their lives. If they don't get it by the time they reach the big leagues, the Manager isn't going to change anything. The way to address it is to get different players. The Manager doesn't really have the right to hire and fore people like your manager at work may have. If some organizational prospect doesn't get it, the only way that is changing is for the organization to move on. If some veteran on a long term deal is a bonehead, the Manager can't change it and can't get rid of him.

Every profession has professional standards and every profession has individuals who can consistently meet those standards and others who don't care enough to be able to. In MLB, those standards are what we refer to as fundamentals. You can try to teach those in the minor leagues, but by the time a guy is a big leaguer he should have them. The responsibility for lack of fundamentals may lie somewhere in the organization, but the big league Manager has little to do with it.

Strongly disagree.

Sparky, Lou and Dusty all managed Reds teams that had strong fundamentals. The other teams they managed all had strong fundamentals. It wasn’t the players, it wasn’t the organizations. It was the managers.

We see this all the time. Some managers always have teams with strong fundamentals, some managers always have teams with weak fundamentals.