Time for scorched earth rebuild?

[Kc61]

I don’t expect the Reds to do a tear down. They’ve been there, done that, I doubt they want to go through it again.

Gradually they will get younger and cheaper.

The question is whether they can be a good ball club while making that transition. It won’t be easy.

[Bob Sheed]

Some teams always seem to find a way.

Other teams always seem to find a way to make excuses.

[RedTeamGo!]

Some teams always seem to find a way.

Other teams always seem to find a way to make excuses.

The Reds aren’t even making excuses anymore, ha! They are flat out saying the quiet part out loud now.

[Redsfan6272]

Heard this song last year. I’m taking it as large markets feel like it’s their birthright to use the Reds as their farm team until a move that actually hurts is made. Ditching overpaid backup catchers and 35 year old 4-5 starters doesn’t signal burn it down to me.

So when they trade Gray for a .200 hitting prospect, Castullo for guys we won't see fir 4 years, Saurez fir nothing and tell me this team has any chance bringing nothing but a 4th or 5th place team finish. I am not happy about that with this ownership

[Crumbley]

They traded the best pitcher in the history of the franchise for Rookie Davis because the owner was worried about a negative letter to the editor in the Sunday paper. This isn’t going to go well.

[RedTeamGo!]

They traded the best pitcher in the history of the franchise for Rookie Davis because the owner was worried about a negative letter to the editor in the Sunday paper. This isn’t going to go well.

That’s a creative way of saying the pitcher violently assaulted his fiancé by slamming her against a wall and choking her prior to firing a firearm. The Raiders flat out released a player yesterday for being in a video holding a gun.

[MikeS21]

Just reminiscing about the 2003 trade deadline immediately after Bowden had been dumped by the Reds. His assistants were given the mandate to dump salary. That began a flurry of trades that landed Aaron Harang. You would like to say that was some shrewd horse trading, but it basically was a blind squirrel finding a nut.

Yes, I do think that Krall was given instructions to get younger and cheaper. I also think that 90% of the other GM’s were given the same instructions. Ownership groups around baseball are still smarting from lost income during the pandemic, and the new collective bargaining deal is looming, and there is a lot of uncertainty. I think that this off-season is going to see a lot more “weird” transactions before it’s over - not just from the Reds.

[Old school 1983]

Thing with the Reds is that they kinda are stuck in limbo. They sometimes act like a small market team and then go out and spend like a large market team. Then they get stuck with periods of weird in between where if things break right, they’ll compete, but, if not they are sunk. I think they need to take a path and stick with it. Either behave like a large market spender or a small market shrewd spender. Get out of limbo.

[Mitri]

Thing with the Reds is that they kinda are stuck in limbo. They sometimes act like a small market team and then go out and spend like a large market team. Then they get stuck with periods of weird in between where if things break right, they’ll compete, but, if not they are sunk. I think they need to take a path and stick with it. Either behave like a large market spender or a small market shrewd spender. Get out of limbo.

I completely disagree. The limbo thing works for a handful of teams (Brewers come to mind). If a team has the money (most of them do, some more than others) they should spend it on both good players and scouting/dev/coaching. A good franchise walks and chews gum at the same time. Reds just happened to dish out a few bad contracts at the wrong time. It spooked the owners, who have become penny-wise and pound-foolish about owning a sports franchise.

[Big Klu]

They traded the best pitcher in the history of the franchise for Rookie Davis because the owner was worried about a negative letter to the editor in the Sunday paper. This isn’t going to go well.

They traded Bucky Walters for Rookie Davis?!

[Tony Cloninger]

Chapman is not even really the best reliever in the history of the franchise.

[klw]

They traded the best pitcher in the history of the franchise for Rookie Davis because the owner was worried about a negative letter to the editor in the Sunday paper. This isn’t going to go well.

Umm they traded him for Matt Bullinger, Jay Tibbs and Eddie Williams. Davis was okay but he was no Tibbs.

[REDREAD]

I expect at least one more big salary to be dumped.
Krall has acted like his hair is on fire the first week of the offseason.
That's probably why he took the lazy way out with Miley.. he wants all offseason to dump the rest of the salary he needs to dump

[RedsManRick]

Thing with the Reds is that they kinda are stuck in limbo. They sometimes act like a small market team and then go out and spend like a large market team. Then they get stuck with periods of weird in between where if things break right, they’ll compete, but, if not they are sunk. I think they need to take a path and stick with it. Either behave like a large market spender or a small market shrewd spender. Get out of limbo.

I'd argue that it's not about pursuing the "right" strategy. Lots of different strategies can work. It's about doing it well. The problem with the Reds has not been having the wrong strategy or changing strategy prematurely. It's been doing a crap job of executing whatever strategy they happened to be pursuing at the time.

Ironically, they were getting out of limbo in 2018-20 by moving seriously on both fronts -- spending on major league talent and completely overhauling their development program. Then COVID hit and management chased away the architect of that plan. What worries me most is not the strategy. It's that they chased away the executive I had the most confidence in of any Reds exec in my lifetime and replaced him with a guy whose acumen is questionable at best.

[RedTeamGo!]

Chapman wasn’t even the best pitcher on the Reds during his time here.