Was tanking for this year the right call in retrospect to date?

[UK Reds Fan]

Now that we're 30 games into season...was tanking this year not the worst idea?

The moment the Reds were not able/going to bring back Castellanos (who is a stud...could care less what obscure metrics you scrap together)...was it not the right path to tear the team down?

1. Winker and Suarez in Seattle so far. Not exactly setting things on fire. I expect Winker to settle out but Suarez is same old stuff...he is on pace to strike out all the live long day and be bad at OBP while trying to pull everything.
2. Wade Miley makes his first scheduled start tomorrow....we'll see how his 2022 fares.
3. Sonny Gray has been solid but missing starts already for Twins.
4. As mentioned Castellanos is raking......he's the one we needed but couldn't keep the most

Now to the current Reds

5. CF was always the hole needing to be resovled. Shogo was a joke and Senzel is looking more and more like the dud he's been past few years.
6. SS...Farmer was a great story last year but many wondered if it would persist...and Barrero missing with his injury...that spot appears to be downgraded from last year
7. Votto is usually cold to start...and this year even moreso
8. india not off to a hot start

All in all...was it the worst idea to not go for it given the flawed roster coming back in 2022? I don't have confidence we are getting good value for the players we've shipped out for sure....but this season appears to have been destined for another non post season no matter how the Reds would have played their cards.

[RedTeamGo!]

They didn't really tank, though. It was more of a half-tank.

And no, tanking is never the answer. It is a con by ownership/front office to make more money.

[cumberlandreds]

Tanking is never good. It puts the entire organization and fans into an apathy mode. No reason this team could not have been competitive if they had stayed put with what they had with some mild upgrades to the pitching staff. Especially in a year with expanded playoffs and a fairly weak NL Central. Not to mention a jack-ass son of an owner popping off on Opening day.

[CaiGuy]

I actually don't mind the idea of using this year as a retool year and a year to break in the big-name pitching prospects, though I think it was poorly done.

Cashing in Winker may prove to be a decent idea, but attaching Suarez to him, probably lessening the return, was a shame. They should have cashed Winker in for maximum talent. Just eat the Suarez money, or if he bounces back you could trade him on his own, or, I don't know, keep him around if he hits. I also don't like the idea of flipping a guy who signed a hometown kind of deal. You may want to treat those guys carefully, as you want to be able to do those deals in the future.

Letting Miley go for nothing, and then taking on Minor was...strange. Similar for Gray, though he did net a prospect.

The Cast deal would have been too risky in the long run. I think letting him walk was the right move sadly.

I also think it's good they picked up vets on the short-term rather than just pocketing the savings as they could have, but it's strange that some of these new guys haven't seen the field.

The Reds do find themselves in a decent spot, depending on ownership's plans. They have very little money committed long term, and they seem to have a nice little wave of talent coming in. Maybe Krall is not they right guy for this, but I think a good GM could really do some interesting things and get them back to contention pretty quickly with savvy moves plus all of these young coming in at the same time. (Greeene, Lodolo, India, Stephenson, Berrero, McClain, Ashcraft, Santillian, Williamson, etc)

[Old school 1983]

I was sick of hearing the word competitive 15 years ago. You’re a pro sports team. Your floor better be competitive. I want a good team. A winner. Consistently. If tanking or whatever you want to call it helps to reset the roster and payroll so they build that consistent good winner, I’m ok with it. Not thrilled. But ok. If they don’t add at the deadline or over the off-season, I’ll be livid.

[JCM11]

This was more of a retool than a tank. The payroll is over 90 million this year there are plenty of tanking teams with far lower than that. In retrospect it would've been smarter for them to do a full tank and traded Mahle and Castillo when they decided to move Winker. I think the big brains in charge actually thought they could pull this retool off by turning over 50% of the roster in a short ST and still have the team come together and compete. Injuries have hurt for sure, but ultimately the powers that shouldn't be greatly over exaggerated their collective baseball IQ.

[Bob Sheed]

"Retooling"...

"Rebuilding"...

"Tanking"...

"Realigning Resources"...



These are all euphemisms for "milking the fan experience for additional profit." If anyone is still not convinced, have a look around the NL Central, for example. Nevermind how successful the teams are, that's not really the point. Look which teams "rebuild" and which ones do not.

Reds ownership is unique though, in the sense that they have a curious combination of frugality, indecisiveness, impulsiveness, and a general lack of baseball acumen. Oh, and also the, for lack of a better made-up word, smarrogance (smug arrogance) from the Team President.

And what we see in the standings is a result of that elixir of shamefulness that Reds ownership has been brewing for over a decade now.

[VR]

Timing was the problem for me. Mid-season sell off, after the chance to catch lighting in a bottle, would have been much more acceptable.

[mth123]

I'm not in favor of tanking ever, but it only works when actual impact talent is acquired in the process. The best talent the Reds got was a guy who barely squeaked onto a top 100 prospect list and if he works out, he might be a 4th or 5th starter. The biggest return the team got was moving Suarez contract and if he's even a little bit below average, its a bargain deal.

[Wayne Krivsky]

I have no issue with the idea, I would actually rather have them tear down a year early than a year too late as they did before the last rebuild. My bigger issue is how they did it.

Moving Winker was probably a good move given the direction they were going.....attaching Suarez to the deal not as good. If this ownership group would have eaten the Suarez contract, and prioritized getting a better return for a top asset instead of prioritizing lowering payroll I would have been a huge fan of that trade. Nothing against the guys the Reds got back, but it could have been better.

Moving Sonny Gray isnt a terrible move either. He had value in a contract year. No problems with capitalizing on that type of move.

Shedding salary to bring in Mike Minor at $10MM per year? Why? Michael Pineda signed a one year deal with Detroit for half that money. The Reds could have outbid the Tigers, still saved $3MM or so, and kept Amir Garret who right now would be an upgrade over at least half their bullpen.

Moving on from Wade Miley? Not a bad move....panic dumping him to strictly shed salary? Not as good. Waiting and flipping him for someone's #15 prospect would have been a great idea.

It just feels like the Reds don't have a true plan. Seems the GM has one plan, and ownership has another. Not being on the same page just leaves the front office at a significant handicap.

[mth123]

I have no issue with the idea, I would actually rather have them tear down a year early than a year too late as they did before the last rebuild. My bigger issue is how they did it.

Moving Winker was probably a good move given the direction they were going.....attaching Suarez to the deal not as good. If this ownership group would have eaten the Suarez contract, and prioritized getting a better return for a top asset instead of prioritizing lowering payroll I would have been a huge fan of that trade. Nothing against the guys the Reds got back, but it could have been better.

Moving Sonny Gray isnt a terrible move either. He had value in a contract year. No problems with capitalizing on that type of move.

Shedding salary to bring in Mike Minor at $10MM per year? Why? Michael Pineda signed a one year deal with Detroit for half that money. The Reds could have outbid the Tigers, still saved $3MM or so, and kept Amir Garret who right now would be an upgrade over at least half their bullpen.

Moving on from Wade Miley? Not a bad move....panic dumping him to strictly shed salary? Not as good. Waiting and flipping him for someone's #15 prospect would have been a great idea.

It just feels like the Reds don't have a true plan. Seems the GM has one plan, and ownership has another. Not being on the same page just leaves the front office at a significant handicap.

If they wanted to do it right, they would have kept Suarez and eaten the Moustakas deal. Then flip Winker for an impact guy. The guys they got are C+ prospects and filler in addition to moving Suarez Salary. I'd rather have one B+ guy. Otherwise, just keep him.

[Kc61]

Tanking was not the best approach for building this team. But they wanted to realign (i.e., cut) payroll.

Better approach would have been to re-tool with some spending. For example, replace Castellanos with a player of comparable ability. And get younger in certain spots too.

Reds already had a .500+ team. Should have continued building upward one way or the other.

[Wayne Krivsky]

Tanking was not the best approach for building this team. But they wanted to realign (i.e., cut) payroll.

Better approach would have been to re-tool with some spending. For example, replace Castellanos with a player of comparable ability. And get younger in certain spots too.

Reds already had a .500+ team. Should have continued building upward one way or the other.

Crazy thing is they didn't even do that well....A lot of wasted money on new additions this year, starting with Mike Minor at $10MM. You figure Castellanos only got $20MM per year and you realize it's not how much the Reds spend, but how they are spending it.

[CesarGeronimo]

I believe the Reds when they say they were realigning resources, not tanking. Tanking is a peaks and valleys strategy, which is what Krall said they are aiming to avoid.

[JCM11]

If they wanted to do it right, they would have kept Suarez and eaten the Moustakas deal. Then flip Winker for an impact guy. The guys they got are C+ prospects and filler in addition to moving Suarez Salary. I'd rather have one B+ guy. Otherwise, just keep him.

It seems you take every chance you can get to proclaim the prospects the Reds got this off season as sub par. Williamson was in Baseball Americas's pre 2022 top 100 not bad for a C+ guy. Phillips(a 2020 second round pick) just turned 21 a few days ago and has only allowed 13 hits while striking out 38 batters in 24 innings in A+ ball. So it looks like he has some high end stuff from those numbers. Petty( a 2021 first round pick) turned 19 a month ago and is putting up an impressive 3.20 ERA in a league where he is 3 years younger than league average.

It's way too early to know what the Reds have with these guys, but the early returns look good to me.