I'm starting to think the Reds should keep Castillo & Mahle (with one caveat)

[#13]

I totally agree. The Reds have shown the last 30 games that they are competitive with solid starting pitching. With no long term money I'd do a quartet of extensions for Castillo, Mahle, India and Stephenson.

Offer both pitchers 4 year deals that cover last are year and 3 FA years.

First, Mahle cannot pitch in GABP, second, the Reds are not extending Castillo. He will be 30 next season and looking for $100m+. Third why would you extend two players that are making $750k per year. That’s how the Reds got in the situation with Suarez. Let it play out and spend money wisely. Your plan is the same plan they have tried over and over and it just doesn’t work. Trade, draft, development, and turn the roster over every 5 years

[JFLegal]

boys, stay with me here. we have a really good thing brewing. just want to re-post what could be the reds' rotation in 2023:

castillo
mahle
greene
ashcraft
FA signing or lodolo

waiting in the wings: williamson, abbott.

LFG

[herbdizzle]

First, Mahle cannot pitch in GABP, second, the Reds are not extending Castillo. He will be 30 next season and looking for $100m+. Third why would you extend two players that are making $750k per year. That’s how the Reds got in the situation with Suarez. Let it play out and spend money wisely. Your plan is the same plan they have tried over and over and it just doesn’t work. Trade, draft, development, and turn the roster over every 5 years

The reason you offer extensions now is that they may bite at the guaranteed amount. Injuries or a crappy 2023 can change the financial fortune of both. I think a 4 year extension for both is fine. Castillo till he's 33, Mahle 31-32. I'd offer Mahle 4/60 and Castillo 4/90. It's similar to the Bengals having Burrow on a rookie contract. You can spend on other things when cornerstones are cheap. Lodolo, Greene, Ashcraft will all just be entering arbitration when extensions end.

Castillo, Greene, Ashcraft, Mahle 1-4 is the best way to win next year. Tired of kicking cans.

[#13]

[QUOTE=herbdizzle;4429754]The reason you offer extensions now is that they may bite at the guaranteed amount. Injuries or a crappy 2023 can change the financial fortune of both. I think a 4 year extension for both is fine. Castillo till he's 33, Mahle 31-32. I'd offer Mahle 4/60 and Castillo 4/90. It's similar to the Bengals having Burrow on a rookie contract. You can spend on other things when cornerstones are cheap. Lodolo, Greene, Ashcraft will all just be entering arbitration when extensions end.


I understand what you are saying but the Reds are finally in a position to trade a player at optimum value. Too many young arms in the minors to tie up Mahle and Castillo for $150m, which no way they would accept, especially Castillo. Those two starters are not in the Reds window and need to go. No more long term extensions and no more big money free agents signings. The Reds are going about their business the smart way for a small market team. If the Reds kept Gray and Miley where would Greene, Ashcraft, Overton, Lodollo be right now? The Reds made the right moves and you the young pitchers are getting valuable experience. Kicking cans was watching Gray go 5 innings and on the IL, Suarez hitting.200 and striking out 175 times, and Winker getting hurt each year, clogging up the bases and never playing in more than 110 games.

[M2]

The reason you offer extensions now is that they may bite at the guaranteed amount. Injuries or a crappy 2023 can change the financial fortune of both. I think a 4 year extension for both is fine. Castillo till he's 33, Mahle 31-32. I'd offer Mahle 4/60 and Castillo 4/90. It's similar to the Bengals having Burrow on a rookie contract. You can spend on other things when cornerstones are cheap. Lodolo, Greene, Ashcraft will all just be entering arbitration when extensions end.

Castillo, Greene, Ashcraft, Mahle 1-4 is the best way to win next year. Tired of kicking cans.

No sane player who is going to have multiple other suitors is putting their future in the hands of the Reds organization. I fully agree that it would be a good baseball move to lock down a solid rotation, but neither of these two needs the Reds. The consequence for the way they've operated the last two winters is it's going to take more time than remains on the Castillo/Mahle contracts before players trust them again.

[Kc61]

I’ve thought about this thread and the idea of keeping Castllo and Mahle for next season and possibly beyond.

I conclude no. Trade them both at some point before they become free agents. Shop them as early as right now.

The Reds have had two big wins yet are 20-35. The team needs a lot of work. I’m not putting all my eggs in the 2023 basket.

I would agree not to jump at the first offer, to be patient and look for good trades. But I can’t justify losing the trade value of Castillo and Mahle for a team trying for sustained success over a number of years.

Extending them wouldn’t be crazy, but I conclude Reds are better off building methodically before taking on big pitching LTCs.

[mth123]

First, Mahle cannot pitch in GABP, second, the Reds are not extending Castillo. He will be 30 next season and looking for $100m+. Third why would you extend two players that are making $750k per year. That’s how the Reds got in the situation with Suarez. Let it play out and spend money wisely. Your plan is the same plan they have tried over and over and it just doesn’t work. Trade, draft, development, and turn the roster over every 5 years

The problem is they don't churn a couple of guys every year, they hang with the same guys, good or bad and then do a scorched earth rebuild. They've already turned over three rotation spots since the end of 2021. I don't think turning over two more this quickly bodes well for the future rotation. I'd prefer to let Greene and Ashcraft become what they will become while still having a couple guys in place. I might be OK with dealing Mahle for a decent return (say a prospect in the 75 to 125 overall range) but for Castillo I want a top guy or I'll just take him leading the staff for another season. Trading them for "whatever you can get" is the mistake this team continues to make IMO.

The goal should be a stable rotation that turns-over one spot per season and only one kid at a time should be added in. The Reds have several good pitching prospects. Long term, I think they'll be lucky to end up with 2 solid starting pitchers out of all that. Failure rate is sky high for kids coming up from the minors. Somebody has to pitch. We've seen time and again, no matter how good the team is, if the starting pitching isn't any good, the team won't be very good. Even this team of retread and career back-up position players is pretty good when they get a well pitched game from the starter. I don't give up solid big league starters without a quality return.

[TheBigLebowski]

Trade both. This board annually laments all the opportunities this franchise has missed by holding on to talent just a little bit too long and thereby diminishing any return.

Frankly, I don't think either one is needed in this rebuild. Mahle is disgusting in GABP. Castillo is still relatively prime and would bring a nice return.

We HAVE Mike Minor. Let's not be greedy.

[Kc61]

The problem is they don't churn a couple of guys every year, they hang with the same guys, good or bad and then do a scorched earth rebuild. They've already turned over three rotation spots since the end of 2021. I don't think turning over two more this quickly bodes well for the future rotation. I'd prefer to let Greene and Ashcraft become what they will become while still having a couple guys in place. I might be OK with dealing Mahle for a decent return (say a prospect in the 75 to 125 overall range) but for Castillo I want a top guy or I'll just take him leading the staff for another season. Trading them for "whatever you can get" is the mistake this team continues to make IMO.

The goal should be a stable rotation that turns-over one spot per season and only one kid at a time should be added in. The Reds have several good pitching prospects. Long term, I think they'll be lucky to end up with 2 solid starting pitchers out of all that. Failure rate is sky high for kids coming up from the minors. Somebody has to pitch. We've seen time and again, no matter how good the team is, if the starting pitching isn't any good, the team won't be very good. Even this team of retread and career back-up position players is pretty good when they get a well pitched game from the starter. I don't give up solid big league starters without a quality return.

All fine but they must get a return for Castillo and Mahle. Trade them now, trade them later, but they can’t just lose these guys in free agency with a medium draft pick return.

[Old school 1983]

More I think about it, unless you get a guy you can slot in the MLB lineup or a huge potential prospect that’s a little down the chain for Mahle, it might be best to attach Moose to him so another team eats that contract. If the Reds wisely invest that money back into the team next year, that likely provides more value than a prospect. Castillo needs trades for best return possible.

[Kc61]

More I think about it, unless you get a guy you can slot in the MLB lineup or a huge potential prospect that’s a little down the chain for Mahle, it might be best to attach Moose to him so another team eats that contract. If the Reds wisely invest that money back into the team next year, that likely provides more value than a prospect. Castillo needs trades for best return possible.

Moose is owed a great deal of money for this year, next year, and a buyout option. It isn’t a Suarez situation with an economic $11 million annual salary. Including Moose would very dramatically change the economics of the deal. May be tough, even if Reds decided to try it.

[REDREAD]

Seems like a recipe for 81 wins...maybe.

Well, the new plan is no peaks or valleys.
I'll take 81 wins instead of 95 losses..
81 wins is about the best we can expect out of this ownership and front office. They will never go "all in".
I'd rather the Reds just keep Castillo and Mahle too, unless we are blown away.
Otherwise, most likely we will get another Claussen, Rob Bell, Yarnall or something like that which probably is not going to help us much anyhow.
I'd rather the Reds do their best to try to win every year.. Yes, I know that is not realistic.
The year that Leake and Cueto were traded -- we were told that the team was going to load up on prospects and rebuild.
That did not exactly work out well.
In fact, the last time the Reds executed a successful rebuild was the 1997 tear down which lead to the 1999 team.
The Walt era was great, but that was not really a tear down/ rebuild. (Although if someone disagrees, that's fine, I will not argue).
I guess one could argue that 1997 was not a complete teardown either, but it's the closest to a tear down that I can remember.
When Pete came in the early 80s and transformed the team from a basement dweller to a 2nd place team (he had help from the front office and farm) -- that was not a tear down, IMO.

So in my lifetime, only 1 teardown/rebuild worked. Or at most 2 did if you count the Walt era.
I don't think these clowns we have now are going to ever succeed.. In fact, they imply they don't want to succeed with all the "avoid peaks and valleys" nonsense.
They are telling us what they want to do. They would like to have a team that perennially hovers around 500, with the cheapest payroll possible.

So if we are generous,

[REDREAD]

No sane player who is going to have multiple other suitors is putting their future in the hands of the Reds organization. I fully agree that it would be a good baseball move to lock down a solid rotation, but neither of these two needs the Reds. The consequence for the way they've operated the last two winters is it's going to take more time than remains on the Castillo/Mahle contracts before players trust them again.

I understand this logic, but I would rather have Castillo for the next 1.5 years than trade him for magic beans.
Thus, I'd rather the Reds keep both unless they are blown away.
Note, I realize you are not saying "give them away" you want to get something good back, but what kind of offers are the Reds going to get?
Teams are going to assume the cheap Reds want to cut payroll and just offer a couple of B/C prospects and wait them out.
The expanded playoffs don't really help selling teams. If the Mets don't get Castillo (or a pitcher like him) at the playoffs, they can just shrug and say "Well, at least we will take one of the wildcards".
Expanded playoffs are going to kill the urgency to add an impact player at the deadline, IMO. Yes, impact players will still be traded, but the buyer will have more leverage.
It's a lot easier to extract more from a contender when the choice is "Get Castillo or miss the playoffs".

I agree with you that it's unlikely Castillo will want to come back, but if he doesn't, it's not tragic.

[M2]

I understand this logic, but I would rather have Castillo for the next 1.5 years than trade him for magic beans.

Are the Reds going to be anything other than afterthought for the next 1.5 seasons? This year's already pretty much dusted. Investment in the wholly lacking offense and bullpen isn't likely.

[Old school 1983]

Moose is owed a great deal of money for this year, next year, and a buyout option. It isn’t a Suarez situation with an economic $11 million annual salary. Including Moose would very dramatically change the economics of the deal. May be tough, even if Reds decided to try it.

I totally get it. Even if the Reds eat half of it, that’s still like $9M free. That could go a long way in the pen. They can’t keep going with the throw it at the wall and hope it sticks approach there.