So let me get this straight. We waited forever so we could eventually watch Reds hitters flail away like they have a half-empty keg waiting for them in the dugout and we had to exude ungodly amounts of patience during interminable stretches of boredom just to have the pleasure of witnessing a continual stream of bullpen implosions and blown games?
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Oh, you think I’m referring to the four months during the baseball shutdown? Pfft, that was a long weekend stuck with the in-laws compared to what it was like to endure year after year of nonstop rebuilding and the parade of lost seasons that served little purpose other than to provide fodder for competitive teams.
The Reds were supposed to show off the culmination of years of organizational work, and the overdue payoff for more than half a decade’s worth of misery. The nonstop pleas for patience, the never-ending roster shuffling, the parade of dudes coming through Cincinnati who had no chance of being around whenever the team was finally good. We’ve endured lots of losing and lots and lots of reminders that rebuilds are neither easy nor permanent. We lived through all of it for … a team that’s spent the payoff season’s first two weeks falling flat on its face?
OK, so those first few paragraphs may seem a tad overreactionary. The Reds still have roughly three-quarters of their season still in front of them, and they did avoid the same kind of completely disastrous start that essentially eliminated them from contention during the opening weeks of the season in 2018 and 2019. The 60-game mini-season might place a greater emphasis on the result of every game, but it includes the soft landing of a watered-down 16-team playoff field that stands a decent chance of including at least one qualifier with more losses than wins. Besides, the sheer random nature of the sport dictates that once the postseason field has been settled, pretty much everyone has at least a puncher’s chance to hoist Rob Manfred’s piece of metal whenever this make-it-up-as-we-go-along season ends.
Except that right now, none of that is any solace to any Reds fan who’s watched the first few weeks of this season thinking about the familiar feel it has to the ones that preceded it. There is always a predictable amount of baseline fan unrest whenever the early going isn’t good, but when an uneven start is weighed against the offseason expectations and promises of a season being about more than simply avoiding last place, can you really blame anyone for expressing exasperation with the way they have played?
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The issues are neither complex nor limited to one particular area. The offense has often been putrid. The Reds went into the weekend batting below the Mendoza Line as a team and were below the National League average in getting runners on base (hopefully Friday’s 8-3 easy win in Milwaukee is a sign of better things to come). Their attack has been an exaggerated example of the way teams approach and build offense. If the ball isn’t being blasted over the outfield wall, the Reds struggle to score.
Their defense has been, to put it gently, leaky. Even taking into account the disparity in how many games have been played by each team, it’s startling that the Reds entered the weekend having given up more unearned runs than all but one team. The anemic hitting compounds that problem because their margin for error shrinks thanks to how they play the field.
And then there’s the bullpen, perhaps the unit most responsible for why despite the Reds having the best ERA among starting pitchers through the first two weeks, they still lost eight of their first 13 games.
With the losing has come a palpable and predictable fan uneasiness that doesn’t feel or sound like the garden variety angst we’ve grown painfully familiar with as the losing seasons have mounted. The vibe now is one of impatience yielding to abject anger, and — reflecting the supposed urgency that was supposed to define this season — a desperate unwillingness to simply wait around as the Reds’ decision-makers hope for individual and collective improvement.
I share the desire to see some changes, if for no other reason than to see if something sticks, even if only for a few games. For example, on a feast-or-famine offensive team, is there really any harm in seeing if Aristides Aquino can channel his heroics from last August and provide some temporary pop? Can he do much worse at the plate right now than every Reds hitter not named Nick Castellanos?
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Would it be that counter-productive to see if Tyler Stephenson’s terrific big-league debut against the Cubs could be repeated once or twice, or to even gauge in real time if he’s ready to catch on a regular basis? Would the Reds’ starting pitchers be that worse off throwing to a rookie, and would Stephenson’s development be stunted by being thrown into a, um, pennant race?
Might it make sense to see if a few years of experimenting with Michael Lorenzen in roles beyond pitching could pay off at the plate and in the field, especially since he’s not helping much when he’s on the mound?
And would it really be that harmful to the Reds’ long-term goals if instead of throwing bullpen sessions and appearing in ragtag games at Prasco Park, Hunter Greene was given a shot at plugging some of the bullpen’s leaks?
I know I’m throwing darts, but I’ve at least spared you a hot Jose Garcia take, and I’m more than willing to admit that nothing that I’ve suggested is guaranteed to work. But even if the bulk of the season is still in front of us, it would be refreshing and fitting to see some moves driven by urgency and even a little desperation. Yes, the Reds still have time to move up in the standings, but even if the end of the season is still in the distance, what looms over everything between now and whenever they play their final game are the possible effects of authoring a seventh straight non-playoff season.
There is a strong possibility that the Reds will not sell a ticket in 2020, and even if the gates are opened for fans at some point before season’s end, the Reds are not going to be as profitable as they planned. While I’m certainly not privy to Bob Castellini’s bookkeeping, I did hear him make a reference to the “huge” amount of money teams were losing during an Opening Day interview on 700WLW. I do understand the basic realities of the position the Reds are in as a small-market team that recently committed a lot of money to free agents only to be forced to absorb huge hits to their bottom line during a season without fans.
No one can say with any specificity what that might mean, but if the Reds can’t sell tickets this season, it stands to reason that filling Great American Ball Park with customers next year is incredibly important. There’s no better way to move tickets for 2021 than to have people feeling good about what’s on the field in 2020.
The Reds have some important financial decisions in the offing, from what to do with free agents-to-be Trevor Bauer, Anthony DeSclafani and Freddy Galvis, to what the approach will be with guys like Luis Castillo and Amir Garrett, among others. And even if opting out of his contract might not be the most prudent decision for Castellanos, the possibilities such a move exist. Maybe ownership signs off on a continuation of last winter’s spending frenzy regardless of the Reds’ fiscal picture, but perhaps the projections for next season’s revenues based on a disappointing 2020 added to the cash the front office has already spent lessens the likelihood of being able to keep the team intact.
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Yes, I’m getting more than slightly ahead of myself, but along with the unease that’s come with watching the Reds fall behind in the hunt for a playoff spot is the unsettling feeling that yet another losing season could hasten the closing of their proverbial competitive window. That would only mean another teardown, another rebuild and, ugh, even more patience.
They’ve yet to completely spiral out of control, of course. The Reds’ starting staff is still strong, they have hitters capable of catching fire and their schedule is still lined with just enough games against the Royals and Pirates that at minimum, they should at least be able to stay afloat for a while. A playoff berth is still very attainable despite their myriad issues. The season, even this 60-game version, really is just beginning.
It’s the wait that never ends.
(Photo of Tyler Stephenson: Joe Robbins / Getty Images)
