LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Major League Baseball soiled its offseason by locking out its players and silencing juicy Hot Stove League conversation.
No trades. No free-agent signings. No baseball talk except for another discussion of why baseball does such superb job of tearing down baseball.
The reason?
The owners and players had to work on a new collective bargaining agreement. The owners were determined to avoid serious negotiations until they could threaten the players with canceling part of the 2022 season. On the bargaining table were free agency, arbitration, the competitive balance tax, issues that inspire fans to gag.
So was another item fans and players do care about:
Tanking.
Nothing can be more deflating to a baseball fan than believing your favorite team is out of the playoff race three soft ground balls into a 162-game season. Like the 2022 Cincinnati Reds, current losers of seven straight while being outscored, 47-16.
The Reds have scored three or fewer runs in seven of 11 games. Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson and I’m guessing a large number of Reds’ fans won’t be walking through those gates at the Great American Ball Park.
Some losers are lovable. Reds ownership is determined to avoid that path. Last week, Phil Castellini, son of Reds owner Bob Castellini, threw high and tight toward fans who grumble about the team’s salary dumps and lack of aggressiveness in improving the team.
At Sportrac.com, the Reds' 2022 payroll is listed at $79.5 million, less than one-third of the Dodgers’ team that just won four straight games over Cincinnati.
“Where are you going to go?” Phil Castellini asked. “Let’s start there. Sell the team to who?”
He went on to essentially threaten fans that a new owner would likely move the team from what is generally considered one of the top-five baseball cities in America.
E-6.
My question is what’s the greater insult: fielding a team that has little chance of making the postseason or making Reds’ fans long for the days of Marge Schott?
My friend Tom Steltenkamp grew up in Cincinnati, adoring the famously successful Big Red Machine juggernaut of Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, George Foster as well as the later squads led by Barry Larkin, Eric Davis, Chris Sabo, Jose Rijo, Randy Myers, Rob Dibble and others.
Those were the days when the Reds were like the St. Louis Cardinals. Contending was the rule.
I asked him if he was insulted by the comments made by Phil Castellini.
He was.
I asked him if he was impressed by Phil Castellini’s panicked apology.
He wasn’t, describing it as scripted, written at the kindergarten level.
Then I asked the critical question: Where are you going to go this summer? Will Great American Ball Park make the list?
A Cincinnati native who transplanted to Louisville, Steltenkamp said he typically attended 5-10 Reds games per season, usually with his brother and nephews. This season, he said he did not plan to attend any games.
Can you blame him?
The Reds have the worst record in baseball and an owner asking fans to pay big-league prices through another rebuild.
Eleven games into the season, the Reds are a reminder that after all the offseason fussing between management and labor, baseball has not uncovered a strategy to provide hope for all 30 franchises. You can put the Reds on the list with the Orioles, Pirates, Athletics and Diamondbacks of franchises that are pretending to compete.
At BaseballReference.com, the Reds rank last among all 30 teams in run differential at negative-2.5 runs per game.
The good news: The Reds’ Pythagorean projected W-L record at Baseball Reference is 3-8, so maybe they’ve had some bad luck.
The bad news: Baseball Prospectus puts the Reds’ chances of winning the World Series at 0.2%.
At Fangraphs.com, the Reds are projected to finish 71-91, which would exceed the Pirates (70-92), Diamondback (68-94) and Orioles (64-98).
Tucker Barnhart is in Detroit, Eugenio Suarez and Jesse Winker are in Seattle, Nick Castellanos is in Philadelphia, Wade Miley is with the Cubs, Amir Garrett is a Royal and Sonny Gray is in Minneapolis. All former Reds. Most moved to save money.
If you visit a state with legalized sports gambling, put your money on the Reds’ extending their streak to 32 years since their last World Series appearance. In the 21 seasons from 1970-90, the Reds played in the World Series five times.
In recent months, several members from that group of former Reds had the freedom to discuss what’s going on in Cincinnati. I believe Castellanos, who signed a five-year, $100 contract with the Phillies, said it best:
“At the end of the day baseball comes down to ownership," he said. "The owner wants to either invest and care about winning or doesn’t.”
Tampa has shown that a team with an uncommon eye for talent, a cutting-edge analytics department and solid player development can succeed, even in a shark-invested division with the Yankees and Red Sox.
The consistently under-funded Athletics have had their moments. But for all the praise that A’s Vice President Billy Beane has earned, Oakland and Cincinnati appeared in their last World Series together in 1990.
But the Reds are clearly not the Rays nor even the A's.
So where are the Reds’ going to go? Likely precisely where they are now, toward the bottom of the National League Central standings, waiting for Major League Baseball to fix its tanking problem.
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