Final Friday and Saturday, the Cincinnati Reds routed the Pittsburgh Pirates in back-to-back video games by a mixed rating of 15-4. The Reds had been 74-80 when the Pirates got here to city for the three-game sequence, and their probabilities of ending above .500 and matching final yr’s 82-80 file had been slim, however they stored these hopes alive over these two video games.
Then Paul Skenes took the mound. On Sunday, the Pirates pulled off a shutout on the again of 5 good innings from their first-year ace. It was the third time the rookie phenom has dominated the Reds this season. Cincinnati managed simply three hits and one stroll all afternoon, placing out 13 occasions (9 towards Skenes). After Jonathan India, Elly De La Cruz, and Tyler Stephenson went down one-two-three within the backside of the ninth, the Reds fell to 76-81, assuring they might end with a worse file than they did final season.
Round 6:30 that night, president of baseball operations Nick Krall knowledgeable supervisor David Bell that his companies had been not required. Bench coach Freddie Benavides was named the interim supervisor for the 5 video games remaining within the 2024 season. This was Bell’s sixth season because the Reds supervisor. He additionally managed of their minor league system from 2009-12, giving him just below 10 years of service with the membership. Though he’s the one member of the Bell household’s three generations of main leaguers to by no means play for the Reds — his grandfather, father, and brother all suited up for the household crew – David is the Bell who spent essentially the most time with the membership.
Krall inadvertently set off alarm bells a few weeks in the past, when he sidestepped a query asking him to substantiate if Bell could be again in 2025. On the time, Krall urged he would “consider every little thing on the finish of the yr.” Evidently, the top of the yr wasn’t coming quickly sufficient. Certainly, Krall had this to say at Monday’s press convention about Bell’s dismissal: “If we make the choice now, it permits us to satisfy with all people on the final street journey. It permits us to begin this course of and offers us per week head begin versus ready when what the choice goes to be.”
Nonetheless, it’s laborious to suppose Bell’s late-season firing wasn’t about public notion, a minimum of partially. An additional week on the finish of September doesn’t look like it will be notably helpful within the managerial hiring course of. I’ve by no means labored in an MLB entrance workplace, however I did go to highschool, and I can inform you this. When a young person breaks up with their highschool sweetheart after commencement, it simply means they’re on the lookout for new experiences in school. But when they do the dumping per week earlier than commencement, they most likely additionally wish to fire up some drama. Likewise, a managerial firing this late within the season is about making an announcement, one that may be learn as a grand gesture of kinds: An govt is making an attempt to point out followers that the crew is taking its disappointing season very significantly.
Over the previous six years, Bell developed a popularity for selecting fights with umpires and getting ejected on behalf of his crew. It typically didn’t matter if the argument was justified; it was a symbolic signal of assist for his gamers as a lot as anything. This time, sadly, it’s his personal crew that has ejected him. It doesn’t matter if it was justified, and it might have been symbolic as a lot as anything.
Six-and-a-half years in the past, when Krall was merely an assistant basic supervisor, the Reds made an much more dramatic gesture: They fired supervisor Bryan Worth 18 video games into the 2018 season. The next offseason, Bell was employed to switch interim supervisor Jim Riggleman, who had stepped in for Worth. The Worth/Riggleman years had been a darkish time for the Reds. They went 343-467 (.423), by no means ending greater than fourth within the NL Central. Bringing in Bell was imagined to symbolize the start of a brand new period, because the crew got here out on the opposite aspect of the rebuilding course of. Lo and behold, the first-time supervisor (ahem) answered the bell throughout his first season on the helm. The Reds went 75-87 with a -10 run differential in 2019, a notable enchancment over their 67-95 file and -123 run differential from the yr earlier than. They improved once more in 2020, ending above .500 (31-29) for the primary time since 2013. They even made the playoffs that yr, albeit because the NL’s seventh seed in an expanded postseason format.
Bell and the Reds took one other incremental step ahead in 2021. They completed 83-79 with a +26 run differential, marking the primary time in eight years that they scored extra runs than they allowed. Whereas the Reds missed the playoffs that yr, they completed with the sixth-best file within the NL and would have certified underneath the 12-team postseason format that was launched the next season. The entrance workplace, clearly happy with the best way the crew was progressing underneath Bell’s management, prolonged him by way of the 2023 season.
Sadly, the 2022 marketing campaign marked an enormous step backward for Bell’s squad, although that might hardly be attributed to the supervisor. Nick Castellanos left in free company, whereas the entrance workplace dumped Sonny Grey, Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suárez, and Wade Miley to chop prices. These had been the strikes that in the end led president and chief working officer Phil Castellini to ask the fanbase his now notorious query: “The place are you gonna go?” Including damage to insult, the Reds misplaced extra gamers to the IL than simply about some other crew that season. After the yr obtained off to a predictably poor begin, the entrance workplace offered huge on the commerce deadline, transport off Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle, amongst a number of different gamers.
Following a glacial 2022-23 offseason, it appeared as if the Reds had been content material to enter one other rebuild with out ever having really escaped the primary. It was this offseason that Castellini urged his membership was out of competition earlier than the season even started. Whereas he acknowledged the wealth of expertise within the farm system, he additionally “joked” that the crew would inevitably lose all these promising younger gamers sooner or later.
But, Bell and the Reds stunned the baseball world in 2023, surpassing all expectations to complete 82-80. The supervisor entered the season a lame duck, and it wouldn’t have been shocking to see him fired if the crew struggled as soon as once more. As an alternative, with Cincinnati sitting in postseason place on July 28, 2023, he signed one other contract extension, this time a three-year deal working by way of the 2026 marketing campaign.
After Bell signed his new deal, nonetheless, the Reds went 26-32 over the remainder of the season. Add that to this yr’s 76-81 file, and the Reds have gone 102-113 since Bell put pen to paper. Evidently, that’s not what the entrance workplace hoped for. On the similar time, it’s not as if the Reds have wildly underperformed during the last 14 months. It was clear as a bell they had been taking part in over their heads in 2023. When Bell signed his newest extension, the Reds had been holding the ultimate NL Wild Card spot, however their run differential was -6. Their playoff odds had been solely 28.9%; their projected rest-of-season file was 26-32. As for 2024, Bell’s squad got here into the yr with only a 23.1% likelihood of constructing the playoffs and a 79-83 projected file. All of the Reds need to do is go 3-2 over their ultimate 5 video games they usually’ll hit that projection on the pinnacle. In different phrases, the crew wasn’t precisely arrange for fulfillment. The entrance workplace assembled a barely below-average roster; in flip, Bell managed that roster to a barely below-average file.
On the similar time, it’s not unreasonable to anticipate a supervisor to assist his gamers surpass their Fiftieth-percentile projections. One may argue {that a} supervisor who solely ever meets preseason expectations isn’t doing sufficient. But, even when the Reds had been holding Bell to that prime normal, I’m having hassle seeing how he didn’t do his job. De La Cruz and Hunter Greene, arguably the 2 most necessary items of the Cincinnati core, have loved wildly profitable 2024 seasons. Stephenson is having the best yr of his profession, and India has bounced again after a few disappointing campaigns. In the meantime, Bell isn’t in charge for the accidents of Matt McLain and Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and it actually wasn’t his fault that Noelvi Marte was suspended for the primary 80 video games of the season after testing optimistic for a performance-enhancing drug. Sure, in fact, a supervisor’s job is to win ballgames, and Bell didn’t do that usually sufficient, however he was not the first supply of his crew’s struggles this season.
In his press convention, Krall highlighted a few particular areas through which he believes the crew underperformed underneath Bell this season. For one, Krall mentioned his crew’s baserunning, claiming that the Reds “took a number of additional bases” but in addition “obtained thrown out loads.” He’s actually proper that the Reds have taken loads of additional bases; they’re on tempo for his or her highest single-season stolen base complete since World Warfare I. He’s additionally technically right that they get thrown out loads; they’re tied for fourth with 44 thwarted stolen base makes an attempt this season. Nonetheless, what Krall didn’t point out is that the Reds are stealing with their finest success price since 1975. And Cincinnati’s baserunning success extends past simply steals; the crew ranks second within the majors with 16.6 BsR.
Krall’s different level of criticism, the protection, was a minimum of extra correct. The Reds have been one of many worst groups in baseball by just about each defensive statistic. Nonetheless, it’s necessary to take a look at extra than simply team-wide metrics. Among the crew’s least useful defenders are guys who’ve really taken huge steps ahead in 2024, together with Stephenson and Spencer Steer. Equally, the crew’s most respected defender, De La Cruz, has additionally improved by leaps and bounds. Furthermore, Krall additionally can also be in charge for the poor protection. Gamers like Ty France and Jeimer Candelario had spotty defensive data when Krall acquired them, and there’s solely a lot a supervisor can do with veterans like that.
Merely put, it simply doesn’t appear honest to pin this crew’s issues on the supervisor, whose biggest sin is that he didn’t assist the middling, injury-plagued roster he was handed win as many video games because the entrance workplace had hoped it will. But, having stated all that, I nonetheless don’t suppose this was essentially the unsuitable resolution on Krall’s half. Typically, a crew that’s caught in a rut simply wants a change. Typically, a crew wants a brand new supervisor even when the earlier one doesn’t should be fired. Bell had been the Reds supervisor for six years. The lows had been low, the highs had been transient, and in the end, mediocrity was the defining trait of the David Bell period in Cincinnati. Maybe it was time to ring the passing bell and usher in a brand new period of Reds baseball. However it’ll take greater than a brand new supervisor to make sure that the trail forward is best than the one the Reds are abandoning.