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Reds struggles mirror that of the 1990s Bengals
By John Katrus
If you follow the Bengals, you’ve been there before. You know the feeling. If the 1990’s were enough to make you swear off the Bengals for life and focus on the Reds, you better hold on tight because this is about to get messy. There is a laundry list of problems with this team that one could cycle through before you even get to the 27-43 record of the cellar dwellers from Cincinnati.
In predictable fashion the Reds fired manager Dave Miley and pitching coach Don Gullett today. The promoted Jerry Narron to manager and Vern Ruhle to pitching coach. The boat that is the Reds 2005 season is taking on water at an alarming rate and they are content to use a thimble to scoop it out. The Reds might as well put on a contest where a (un)lucky fan gets to be manager for a week. What could it hurt? To blame Miley and Gullett for the plethora of problems this team is suffering is preposterous. While it is true that Miley most likely lost control of his club weeks ago, he isn’t the one having balls bounce off his glove for homeruns, he isn’t the one who is a starter and the proud owner of a near 8.00 ERA, he also is not the one who hasn’t hit a sacrifice fly since 2003.
Similar to the B.M. (Before Marvin) Bengals, the Reds are blind to the problems that plague their front office. They feel the problem with the team is because of the team and nothing else. If the Reds shuffled their front office half as much as the roster, we might be getting somewhere. The entire front office needs to go, John Allen, the COO needs to go, Dan O’Brien, the mastermind behind the Eric Milton, Ramon Ortiz, and Ben Weber signings needs to disappear.
Dating back to last year and the way the front office blew the departure of Reds great, Barry Larkin all the way to the unceremonious release of long time closer Danny Graves, the front office of this club has an ominous resemblance to the Bengals during their Dark Ages. Both teams shared the same fundamental problem, losing at an embarrassing clip.
Think Washington Generals bad
Think Ben Affleck bad.
Got it? Good.
If there is one thing Cincinnati fans know and know damned well, it’s losing. Long gone are the days of the Big Red Machine, Lou Pinella, and Sam Wyche. It wasn’t until the skies parted and Marvin Lewis grabbed the Bengals by their collective necks and exorcised the demons plaguing them that they awoke from more than a decade long nightmare. It’s going to take a similar religious purging for this Reds team to even sniff October.
The good news is that in baseball, more times than not, money trumps all. Take the New York Yankees and Paris Hilton, take away the money and what do you have? No talent and no prospects. This isn’t to say that small market teams can’t compete, the A’s did it for some time and the Twins have followed suit in recent years as well. However, without the presence of a salary cap teams will never be on the same playing field.
The Reds increased there payroll to around 60 million this year, with a good chunk of that going to the dynamic duo of Danny Graves and Eric Milton, who have combined for over 11 million of that payroll. Compare that amount of money to the almost 16.00 ERA the two also collaborated on (Milton 7.82, Graves 7.97) and it spells utter disaster. Graves was given his walking papers yet the Reds continue to trot Milton out every fifth day to throw the opposition extended batting practice. Milton is a likeable enough guy, he admits things aren’t going as he envisioned them but it’s a complete catastrophe every time he takes the mound. I’m not clamoring for another release but he needs to skip a start or two and see if newly named pitching coach, Vern Ruhle can fix what Don Gullett couldn’t. Gullett wasn’t exactly given Cy Young pitchers to work with, or anything near that, and it showed.
For the Reds to begin the healing process they will first need some key members of the organization to collectively swallow their pride and each admit shortcomings in the organization that fall at their feet. Allen needs to realize he isn’t the baseball mind he either feels he is or is required to be in his position of COO. O’Brien needs to take full responsibility for the nightmare offseason that saw the payroll expand almost as fast as Eric Milton and Ramon Ortiz’s ERAs. Lastly, Carl Lindner, the primary owner of the Reds. Lindner holds all the cards in this game and so far has preferred to fold rather than ante up. Lindner needs to do one of two things, push his chips to the middle of the table and give this organization the financial resources to become competitive or simply stand up and walk away from the table completely.
Sadly, the chances of Lindner choosing either of those scenarios soon are about as likely as Michael Jackson opening a successful daycare center.
Don’t hold your breath.
And until he does, don’t hold your breath on seeing a winning baseball team in the Queen City either.
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