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Time to tap the brakes

As much as we’d prefer the reality to exist otherwise, baseball game teams from markets the size of Cincinnati won’t compete for the division title every year.

That’s not to say that Reds fans should have depression expectations. The Castellini family has seen to that. When he bought the team, Bob Castellini promised Cincinnati and Reds fans a winner. He has boosted payroll spending – a generous increase of $30 million in just the past two seasons – to tape levels. Cheers to Castellini’south delivery and, candidly, the size of his wallet, Reds fans tin can now expect to compete for the NL Central title as a rite that accompanies Opening Solar day.

But there are limits. Limits mostly related to tendons, ligaments, bones and muscles. Even though the Reds sport the highest payroll in the division, they all the same operate in an birthday different luxury-taxation bracket from the Dodgers and Yankees. The tidal wave of injuries that began to rise fifty-fifty as the Reds started stretching exercises in Goodyear has done away non only their fair-weather plans, only also swamped the emergency preparations. (The relatively inactive off-season didn't help. Merely that'due south, um, water under the Brent Spence bridge.)

At the All-Star break, the Reds had narrowed the gap with first-place Milwaukee and shown smashing resilience. Information technology was natural for us to have hopes that they could keep the battle going until reinforcements arrived. The Reds had benefitted from style-above-norm production from a drove of replacement (or below) players. Simply the unavoidable truth near improbable events is that they are improbable.

The team’s contempo struggles have driven domicile the discouraging reality that the Reds we’ve seen this week are what we’ll watch the side by side month. It’due south time to admit that the Reds don’t have a credible take chances to compete for the post-season. And the acquisition of Ben Zobrist, Marlon Byrd or Alex Rios won’t change that. Those trades would waste product whatever assets the Reds had to spend to achieve them.

Many will even so bedlam for Walt Jocketty to step on the gas and deal for fresh troops. But it’southward hard to avoid the decision that deadline trades would be a fool’due south errand.

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And so if a pedal-to-the-floor approach is pointless, should the Reds instead slam on the brakes and break upward the squad? Trade Jay Bruce! Trade Johnny Cueto! Merchandise Homer Bailey! Trade all the bad players! Trade all the good ones, also! Trade them all, twice if we tin!

That sentiment is built-in of understandable frustration. Only it is based on emotion, not clear-eyed or logical thinking. Where is the testify that such strategies piece of work more than frequently than they fail? Certain, the tearing down would happen. But there’southward no guarantee when or even if the team would recover. Yous can’t cast off your valuable pieces and expect to compete the next season or even necessarily the year after that. And I doubtfulness buying would put upward with the wrecking-ball.

Happily, such a bloodletting isn’t necessary. For 2015, the Reds retain a strong core of four outstanding pitchers in the prime number of their careers. A new and improved version Tony Cingrani could bring together that mix. Todd Frazier and Devin Mesoraco, to get with a healthy Joey Votto and Jay Bruce, give the lineup a stiff  foundation. Baton Hamilton and Zack Cozart provide valuable pieces up the middle. Aroldis Chapman, one of the best artillery in baseball, returns as well. That collection is a great starting point.

Acquiring a significant leftfielder and making a decision about Brandon Phillips would remain the pb calendar items (sound familiar?). But the arrangement is not only well positioned to take those steps they surely have been disabused of the crippling self-approbation that they don’t need to.

Fans oftentimes use â€Å"window” analogies to hash out the obstacles their teams face up. Just that metaphor is as well unproblematic and likewise static. Homeowners – and owners of major league baseball teams – have many windows. And they likewise can hire remodelers. Organizations solve window problems easily, by acting – in this instance, by developing, trading or signing players to extensions, and by acquiring free agents. Think the terrifying Votto Window? The Reds can afford to continue to increment their payroll for the foreseeable future. Their hereafter can be seen through a panoramic vista, not a window.

The next time you find yourself falling for a phone call for radical overhaul, ask yourself what this Reds team would have been capable of if they had but stayed reasonably good for you.

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Instead of gunning the engine or throwing the team into reverse, it’s time for the Reds' forepart part to tap the brakes and become limited sellers.

This isn’t a call for surrender. The 2014 roster, somewhen supplemented by a healthy Brandon Phillips, and possibly a better version of Joey Votto, would still be competitive. Simply a strategy alter toward limited selling is a recognition that the odds of success this year are likewise high, and the best interest of the organization is in emphasizing improvement of the 2015 team, not the current one.

The new strategy may seem like an bad-mannered pivot for an organization which days earlier was focused on acquisitions that would assist in 2014. But the nuanced truth is that successful full general managers are nimble and always thinking about how to residuum the needs of the present with the interest of the future.

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The Reds have at least 2 players – Jonathan Broxton and Alfredo Simon – who would be highly attractive to contending teams at the deadline, worth more than they would be in the off-season. A basic dominion of deal making is to sell when the value of your asset is at its height. Broxton and Simon’s worth will never be higher than during the sellers’ market this calendar week. The Reds should capitalize. Otherwise, they’ll miss a valuable opportunity to better the team in 2015 and beyond.

In shopping Broxton and Simon now, the Reds should wait for the best prospects they tin can larn. Their smartest trades as sellers won’t be for major league players. Broxton and Simon take tremendous value to contenders. But those teams won’t give up meaningful position players while they’re trying to win this twelvemonth.

They volition, yet, give up prospects. Trading for prospects doesn’t commit the Reds to long-term rebuilding. The front end office can turn around and use those players in the off-flavor to acquire that much-needed bear upon left fielder.

Jonathan Broxton has pitched well plenty in 2014 that a squad could rightly consider him capable of closing games. His $ix one thousand thousand contract for 2015 is an outrageous overpayment for a set-upwards reliever anywhere merely New York and Los Angeles but it’s marketplace compensation for an established closer. Broxton doesn’t quite take the recent track tape of Houston Street, who was just traded from the Padres to the Angels for four pinnacle prospects, but it’s shut. Broxton would be a considerably cheaper acquisition than Jonathan Papelbon, who the Phillies are shopping. And Broxton’s fastball is better, besides.

(The one circumstance where I wouldn’t trade Broxton is if the Reds decide to try Aroldis Chapman in the starting rotation.)

Alfredo Simon’s attractiveness equally a merchandise chip comes not only from his operation in 2014, but also considering of his contract. Simon earns $1.5 million this year and files for third-year arbitration side by side flavour. He would appeal to a minor-market team in contention that needs a #iii or #4 starting pitcher this year and that could use Simon either in the pitcher or equally a starter next year. Simon is non quite Jeff Samardzija, who was traded from the Cubs to the Oakland A’s for top prospects, simply Simon and his contract are close to that, peculiarly to organizations that can’t resist the old-school dazzle of his win-loss record and ERA.

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Going all out and falling curt tin can have significant impact beyond the near-term failure – namely the valuable missed opportunities and the sacrificed avails.

Could Walt Jocketty spit in the face of the Great Injury Deluge of 2014, step on the gas, put a comb in his oral cavity and try to propel the Reds toward the 2014 end line? Sure. And he’d accept plenty of Reds fans with him, lined upwardly along the dragstrip with our headlights on and fingers crossed.

But the right strategy isn’t stubbornly going over the cliff or jumping out of the automobile at the last 2nd. It’due south tapping the brakes. Jim Stark might have survived the contest, but his motorcar didn't.

I recommend this course aware of my drawer full of however-to-exist-used season tickets for 2014. If the Reds make smart moves at present for 2015 and beyond, it won’t diminish my enthusiasm for this year’s model. I’ll bear witness upwardly at GABP through September, excited for my team and its future, knowing it’s headed in the right direction.

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Source: https://www.redlegnation.com/2014/07/23/time-to-tap-the-brakes/

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