We at least made the post season with him and he’s taken 4 teams to the World Series. The Reds aren’t going anywhere with the current regime and I’m tired of it.
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I’m tired of it as well, but I don’t think Dusty can perform miracles and make this team competitive. I generally don’t think managers make that much difference in baseball. The Cubs, with roughly the same team as last year, plus potential ROY Imanaga, hired the hottest coach in baseball away from the Brewers. The Brewers traded away their Cy Young SP Burnes. And yet, the Brewers are in 1st, Cubs in 5th. But failing to use your best relievers in a playoff series deciding game because you want to save them in case you make it to the next round is a fire-able offense in my book.
With all that said, and as mentioned above, the Reds are losing IMHO not because of Bell, but because of:
Friedl, Marte, CES, Mclain, Fraley, Antone, Moll, Gibaut. During their worst stretch they had an ailing Stephenson and a sickness that ran through the clubhouse. Steer and Elly lost all ability to play baseball during the month of May (and my assumption is that no pitcher felt compelled to throw them any pitches of worth when Mike Ford was the guy batting behind them. There was a week there where Steer and Elly and Benson were the only regulars in the lineup, and unsurprisingly they lost all of those games. Benson has had serious regression this year, as has Diaz, who cost a few games during May as well. So I’m not a Bell apologist, but I also don’t lay the blame on him either.
We make a lot of errors. That’s something we could fix. I won’t harp on this anymore. It’s pointless. We stink.
There’s really no reason for Benson to be on the club at this point, he’s in the bottom 1% for Whiff and K rate. His chase rate isn’t bad so he’s recognizing if it’s a pitch in the zone but he just can’t make contact.
Yet I was missing him from the lineup yesterday. We had 4 lifetime Reds fans sitting there and we decided that was the worst single day OF/DH that the Reds had ever put on the field Jordan,Fairchild, Sosa, and Martini. Benson would have added talent by replacing one of those guys.
You know, the other day somebody said something about Fairchild that I never realized. He is not a kid. He looks really young, but he is no prospect. 28 years old.
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That’s a pretty weak OF and I assume you mean Soto and not Sosa. Benson would up the talent level but unfortunately not production, at least up to this point. He hit a couple balls pretty hard last night so hopefully coming out of it a bit.
They refuse to go away. After a sweep in Yankee Stadium, they’ve played 22 games versus the top 5 teams in MLB. Record: 12-10
Expected record based on run differential is 46-41.
3rd-easiest schedule the rest of the way.
Front office needs to go get a RHB outfielder asap, because at this point they are a .500ish team and that’s not changing based on the current 40-man roster (not including the 3 starting position players on the IL).
At least they’re still holding my interest as we approach the AS break.
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10 big games against bad teams going into the break.
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We are sub .500 in July. How anyone sees this as a win is beyond me.
Sweep the Yankees and then lay an egg to start the weak home stand by getting swept. How we looking…not good.
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The offense at GABP is beyond inept.
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When you look at the bottom third of today’s batting order you just have to shake your head. That is such a weak group.
Systemic rot in this once mighty franchise. Tear it down to the studs from a management standpoint and get it correct. The injury excuse was tiring as are the errors, and they are way worse. We should not be this much worse than the Brewers as they are not a big market. Season can’t end fast enough and yet it’s 8-10 more weeks.
Any team that gets swept by this Tigers squad should be relegated to the bus leagues.
Team stinks
Impressive debut night for Rece Hinds showing off the impressive power he’s put on display in the minors the last few seasons with that 449 ft bomb. Unfortunately he brings a 42.6% strikeout rate with him.
For reference there’s been concern noted about how much Elly strikes out and he’s at 31.4% this season. MLB average is 22.2. If Elly got his rate down close to average he could be putting up Ohtani like production. Going to be difficult for Hinds to hang around if he swings and misses anywhere near that rate.
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Aristedes Aquino 2.0? Likely that yesterday is his best game in 2024. He’s a year younger than Matt McLain, so not like he’s done developing, but I figure he’s another year away from staying up permanently.
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Well he put together a pretty good encore lol. He was able to cut his strikeouts down in the second half last year with Chattanooga to under 30% after starting off over 40% so he did show some ability to adapt at that level.
It’s kind of funny/sad to see these guys sporting spring training-esq uniform numbers out there. Hinds 77, Rios 71.
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Lol! I was just coming here to post that I’m an idiot. 
What a game #2!
Rumors coming out today that the Reds are offering up all players on expiring contracts in trades, thereby giving up on the season. I think it’s not a bad decision at this point. The team has had lots of inconsistencies throughout the year, possibly attributed to youth as well as injuries.
On the pitching side, this would mean to get your farewell cards prepared for Frankie Montas, and probably Nick Martinez (who has an out in his contract, and shockingly has probably done well enough to want to exercise it), as well as just about all the relievers save Diaz (who I hope they trade anyways), Moll and Cruz (who I hope they trade as well. Relievers are always streaky, and he is already 34 years old, though is only on his 2nd season. He has lots of value for this year, but will probably decline quickly).
On the hitting side, I don’t see much that can be done, other than possibly trying to get out of the Candy contract. I bet there are no takers for it though. Maybe the team finally trades India, who is on year 4, but has been playing great of late and could get a solid return. The team (reportedly) tried trading him this winter but there weren’t many suitors. My guess is there would be lots of suitors right now.
The main rumors are the Orioles are looking at Montas and a reliever, and Yankees scouts have been looking at the relievers as well.
So far there are only 5 teams known to be in sell mode, so if that stays true, the Reds could probably get good returns for some of their players. Just hope that they then use the cash saved and player acquisitions to solidify the team for next year, because they shouldn’t be wasting prime years of the talent they have by being frugal.
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