Ugh. That’s how I’m starting this off. Simply…ugh. And a sigh. More of the same, the same Reds I’ve watched throughout my years of life, now 29 years. 29 years of nothing. Nothing but heartbreak, nothing but coming up short, nothing but…agony. Frutrastion. Desperation. And there’s nothing in this 2025 team to make me feel anything otherwise, unless they somehow magically flip a switch, we know that won’t happen.
Sometimes we just have to laugh and call them the Deds. It doesn’t mean we don’t love our Cincinnati Reds, it’s just a t-shirt for all the parody-ers like ourselves that like to have fun, even if we suck. Maybe you just think the shirt is cool. So do we! Look at the detail in this bad boy!
When Does It Change? Is That Impossible?
I’ve long said now that you can’t have a terrible front office/GM and a terrible ownership and expect the results on the field to be net positive. The Cincinnati Reds are living dying proof of that duo being lethal, and nothing is set to change. There’s a reason the Pittsburgh Pirates perennially suck. There’s a reason the Colorado Rockies perennially suck. There’s a reason the Cincinnati Reds perennially suck, and all of it, I mean ALL of it, comes down to the ownership and front office being terrible. You can live with one, NOT both.
Bob Castellini is now 83 years old, as senile as it gets, and what’s sad is…the only way for all of this to change is him passing away. That sounds absolutely EVIL to say and it pains me that it’s true. It’s simply true; the only way the Reds can move forward is if the managing partner of the majority stake of the team passes away.
What that’ll do is open the stake up to vote amongst the other owners, most of them rumored to hate Phil, whom would be set up as the current successor; if Phil lost the vote, they’d then vote on someone else to take over the majority stake. It would likely go into one of the Williams’ members hands which is what I believe they want to happen. Dick is working as the Skyline CEO, guys, come on…
I do want to add to this paragraph here that this isn’t all of Bob’s fault. Bob does want to win. He got bullied into staying quiet, not meddling, and he put a terrible candidate in charge of the baseball operations. Bob hardly does anything besides run the business side of it now with little opinion on what happens. We know this to be true because Krall fired David Bell to cover his own tracks of terrible, Bob would’ve never let that happen, he’s closer to Buddy Bell than anyone.
The Front Office. As Bad As It Gets?
The front office actually isn’t that bad. Nick Krall is terrible, but the talent around him is actually really good. Brad Meador, the whole scouting staff, Joe Katuska, the list goes on. The front office has a ton of good talent, but the Pres of Ops? Absolutely terrible in that role. Krall is much more of a behind the scenes guy, which his credibility there is unmatched. Decision making, shot caller? Putrid.
We ALL have numerous examples of how Krall is terrible. Consistent horrible decision making with the roster, terrible trades, lack of aggression, list goes on. The whole playing man down thing absolutely does my head in and he does it 10 times a year. Hurtibise over Rece Hinds…really? Dude, half this Reds roster belongs nowhere near an MLB field. The results on the field directly reflect the man leading Baseball Operations. Lack of fundementals, wrong personnel utilization, the list goes on. This is Nick Krall’s fault. Opportunistic additions like this make you mediocre. They don’t make you win the division.
The Milwaukee Brewers, Tampa Bay Rays & even Kansas City Royals all operate on similar revenue than the Reds. These teams have won much more than the Reds have of recent as well, and more importantly, they don’t return the same mistake team year over year. They change. They adapt. They win. We can’t say the same.
Hang In There, Reds Fans…
We all acknowledge nothing will change until either Krall is replaced with someone more qualified, or Castellini passes away and they lose the majority stake and it goes to someone else more motivated to build a winning team.
Both of these won’t be this year. It probably won’t be next year. But maybe, in 2028…there’ll be some changes. I’d be shocked to see Castellini fire Nick Krall because he wouldn’t fire Jocketty, who actually built winning teams. There won’t be any org fighting for Krall in free agency, that’s for damn sure.
This is the lowest I’ve been on the Reds organization in my entire life, yes, worse than the 2015-2018 horrendous attempt at “rebuilding.” Yes, worse than the 3-22 start in 2022. They just keep showing us the same exact stuff, incompetence in the field, lack of stacking on momentum, inconsistency… we’re watching different personnel perform the same circus and there’s nothing in the system, anywhere, to provide relief. F.
