The Reds announced on Tuesday that general manager Dick Williams is moving up the ladder and is now also the president of baseball operations, with former president Walt Jocketty now serving as an executive advisor to CEO Bob Castellini (as C. Trent Rosecrans of the Cincinnati Enquirer chronicles in greater detail). The move has been expected for quite some time, as Jocketty himself suggested a year ago (when Williams was first promoted to GM) that he’d be shifting into an advisory role following the 2016 campaign.
Williams — who sat down for an interview with MLBTR last spring to discuss his college days and his path to a Major League front office — will now have final say over any and all baseball operations decisions for the Reds, who have been rebuilding for the past 18 months or so.
In that time, Williams and Jocketty have traded Johnny Cueto, Mike Leake, Aroldis Chapman, Todd Frazier and Jay Bruce for Brandon Finnegan, Cody Reed, John Lamb, Adam Duvall, Keury Mella, Rookie Davis, Eric Jagielo, Tony Renda, Caleb Cotham, Jose Peraza, Scott Schebler, Brandon Dixon, Dilson Herrera and Max Wotell. Some of those prospects — Finnegan, Duvall, Peraza, Schebler and possibly Herrera — already look to have significant roles on the 2017 Reds, while others such as Lamb and Cotham are no longer with the organization. Jocketty and Williams have also explored trades of Brandon Phillips, though the veteran second baseman has invoked his no-trade protection to nix multiple would-be deals.
Elsewhere in the Cincinnati front office, assistant GMs Sam Grossman and Nick Krall as well as amateur scouting director Chris Buckley each had “vice president” added to his title, among a slew of other promotions and title changes. Cincinnati also announced eight new hires that will add to its player development, analytics, amateur scouting and international scouting departments, including a pair of new additions that will focus on scouting the top professional leagues in Asia.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Great Job Reds! Now you’re set to win the world series!
DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO BASEBALL THEO ?
Entire front offices are getting promotions for having the lowest average finish over the past two years ! LOL
Yup finish last for 5 years in a row get high draft picks people will call you a genius.
the cubs finished last exactly 0 times you ill-informed troll
Yes not dead last but they did finish last in the NL.
Seriously Reds staff for your amazing record and team you deserve a promotion. LOL
They’re rebuilding…
…says the fan of the 75 win team that managed to spend a fortune on Josh Hamilton, CJ Wilson, the back end of Albert’s career…
But did he contribute to that at all, John?
Nepotism stinks, but on the bright side – at least Jocketty’s son isn’t on a minor league roster anymore. I wonder how old Williams’ children are, they could soon be singing out of little league.
Now that I think about it – probably better “singers”. lol
big deal
Biggest news for the Reds all offseason. Given the fact they’ve done diddly poo all winter, maybe other clubs still didn’t know who was in charge until now. Too many chiefs…
It’s been known that Jocketty was moving to an advisor spot and that WIlliams was running the day-to-day all offseason… they just hadn’t made it official with new titles until today.
As far as Cincinnati’s slow offseason, they don’t have much of a need to pay top-of-the-market prices for bullpen help right now. It’s in their interest to wait out the relief market and snatch up some of the remaining quality ‘pen arms on one-year or cheaper two-year deals once the contending clubs’ bullpens are mostly full.
And on the trade front, there’s not exactly a big market for shortstops (Cozart) or second baseman — especially not a 35-year-old second baseman with $14MM owed to him in 2017.
They have internal options around the diamond and in the rotation, but I’d still imagine they’ll add a veteran starter on a cheap one-year deal or a couple vets on a minor league deals late in the winter. Again, though, there’s little sense in beating the market right now — especially since they’d have to overpay even more to convince an in-demand free agent to play on a losing club.
I expected the Reds to add a starter to eat some innings, and give their young starters and potential pen pieces a breather. Edinson Volquez made some sense. Reds might have a sneaky good rotation. They’ll be much more interesting to watch in the second half than the first.
Why would the Reds want that roider back?
To eat innings and allow their young staff and some prospects breathing room. He signed with Miami anyway….just an example…there was speculation it might happen.
I would contend – quality bullpen arms will all score stronger deals than suspected, and all that will be left are depth options on which low-end teams will take a flyer. When guys like Cecil and Dunn – who are 7th inning guys – are commanding multi-year deals, one can see the desperation everyone has. I’m not seeing how any team will be able to stock their pen with quality arms unless they either develop it themselves…or pay through the nose.
Not that anything is easy development wise….but bullpen arms come the closest..and of course are the most volatile. Take KC..that had flameouts like Hochevar and Wade Davis…put them in rolls where they don’t have to pitch through lineups 2-3 times and they were lights out.
I think now with rotations being so thin…the bullpens are just seeing added value. Bullpen guys might STILL be cheaper than some multiyear innings eating #4 starter vets are. Much of it a probably coming from various health assessment analysis as well….team optimization theory.
I dont know…part of me would like to see less of the 3 run 3 out closer…and more 2 inning guys. Maybe don’t get as much use. I thought maybe Lincecum at one point would be excellent for this. Saves totals go down….if the league did that as a whole wed be back to 30 being league leader…but guys arent getting paid on saves alone like in the past.
Lede buried.
The last paragraph will be more important.