The 30-37 Reds sit tied for last in the talent-rich NL Central, but the team’s white flag still hangs far from full mast, as Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer explores. President of Baseball Ops Dick Williams, who embarked on a full-scale rental shopping spree last offseason, acquiring Yasiel Puig, Alex Wood, the now-departed Matt Kemp, and Tanner Roark in win-now moves intended to revitalize a listless fanbase, explained his reasoning in a series of quotes for the piece.
“Our only focus right now is to get the most out of these guys, win and improve the roster where we can,” Williams said. “Right now, we’ve got Wood and Gennett as planned additions to the team. That’s two pretty good boosts. We still feel like this is very much an upwards trajectory. The potential is there for this team, this group of guys.”
Though it’s certainly conceivable that Scooter Gennett and Alex Wood, each still at least two weeks away from returning, with the latter perhaps closer to a month or more, could be the catalysts to jumpstart a sputtering Cincinnati club into gear and overcome the team’s long playoff odds (3.5%, per FanGraphs’ latest estimate), the rational outlook has the team entering preparations to sell, a fact of which Williams is surely aware. “There will be decisions to be made,” Williams noted, with the hard-to-ignore subtext hovering.
Puig, Wood, and Gennett entered the season as the team’s three most obvious trade chips, should the team’s course head south, though none of the trio now figures to net the return Cincy was surely banking on. Puig has endured easily the worst season of his career to this point, slashing just .222/.264/.393 (66 wRC+) while flashing little of his trademark ball-hawking in right field. Though Wood’s injury isn’t of the elbow, forearm, or shoulder variety, his history in that area is checkered, and contenders are unlikely to offer much for a rental mid-rotation starter just a week or so back from a three-month stint on the IL. Gennett’s value suffers from the same malaise as does Wood’s, though second-base offense around the league has slumped a bit this year, and his left-side thump may be just the plug a team with a gaping hole at the keystone needs.
Roark has thus far been excellent for the club, striking out batters at a career-best rate en route to a sterling 1.6 fWAR in 13 early-season starts. Deeper peripheral marks are unconvinced, though, as Roark’s 7.0% HR/FB is easily the lowest of his career, and his typically-high grounder rate has plummeted to far below league-average depths at 33.5%. His mid-to-back-end track record, too, likely won’t have teams champing at the bit to get a piece, especially with just two-plus months remaining on his deal at the time of a prospective deal.
The best course of action, then, may be for the Reds to consider perhaps-discounted extensions with at least a few of their free-agents-to-be. “We’re getting to that point where at least you want to put it on the table and start to see if there is mutual interest,” Williams said, while taking care to note that there’s “no urgency” on that front. Cincinnati did gift another offseason acquisition, Sonny Gray, with a longer-team deal of his own after he’d just finished the worst season of his career, so it’s possible this back-hatch pivot was a part of the Reds’ blueprint all along.
It was an ill-conceived plan from the start. Believing you could rely on Kemp was just silly. Puig has skills, but he’s as erratic as they come.
I doubt very seriously anyone with the Reds thought Kemp was the key to that deal. Puig has disappointed on the stat sheet, but he has quickly become a fan favorite in Cincy. His work in the community with sick kids is unparalleled. I never liked Puig as a Dodger mainly due to the uniform he wore and his antics could get a little annoying at times, but I have changed my mind about him. And I am not even a Reds fan.
I said nothing of Kemp being the key. But they had to expect him to be more reliable. I don’t get into anyone’s charitable contributions, because that’s a very different subject.
Kemp was always just a necessary piece to get Wood and Puig, but we’ve seen how that worked out.
Kemp was only in the deal as a salary dump.
I thought it was laudable that a rebuilding team actually made some moves to try and compete without mortgaging the future. Making more moves than they did would have thrown off the rebuild, doing less would have been tanking.
Didn’t work out but definitely injected some excitement into the team going into the season. Can’t please everyone tho
Knowing the Reds they’ll hold all of them at the deadline, miss they playoffs and then those players will all move onto other teams.
…..They tried,didn’t work,like there the only one ever?Get over it!!!There are Teams that never try!