A mass influx of young talent led the 2023 Reds to a 82-80 record, and hopes that the club could develop into full-fledged contenders this season. Unfortunately, even a .500 record is a longshot at this point, as the 72-77 Reds have fallen out of playoff contention. Most of Cincinnati’s breakout players from 2023 took steps backwards due to injuries or just flat-out lack of production, and players like Jeimer Candelario or (the since-traded) Frankie Montas meant to bring veteran stability also struggled.
“As of right now, we’re going to evaluate everything at the end of the year and see what we have to do to move forward,” president of baseball operations Nick Krall told reporters, including the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Gordon Wittenmyer. Krall included “myself, everybody” under this purview, though there hasn’t been any indication that ownership is considering firing Krall less than a year after signing him to a contract extension.
Manager David Bell also inked a new extension midway through last season, locking up the skipper on a three-year deal covering the 2024-26 campaigns. “He’s got a contract for next year,” is now Krall described Bell’s status with the organization, which could be read as either a matter-of-fact way of declaring Bell’s job security, or as something less than a full confirmation that Bell will return for what would be his seventh season as the Reds’ manager.
Krall noted that organization-wide evaluations are done every year as a matter of due diligence, so in general, the PBO isn’t breaking any news by saying that the Reds will take a deep look at what went awry. However, such evaluations in the wake of a losing season could potentially lead to larger moves as the team looks for answers. It would seem like some coaching changes will be made at the very minimum, and whether or not Bell’s job atop the dugout depth chart remains to be seen.
Bell takes a 405-452 record into today’s action, with winning records in three of his six full seasons. The Reds have never had better than a .517 winning percentage under Bell, and their only playoff appearance during his tenure came in the shortened 2020 season, when the league expanded the playoff bracket to 16 teams. Cincinnati was a quick out in that year’s postseason, as the Reds didn’t even score a run during a pair of losses to the Braves in a best-of-three wild card series.
As always, it is hard to pinpoint how much a manager does or doesn’t contribute to a team’s success or failure. Bell took over a Reds team that was just coming out of a rebuild, and then quickly entered into another payroll cut and semi-rebuild following the 2021 season, as the team wanted to save money due to revenues lost during the pandemic. Bell has managed the Reds through this tumult, as well as a front office change (with Krall taking over the baseball operations department from Dick Williams after the 2020 season), the completely unexpected circumstance of the pandemic, and then this quick pivot back to a reload of young talent.
Unless ownership feels a new voice is needed in the dugout to really get the Reds back onto a winning track, Bell might get at least one more year as manager. It seems quite possible the Reds might suddenly have a much more positive outlook if the younger players who struggled or missed time this year (i.e. Matt McLain, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Alexis Diaz, Noelvi Marte, etc.) re-establish themselves in 2025. And, if Bell is being gauged on the development of the team’s young core, then the emergence of Elly De La Cruz, Hunter Greene, and Andrew Abbott could all count as arguments as to why Bell should stick around.
For as much as a managerial change can shake things up, it is also perhaps the easiest way for a team to address a disappointing stretch of play, and not necessarily the correct way. Krall will face an interesting offseason in determining how to build the roster through more additions (while still operating on a somewhat limited payroll), and in figuring which of the younger stars might have played themselves out of Cincinnati’s future, or who just had “sophomore slump” types of seasons.
