The Reds announced that they have parted ways with manager David Bell. Bench coach Freddie Benavides will act as the club’s interim manager for the remainder of the season.
In a statement released to the media, president of baseball operations Nick Krall said that “David provided the kind of steadiness that we needed in our clubhouse over the last few seasons. We felt a change was needed to move the Major League team forward. We have not achieved the success we expected, and we need to begin focusing on 2025.”
Bell’s tenure ends just short of six full seasons as Cincinnati’s manager. Three of Bell’s six seasons saw the Reds finish with a winning record — their 31-29 record in the shortened 2020 season that led to a playoff berth, an 83-win campaign in 2021, and an 82-win season in 2023. That latter season hinted at bigger things ahead for the Reds, given how the team seemingly had an overload of young position-player talent all breaking out at the same time. The organization even awarded Bell for his role in the Reds’ progress, as Bell was signed to a new contract extension in July 2023 that covered the 2024-26 seasons.
However, it perhaps shouldn’t be ignored that the Reds waited to give Bell a new deal until he was only about two months away from the expiration from his previous contract. That might’ve been the first hint that the Reds’ ownership and front office was only willing to give Bell so much leeway in continuing as the club’s skipper, and the disappointing nature of the 2024 season sealed Bell’s fate.
The announcement of Noelvi Marte’s 80-game PED suspension in early March was the first sign of trouble for the Reds, and the bad news continued during Spring Training when Matt McLain had to undergo a shoulder surgery. McLain ended up missing the entire season recovering from that surgery and then a stress reaction in his rib cage suffered during his rehab work. Christian Encarnacion-Strand didn’t play after the first week of May due to a wrist injury that required surgery, thus leading to a lost year for yet another of the Reds’ promising young infielders.
Injuries continued to deplete the roster at other inopportune times, including a near rotation-wide slate of injuries that hit the pitching staff in August. Beyond the injuries, other would-be cornerstones like Spencer Steer or Alexis Diaz provided only average levels of production, and offseason acquisitions like Jeimer Candelario and Frankie Montas also disappointed.
It all added up to an underwhelming season in Cincinnati, and while Bell is hardly the only culprit behind the Reds’ lack of success, the organization will now shake things up in the dugout. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (X link) has already reported that Marlins manager Skip Schumaker is under consideration to be the Reds’ next field general, and Schumaker has past ties to the club as a former Reds player in 2014-15. Schumaker won NL Manager of the Year honors in leading Miami to the playoffs in his first year as skipper in 2023, but the Marlins’ decision to part ways with GM Kim Ng (who hired Schumaker) and then shift into rebuild mode has all but confirmed that Schumaker is leaving South Florida at season’s end.
Bell finishes with a 409-456 record over his time as the Reds’ manager. That lone postseason appearance in 2020 ended in a two-game (and scoreless) sweep in the wild card series, and Cincinnati still hasn’t won a playoff round since the 1995 NLDS. The pandemic’s impact on Bell’s managerial career can’t be understated, as the organizational loss of revenue over the 2020-21 seasons led ownership to suddenly change course after a payroll increase in the 2019-20 offseason, and the Reds started to heavily rebuild following their winning record in 2021.
Viewed through this lens, the Reds have done well to get back to playing competitive baseball so soon after the misery of a 100-loss season in 2022. Krall has done well in reloading the organization with premium prospect talent, and Bell’s work in helping some of this young talent adjust to the majors shouldn’t be overlooked. It wouldn’t be surprising to see the Reds take that expected next step in 2025 if the team enjoys better health and the younger players fare better with more experience under their belts, and indeed a new voice in the dugout might be a key piece in helping Cincinnati turn the corner.
Benavides is a longtime member of the Reds organization, dating back to when the club selected him in the second round of the 1987 draft. The first two of Benavides’ four Major League seasons were played in a Reds uniform, and after retirement, he spent close to a decade working in Cincinnati’s farm system before joining the big league coaching staff in 2016. Benavides has been acting in the bench coach role since Bell was initially hired following the 2018 campaign.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
