A status report on the 2024-2025 offseason.
The disappointment and implosion of the 2024 Cincinnati Reds didn’t just set back one additional year of winning. The failure of the team to take a step forward in the standings was just a product of a much larger issue even if, on the surface, that was the most obvious pain fans suffered.
When a team commits to a full-on rebuild and a strategy of drafting, acquiring, and developing core players from within their own system as a long-con long-term solution, it’s imperative that they learn what they’ve got at every step of the way. If you’ve built a financial model to be able to make quick fixes when you identify a problem, that becomes much less of a priority.
Going an entire year without being able to move any individual player above another on the organziational depth chart is a problem at most any single position. Beyond that, not being able to hammer down particular positional strengths players have forces a club to hand out more opportunities for players to show what they’ve got, a process that just requires even more time.
Time. The thing that Reds fans have been asked to forget for three decades if you squint, and a decade and a half if you merely roll your eyes.
The Reds, if they’re committed to this path, still need more time from us.
Was Noelvi Marte’s disaster in 2024 a product of his suspension? Can you really expect them to just go find a replacement for him already given what they gave up to get him?
What about Christian Encarnacion-Strand? Was that awful start to the last season purely a wrist issue, or did the entire last offseason give opponents time to scout him and figure out precisely how to attack him?
Which Jeimer Candelario did they sign? Was he merely playing through pain during the second half of the season, dragging down his numbers…or is he a guy who’s now positionless defensively who, being over 30, is going to just be banged up like this a lot?
Matt McLain! He was a shortstop, right? But now he’s a 2B, right? Except there’s now Gavin Lux, who the Dodgers couldn’t figure out, who the Reds will now try to figure out somewhere while trying to figure out McLain, CES, Jeimer, and Marte.
Is Spencer Steer the high-BABIP guy who impressed in 2023? Is he the lower-BABIP guy who kind of struggled in 2024? Where the hell do you play him when trying to figure out where everyone else plays?
I just don’t know, man. Even through the most critical eye, I honestly can’t blame the Reds for not knowing yet, and not committing to upgrade anywhere until they give more opportunity for these guys to show more with the most possible playing time available to them available.
Do I like that they’ve committed to this strategy, eschewing more time spent being trying to actively win and get concretely better at positions by spending money on proven commodities? I don’t. But do I get that in this confrontationally patient approach of theirs they just, like, have to see a little more before they make decisions?
The part that burns most, I think, is in their building of ‘waves’ of prospects while seeking sustainability on the farm. They didn’t build a wave that’s going to be ready in 2025. They built one that was supposed to be ready in 2024 as well as one spearheaded by Cam Collier, Edwin Arroyo, and Sal Stewart that should be ready by 2026. There’s no in-house cavalry coming to fill voids this year if any of the previously mentioned time-takers either keep taking time or prove they just aren’t it.
And the Reds, we know, have proven they won’t go spend on a short term fix to bridge the gap if that’s what they discover.