Price fired

[Hit-n-Run]

Price is gone and Riggleman is in.

Pitching coach Jenkins replaced by Danny Darwin.

Pat Kelly promoted to bench coach.

 

[JohnU]

I saw this happening this weekend which doesn't make me a genius.
Riggleman isn't going to turn this train around but I will curious to see if Darwin has immediate impact.
He gets high marks.
I would wager Farrell is named at season's end.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Impossible to determine what kind of a manager Price was. He never had a MLB roster. Ditto with the PC. You can paint a zebra but it doesn't make him a horse.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Even if the win-loss record is irrelevant in judging Bryan Price, the poor fundamentals this team exhibited with zero accountability from the dugout justifies his firing.

 

[eburg5000]

No surprise to anyone here. Can't start the season like this and not expect something like this to happened.
If The Red would go 3 and 15 in the middle of the season. It can be dismissed as a bad slump. At the start of the season it's more noticeable. Everyone is thinking, including me, that the team will play like this the whole season

 

[JohnU]

Rig's record is very ordinary.
He blustered the Nationals at mid-season for a new contract and walked when they refused. I see his point, but I don't agree on the method.

Does Corky get the job at Louisville now? Is Corky a future big-league manager?
I hear Girardi's name mentioned, fwiw.


Jim Riggleman Managerial Record | Baseball-Reference.com

 

[JohnU]

Even if the win-loss record is irrelevant in judging Bryan Price, the poor fundamentals this team exhibited with zero accountability from the dugout justifies his firing.

I tend to blame the players but the fact is, players are managed their whole lives. If they lose confidence in the manager, it's a very real thing -- hard to define or pin down -- but it's real. It's in the mindset. If they don't believe they can win, they won't. How much of that is on the manager? Players grow up looking at their coaches as father figures, very smart people.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

If Price were in his first year of managing I could buy into putting more of the onus on the players, but it's his 5th season at the helm. Repeated poor fundamental play either means the players don't care or the manager doesn't mind. Either way it reflects poorly on the manager.

I think it's imporant that players like their manager, but more important that they respect him. I think the father figure analogy is as good as any.

Putting Riggleman in the Interim Manger role is a unenviable position. Takes some of the bite out his bark if the players know he's a short timer.

 

[JohnU]

I would assert that not many of Billy Martin's players liked him. Same was probably true for Sparky, but there's a line that meets in a gray area. Obviously, players have to stay inside the clubhouse decorum. Not unlike a man in military who follows his CO's orders, not much improvising is permitted. Egos and big salaries would appear to be in place but I suspect that's not even a conversation. Players know the pecking order. The BRM knew it.

When Senzel comes up, he's going to be in the lineup. That's what top draft picks get.

Whatever that has to do with Price is vague and yet connected. We all know this shit.

Riggleman is probably going to seal the leaks and structure the clubhouse to fit whatever plan Williams has in place. He may only be evaluating players for a roster shakeup. Is that likely? I'd say it's 50-50. Gennett, Duvall, Iglesias ... maybe Hamilton. Can we afford to lose these guys? Well, the record is 3-15. Honestly, who cares?

 

[Redsfan1507]

This bullshit ( bad play) doesn't start on the big club. Reds minor league "player development" has been a misnomer for 30 years. Reds ditch minor league coaches that hurt players feelings, by asking them to work on things they don't like to do( things they do poorly to begin with). It's been pa haven for old baseball buddies looking for an easy paycheck, or guys needing a paycheck until they get a better offer. They have a few "names"- ex players that do a little slapping on the back and meet and greets with silver spoon signees, but they don't stick around to get dirty with fundamental skills training. Tom Browning did a stint in the AFL, but other than that, there are few "experts" with effective coaching skills or resumes for such on full time staff. These kids know their signing bonus equals years of those old nobodies salaries, and they do whatever they want. The Larkins and Bench's and Davis' aren't teaching anyone more than a word and a minute-They leave the real work to the 45 year old beer bellies working a Texas League coaching staff salary...and they don't add much more than the kids walked in with.

You'll hear Barry Larkin brought up eventually, as a manager option, but IMO, Barry isn't going to take a Reds( or any job below manger of a MLB club), unless he sees evidence of a solid farm structure, and there hasn't been one in Reds since about the time Larkin was signed. Larkin is an all time great Red, but he has a huge ego, and isn't going to be someone's fall guy if he can help it. Riggleman, not so much- he wants the paycheck.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

There's always fans calling for their former player heroes to be the manager. Wish I had a dollar for every time I heard a fan throw Johnny Bench into the mix over the years without JB ever showing any interest himself. Now it's Barry Larkin's turn.

There's speculation Barry has a level of interest in managing and has been fueled by comments from Barry himself. But I doubt it comes without a level of trepidation over this organizations ability to field a competitive team in the short or long term. Barry has been known to ruffle feathers when he doesn't agree with what he's seeing. How that plays with the Castellini Group we'll see, but I don't think this club needs anymore yes men than it already employs.

There is a line of thinking that suggest a guy like Barry has more to lose than he has to gain. He has plenty of money and failing as a manager would only serve to diminish his legacy in Cincinnati.

 

[JohnU]

The fact that Larkin knows where the ballparks are located doesn't make him a manager. Almost every male who has played youth baseball knows the rudiments of the game. Managing isn't playing. Warren Spahn was a terrible pitching coach. I know a guy who played for Spahn who told me that. Ryne Sandberg was a terrible manager. Fred Hutchinson was not a terrible manager. Just say no to Barry.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Those who can, do..... and those who can't, teach.

But those who do can't necessarily teach.

Nonetheless the Reds have played like do-do.

 

[chico ruiz]

i'm going to rewind this board a little bit because 1507 writes an excellent post, which goes to the lifeblood of smaller market mlb organizations. allow me to paraphrase 1507 without his permission: the life blood, of a mlb smaller market team (development), involving the reds has been a abject failure until very recently where we've seen 'some' improvement with the young pitching. apologies 1507 if i embellished, but i think it's important to acknowledge some of this stuff when a manager is shit-canned.

it annoys me slightly because i was dismissed in 2013-14-15 as being a numbers geek who was too focused on analytics, metrics, or what ever the bullshit du jour was for that particular day. btw, please read this post in the spirit it is presented. i'm not trying to start an argument, say anybody was wrong, or 'i told you so.' i saw great big gaping holes in the reds thinking, development, and therefore infrastructure and wrote stuff, in detail, about it. that is all.

the point is: nothing could have been further from the truth. it was / is predominately baseball between the lines with me. i prefer a very aggressive game, but i always keep my eye on trends. specifically, how it effects the future of the reds. i disdain 'base to base' baseball. i write about on-base-percentage, but dislike the modern 'dead ball' game because it includes walks. those walks also mean non-action. it frustrates me when i read fans referring to defensive shifts as metrics driven. all due respect, that's just ignorant. it has much more to do with mlb hitters inability to hit to all fields, opposite field, hit behind runners, or -in many cases- hit the ball at all. also, spray charts have been around since rickey was choking himself on cigars. it's only a little more refined in terms of match ups and pitching to shifts. the guys who wrote the sliding rules can go fuck themselves too. i have begrudgingly accepted all the mlb changes because there is nothing i can do about it. but, because i still love the game, i try to understand and endure.

as far as the reds, what i saw was a tragedy happening with jocketty as gm. he was doing to the reds the very thing that dewitt feared was happening to the cards before he fired jocketty's ass. dewitt saw the farms atrophying and hired luhnow to fix that. does any of this sound familiar? i am not suggesting this is the only reason for the current red struggles, but it is definitely a big part of it.

i wrote from the very beginning that all the various departments had to work in tandem. 'collaborate and function as one,' is how i've written it many times. many of the gms and gms-to-be, in the mid naughts, were labeled as analytics only guys. did they try and use data to their advantage? yes. but, in addition, as h-n-r points out, they made investments in international scouting. they hired the best coaches and instructors they could possibly find. they made early signings. they traded when it was more of a want than a need (see the gerritt cole trade). they sought to stay financially viable and also put a consistently good product on the field. the list goes on and on. it was far from being a analytics exclusively approach. when you put people in a box you only limit your own perspective.

btw, there is no trend to hire young data geeks to manage. maddon is not a data geek. kapler is not a data geek. boone is not a data geek. kapler was first and foremost an aggressive fundamentals driven ass kicking player and remains so as a manager. he is simply playing poker with 8 to 10 odds in his favor. he's taking some chances. hell, why not? but, if he only had 2 choices, he'd take a 25 man roster that all go hard from home to first. analytics, if that's what you want to call it, is a tool. it's a tool it's a tool. it's a tool. did i mention it's a tool? boone, callaway, cora, kapler, and martinez are first and foremost baseball guys with baseball instincts and experience. the analytics aspect is data that helps better the odds, or put a player in the most advantageous spot to succeed. the only trend is to hire a baseball guy, with management skill who can digest what he's reading and has the ability, and decision-making acuity, to implement a on-field move that gives his player any advantage.

i think (assume) we all knew the reds were in trouble with depth and prospects at the end of 2012. you can't keep your farm system healthy by the draft alone as a small market team. obtaining prospects is an ongoing process that can never stop. you must stay ahead of the curve as your players free agency approaches. you don't just roll the dice and come up votto every 5 or 6 years, as some have suggested. that is not the way it works. 25 good players don't descend from the heavenly hallowed grounds. it takes work with good baseball people in key positions. h-n-r referred to it in a previous post about what huntington did with pittsburgh and it goes straight to he heart of 1507's post. btw, i hope the reds find a comparable replacement for darwin in the minors. his replacement is more important than darwin's promotion.

in the position of overseeing the so-called reds 'rebuild' effort, which should have been maintaining a good farm / development system all along, was a guy who had -not too long before- been fired for his inability to work collaboratively . he had 'philosophical' differences with the new guy. that new guy was put in charge of development. that guy was luhnow. apparently, jocketty felt undercut and under appreciated. i thought then, and i think now, jocketty was more concerned about his own personal legacy and proving dewitt wrong than he was about the health of the reds organization 5 - 10 years into the future. the reds not being competitive or relevant in 2018? it was mandated 5-6 years ago.

if you don't think that has anything to do with the results you're seeing right now, you weren't paying close attention. he waited way too long on players approaching free agency. he as much as said he fucked up, if you read between the lines, without actually saying he fucked up. a nifty bit of exec-speak that i fear williams is beginning to adopt. to get absolutely nothing back for chapman and bruce is evidence of poor decision making made out of desperation. in a nutshell: the bruce / chapman trade yields represent total failure by a front office so incompetent and seemingly oblivious to its market circumstances that it boggles the mind.

i didn't think it could get any worse until i heard an interview with jocketty in 2014-15. he resentfully used the word "rebuild" saying that it is an "interesting process" and "kind of a fun process" to undertake. when he said 'interesting' and 'fun' i thought 'oh holy shit' this guy really doesn't know what he's doing, or -more accurately- has never done this with a smaller market team. he was out of his element. he did it in st.louis with a bigger budget and trades; not organically. hence, dewitt's concerns. i'm not going to go through the all-in-to-win fallout again, but there are reasons the reds were in the dilemma at the time of this interview.

any fan who thinks you have to go through a decade of losing to achieve a couple years of success is dead wrong. why should an organization and its fan base have to accept this as the norm for a smaller market team? the front office is doing something very wrong if that sort of cyclical 'as luck would have it' administration and result is expected. look at the st. louis cardinal roster. look at the number of players who were drafted, or obtained as young prospects, by the cardinals and came up through their system. look at what rounds they were drafted in. look at the year of an international signing. look at what stearns has done in milwaukee. pay particular attention to the payroll and how success lines up for at least five years. he's done it quickly with financial efficiency. his 2018 payroll is roughly 12 million $ less than the reds. he's another one of those execs who got pigeonholed as a 4 eyes analytics only type.

and here is probably the most salient, legitimate argument i can offer: stearns has worked in 3 different organizations in various capacities. started with the mets in operations. he worked for the indians; again in operations, strategy, player evaluations, and the winged one's data work. it's scary scary stuff. so fuckin scary, that houston and luhnow hired him to be assistant general manager. my point with stearns is that he had a wealth of experience and success with different organizations. imo, this is how execs become successful. the reds were unwilling to hire above the credentials of their existing front office. i guess castellini decided to build downward and not upset the existing relationships between the departments as he saw them. again, imo, the problem with people who have only worked for one organization is they tend to have a restricted view of their industry. how much innovation and change can you expect from people who have never been a part of doing it any other way?

the choo one year rental / trade symbolized much of what was going wrong as we watched the last legitimate position player prospect leave the reds organization. one year!. there is a reason teams wanted, for example, gregorius and torreyes. now the yankees have them both for a combined 9 million $. understandably, there are variables connected with trades, and much like the reds losing they don't occur in a vacuum. on the other hand, it speaks volumes to the mlb small market organizational organic imperative.

walt jocketty's methodology was as stale & antiquated as that flip top cell phone he used. the recent gallardo ridiculousness had a distinct 'plug-in' stink to it. for roughly 5 years, following the successful 2010 season, development was raped and went dormant. it was bad business guys and there was a price to pay. pun intended.

 

[JohnU]

Wow, a lot here to absorb. It's good stuff.
I would maybe address the part about managers not being data geeks. Of course, they can't be but I think that organizations who treat their managers as part of the development process rather than the guy who gets to handle the roster he's given will inevitably come to better conversations about personnel.
I read too many comments by Price that suggested he had no control over that and was, at the end, rubbing that reality in the front office's nose. I'd guess that had some impact on his firing.
In any event, watching Craig Counsell at Milwaukee, prominently mentioned in Chico's comments ... he has, I was told, some control over the roster. Exactly how much, I don't know but my initial reading on him was kind of interesting ... that he's a lot closer to the GM's chair than to the electric chair. Obviously, there are limitations there but if the new-breed manager has been given a seat at the table when the roster is being built, it would seem a practical solution to a lot of questions.

Riggleman will not, however, get that chance. I suspect Farrell, if hired, would maybe demand that.
The idea that managers are hired to be fired is as ancient as day baseball at Wrigley. Why should that be? Hire people in the dugout who know a bit about the process and let them have a voice in how it works.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

I agree Chico. There's no absolving Jocketty for his role in where the club finds itself, but looking at the big picture Jocketty didn't hire Jocketty.

Bob Castellini and the Williams brothers bought this team prior to the 2005 Winter Meetings. There has been plenty of nepotism, cronyism, and questionable personel retention ever since. There's a Castellini heading Marketing, a Williams at GM, and a Jocketty in scouting. Hiring through inheritance hasn't been a winning formula.

 

[JohnU]

Did anybody catch the TV pablum that George Grande and Welsh were spewing about the "Riggleman era" and the longest line of total bullshit. My gawd, do they think the fans are this fucking stupid? When an opposing hitter has 10 hits in 20 at-bats and you haven't figured out how to get him out, maybe like ... look at the fucking game films.

Yadi Molina has been hitting against the Reds for 18 years and he still regularly gets a groover pitch to drive for at least a double. How fucking stupid do they need to be? Riggleman appeals a pickoff play at 2nd that he obviously isn't going to win and when there's a real appeal later in the game, he hasn't got one left.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

Asking for a review on the pickoff play was sketchy, but when you're 3-15 you're getting desperate I guess. If Riggleman knew they were going to make numerous bad calls he may have waited for the more obvious bad calls that were to follow. But nonetheless he shouldn't have challenged that play. The umpire crew was terrible last night. At least four missed calls on the bases that I can recall and a home plate umpire that had a different strike zone that was dependent on who was catching at the moment.

Finnegan should be in AAA. He can talk about weak contact all he wants, but when you're all over the place it's pure happenstance.

The Reds had eleven base runners, but I only remember 4 of them getting to 2nd base and one of them was a double. Overall this team is slow and hits into more double plays than it goes 1st to 3rd on a hit. Hasn't shown much power or any ability to take the extra base. Not hard to see why this team ran off a 20+ scoreless inning streak.

The SP hasn't been great, but overall the pitching has kept the team in the game recently. The bullpen is on another scoreless inning streak. It hasn't always been pretty, but they have put up zeroes. Unfortunately the Reds offense has matched the bullpens effort.

 

[JohnU]

My thinking on the replay appeal is that if it's 2 outs and a guy isn't likely to score if you get the hitter out, just play baseball. Martinez diving back into 2nd base at that point in the game produced no angst. Just ... there was no reason to quell a rally that wasn't happening.

Finnegan is just flinging it up there. Cody Reed was better at that. Maybe Darwin can fix Finny's problem but that's a process that takes awhile. Some of these other pitchers are learning the hard way, but sometimes it isn't what they do wrong, it's that they don't know what they are doing wrong. Best example was with Mat Latos. I recall a specific moment when he changed his stretch motion -- it was quite noticeable -- and he suddenly started winning. He had been tipping his pitches. Who notices that? Um ... that's why the systems are in place.

But the hitting is just plain awful. When the best hitter is the catcher, hitting 6th when he should be in the 8 hole taking walks to keep the pitcher from leading off the next inning ... that's a problem. Suarez makes the lineup better. I don't know that Schebler does.

 

[eburg5000]

I didn't realize that Finnegan didn't go through rehab. He's not really ready.