No, Seriously, What Are The Reds Doing?

It’s rare that you get to see a team self-immolate both on the field and off the field in the same game. Even more refreshing, this time it wasn’t the Pirates.

The Pirates beat the Reds last night 11-4, which is probably the first time in the history of TPOP we’ve given you the score of last night’s game. But at the point, who cares about the score. The Reds’ Amir Garrett wanted all the smoke last night and charged the entire Pirates dugout. He was offering up Filet O’Fist sandwiches, but couldn’t deliver any. Yasiel Puig, who was traded by this point, never has turned down a chance to fake fight, so he got in the mix (again). But the topper of this sad spectacle was seeing the Reds’ manager, David Bell, charge Clint Hurdle after he was already ejected.

I’m not going to wade into whether the Pirates shared some blame in this or not, because I’m sure they did but trying to parse that out is nigh-impossible. But at least the Pirates, on this one night at least, didn’t embarrass themselves as an organization from top to bottom.

The Reds’ front office had a banner night, too. They decided to keep digging that hole they started last offseason when they got a bunch of guys with one year of team control (Alex Wood, Tanner Roark, Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp, Sonny Gray) in the hopes of ‘shaking things up’ and ‘rewarding the fans’. In the process, they shipped out some prospects and wound up in the same miserable place record-wise as they’ve been trapped in for years.

So they decided to really up the ante with their latest trade. They shipped out one head case in Puig for another in Trevor Bauer. Bauer is an aggressively awful human on social media, as evidenced by his telling people to go kill themselves on Twitter and systematically harassing random strangers who disagree with him, and a pain for every organization he’s ever been in due to unorthodox ideas and stubbornness. Bauer also has one year of team control in 2020 and will be going to arbitration for the 4th time.

Setting aside 2018, Bauer’s career has been far more unfulfilled promise than actual production. Yes, in 2018 he was fantastic, as his fWAR of 5.8 and 2.21 ERA/2.44 FIP can attest. But that was in just 175 innings, which has been part of his problem. There’s always something wrong with Bauer. He’s topped 176 innings just once, 190 in 2016, and has only produced over 3 fWAR once as well in 2018, yet believes in his head that he’s a world-dominating ace. The disconnect between Bauer’s brain and the real world is a massive gulf.

To get Bauer, the Reds gave up their top prospect in Taylor Trammell. Trammell is a 21-year old outfielder that was the Reds’ 2016 1st round supplemental draft pick. He’s having a down year, but Fangraphs still puts his Future Value as a 55. In order to get enough perceived value back for Bauer, the Indians enlisted the Padres to kick in prospects and players for the present. The Padres actually received Trammell for their efforts and they moved Franmil Reyes, Logan Allen, Victor Nova to the Indians.

The Reds are already starting their offseason shopping list in the hopes of just running it back in 2020. It now appears that Joey Votto is finally entering his decline phase (.265/.351/.406, 98 wRC+, 0.5 fWAR), with just four more boat anchor seasons at $23M to go. Nick Senzel came up and hasn’t exactly lit the field on fire. Scooter Gennett is a free agent. Noted pissant Derek Dietrich will be back, but he also has just one year of control left.

Is there a true plan here or is it just year-to-year' I know, I know. People in glass houses. But I’ve been advocating for a complete gutting of the front office and the on-field product. If I were a Reds fan, with my intestines being ravaged by years of Skyline Chili, I’d be embarrassed by last night’s events and questioning what exactly is going on with them.