â€å“a Supposedly Fun Thing I ll Never Do Again ã¢â‚¬â by David Foster Wallace 1997

Bob Castellini'south Big Moment

â€Å"You should never hesitate to merchandise your cow for a handful of magic beans.”  ― Tom Robbins

I walk into the Holy Grail Tavern & Grille days later the Reds have signed the soonhoped-for Face of Major League Baseball to a contract that added 10-years and $225M to an existing bargain to keep Joey Votto playing hardball for the oldest franchise on earth for the rest of his baseball life. A banner hangs over the bar, echoing a grateful, citywide acknowledgement of a deed well washed:

Joy was in the air. And relief, remarkably similar to the manner I felt in December of 1972, when doctors at Christ Infirmary told the baseball game world that the lesion discovered on Johnny Bench’s lung was benign and the National League’s MVP would continue playing baseball game for the Cincinnati Reds. Now, for the second time in my life, I could revel in the knowledge that I was going to get to watch the all-time player in Reds history play in my hometown for a long, long time.

Information technology turned out to be the commencement actually large moment for the possessor of the Cincinnati Reds, a symbolic, just meaningful stepping-stone on his promise to bring winning baseball back to a boondocks starved for it. The national media—and fifty-fifty some locally—would trample on the signing, insisting the small-marketplace Reds—like Donny Kerabatsos—were out of their chemical element. No thing. The possessor passed his first test and Joey has held upwardly his end of the bargain in spectacular fashion, trammeling up the haters.

At present, another big moment has arrived for the Cincinnati Reds. The rebuild has rounded third and is heading home. Waiting at the plate is Bob Castellini. Is he there to shake some hands or is he instead blocking the plate?

Whatever the Reds decide to do with Homer Bailey’s remaining starts, he needs to be out of the rotation in 2019. That ways eating salary, as distasteful equally that is. Any the Reds do with Baton Hamilton, the Reds will be ameliorate served trading him—or at to the lowest degree using him judiciously as a late-inning defensive replacement or a mid-game compression runner. Whatever the Reds decide to do with Scooter Gennett, Nick Senzel is a loftier impact player on the come up who needs to play every day in 2019, probably at second base, which makes Gennett expendable.

There’southward a edifice consensus that the possessor is opposed to all of this, notably, trading Scooter. And every bit we’ve seen in previous comments made by the owner himself, he seems to exist pushing a lot of the buttons lately. It’s his squad, every bit the local media reminded us following the latest Matt Harvey news:

Those who are upset with the #Reds retention of soon to be free agents, like Harvey and Cozart earlier him, accept understand this is Bob Castellini’s squad and he has the correct and privilege to run information technology equally he wishes @WCPO

— Ken Broo (@kenbroo) Baronial 24, 2018

Chad has already written nigh ownership’s potentially outsized office in The Rebuild in Cincinnati Mag and yous should read it if you haven’t already. Still, the topic needs to stay front and center because with every passing determination, information technology feels as if the heavy manus of ownership hovers over everything, threatening to bandage a dark cloud over the last three years of work washed by Dick Williams & Co.

Notwithstanding, before talking nearly the hereafter, nosotros need to take the service route for a moment and talk almost the past.

*  *  *

It was The Athletic this leap that referred to this season every bit this â€Å"never-ending rebuild,” as if the product at GABP were a second-rate Olive Garden menu pasta selection. The frothing over the perceived lack of progress by some is a product of decades of mostly losing and a misunderstanding of how rebuilds piece of work or just an intolerance for the concept of the rebuild itself. Which is okay because, let’south acknowledge it, this whole rebuild thing is new to us. Once-upon-a-fourth dimension, baseball seasons began with real hope. Your team might exist lacking talent, merely they didn’t strip the clubhouse downwardly to the rails. They didn’t take your hope away in April and tell you to come dorsum with your eye four seasons hence.

Cincinnati isn’t the just place where this malaise lives. In Philly, rumbles of discontent from the fan base of operations swelled with each loss until this year provided a respite from six years of not-winning baseball in the Urban center of Brotherly Love.

Some accept dislocated losing with rebuilding. No, The Rebuild didn’t begin in 2014. The Reds were a scattering of games over .500 at the All Star interruption in 2014. That losing season was a product of Mat Latos landing funny on the mound while rehabbing from a sore elbow and going on to have a very unfunny flavour. It was a product of Jay Bruce’due south torn meniscus and the Oblique Strain Flu Devin Mesoraco caught while standing too shut to Johnny Cueto. It was the production of Jonathon Broxton’due south bad elbow and besides much Curtis Partch and not enough Tony Cingrani, who hit the triage tent with a bum shoulder. Mostly, it was virtually a very night fourth dimension in Reds Baseball—the year Joey MVP missed 100 games with a Left Distal Quad that had the consistency of instant oatmeal.

Nor did The Rebuild begin that off-flavor with 2015 on the horizon. Instead, theyÂÂhung on to Cueto and Mike Leake, when both would have brought back substantially more than in trade than they would at the July trading deadline. They chose to retain the services of Aroldis Chapman. TheyÂÂdealt a future pitching prospect—Ben Lively—for long-in-the-molar lion Marlon Byrd, hoping he would bring some leadership roar to the clubhouse pride. TheyÂÂsigned shopworn gratuitous agents Jason Marquis, Paul Maholm, Burke Badenhop and Kevin Gregg in the hope that when the All Star Game circus left town, the Reds—although non true players in the mail service-season sweepstakes—would remain inside shouting distance, keeping the buying grouping satisfied, the turnstiles clicking, and the national media talking about the Queen City.

I say â€Å"they,” the â€Å"they” being one Robert Castellini, American man of affairs from Cincinnati, Ohio. The 2015 All Star Game wasn’t just the city of Cincinnati’south moment in the spotlight, information technology was Castellini’s moment, likewise. It was a take chances to demonstrate that Samuel Langhorne Clemens doesn’t own us, that y'all treat united states similar flyover state at your cultural peril. It was a chance to showcase OTR, The Banks, and aye, National League Baseball game on the Ohio River in one case again, before decades of bad ownership and bad luck had swamped this proud, self-conscious city.

And like the owner’s first big moment—the signing of Votto to a gobsmacking contract—he wasn’t about to swing and miss. If that meant The Rebuild had to wait, then and then be information technology.

It’due south important to get the history of the 2014 and 2015 seasons grounded in reality, lest our emotions betray us into thinking the rebuild is sailing into the foulest of weathers, almost to crash into some other bank and shoal of miserable time. Honestly, for a rebuilding only in year three, significant progress has been made. Jesse Winker and Scott Schebler have seemingly answered the questions about the corner outfield positions. Jose Peraza has staked a claim to shortstop, and in doing so, rewarded the front office’s belief in him when they chased the fallen prospect all over the National League, start with the Braves, and then with the Dodgers, before bringing him into the fold. Joey Votto is still very much a office of the well-nigh futurity at beginning base, while Eugenio Suarez salsa dances into his future part as Votto’s heir apparent—the side by side face up of the Reds. The draft has brought Nick Senzel, a loftier flooring, high ceiling player, waiting to ballast the keystone position and make full out what could be an All Star infield all across the diamond from correct to left. Jonathan India is surely on the fast track and only adds to the depth the Reds will demand moving forward.

Baseball has noticed, fifty-fifty if we have been skeptical. Grant Brisbee, a favorite writer of mine, spoke dispassionately nigh the Reds rebuild not long agone:

â€Å"They quietly pilfered young talent from other teams and through their own arrangement. Luis Castillo was gifted to them for Dan Straily … They started to develop an almost – dare I say it? – Cardinals-like ability to mold young hitters into something worthwhile. Adam Duvall became an unlikely all-star, Scooter Gennett morphed into someone who could hit a brawl manner farther than anyone named Scooter should, Eugenio Suarez went from a moderately intriguing organizational player to someone with star potential. And so even though they whiffed on a lot of their rebuilding trades, the rebuild is nevertheless going potent. They’ve used their spiral-it liberty wisely, introducing the globe to players similar Jesse Winker and other automobile-generated names from MLB: The Show. They’ve done so much correct. They’ve done and then very much correct.”

If The Rebuild isn’t showing the requisite results in the win/loss column, that’southward because the great 2012 pitching staff we look dorsum wistfully upon all left at basically at the aforementioned time. David Dewitt Bailey and Anthony DeSclafani were supposed to provide some stability as the Reds waited for a conga line of prospects to weed themselves out, merely Disco and Homer savage to the malignant Baseball Gods, leaving the Reds bereft of starting innings to manage.

While some are already pronouncing the pitching prospects a failure, the truth lies elsewhere. Pitching prospects rarely burst upon the scene fully-formed. There’s a distinct learning curve at the major league level—ane that Tyler Mahle, Luis Castillo, Sal Romano, Cody Reed, Amir Garrett, et al. must navigate as they acquire non only how to pitch to major league hitters, merely also primary game theory also. Patience is key, no matter how loud the bellowing from social media. And yes, this applies to Robert Stephenson, too [ducks], even if contempo events say otherwise.

â€Å"[Dallas] Keuchel, whose fastball has never averaged xc m.p.h., said he had been lucky to arrive in the majors when the Astros were struggling, considering they could afford to exist patient as he developed. In a unlike organization—with more pressure to win, harder-throwing prospects to try, or both—he might have been buried.”

For The Rebuild to see the spring not but in development, but also in wins, it’s the pitching that is going to take to make substantial gains. This is where the owner’s third big moment is virtually to arrive. Feathers are going to take to be added to the wings before the 2019 flavor can take flight.

But acquiring the kind of quality pitching the Reds need to plough the corner while still showing patience with the youngsters volition require sacrifice. Some fan favorites may need to become. Hard decisions await the front office. Signing Scooter Gennett to a multi-year contract or trading him is just one of those decisions.

Castellini has his favorites (Billy Hamilton) and the Reds’ 2nd baseman is one of them. Castellini sees players such as these as cash cows that drive fans through the turnstiles. But as writer Tom Robbins once said, â€Å"never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans.”

Prospects are the magic beans of smart baseball organizations today. As Chris Welsh said to Bill Lack on a recent Redleg Nation podcast, getting young and staying immature past churning the roster every couple of years is something the Reds don’t do well. Bringing in fresh talent on a regular basis is the divergence betwixt throwing the competitive window wide open up for years—and watching information technology slam shut later only a couple of competitive seasons.

*  *  *

From inside the World’s Virtually Famous Arena—Section 215, Seat 2 to be precise—I can see the barren landscape laid out earlier me. It’southward dressed up with brilliant lighting, Broadway-choreographed trip the light fantastic toe routines and video galore, all in the service of distracting me from the mess at heart court. These are my New York Knicks. The possessor, James Dolan, is the son of Charles Dolan, the successful business heed behind Cablevision and HBO. A few years ago, the Knicks—after years of floundering—were embarking upon a promising rebuild themselves. They had a nice group of young players who played hard, had something to prove, were growing—and yes—winning together. And so, young Dolan saw a faraway shiny object in the likeness of Carmelo Anthony. Thusly smitten, he traded all his magic beans for Anthony. Melo, in turn, was welcomed home, a prodigal son returned to The Mecca. Many jerseys were sold. Many tickets were bought. A buzz was back in the Garden. But the buzz came at the expense of the hereafter, and soon, the Knicks were dorsum to their tired means, the brawl rarely leaving the aging star’s easily on offense, while defense—similar a pestering child pleading for an autograph—became an annoyance Anthony and his teammates had piddling use for. Regretfully for this season-ticket holder, the Knickerbockers sank back into a comfy mediocrity, a place they know all likewise well.

Meddling is happening eastward out at Citi Field also, where Fred Wilpon and son Jeff accept been infuriating their fan base of operations for years. Although we don’t know for sure, it’s believed that MLB mandated the hiring of Sandy Alderson as GM of the Mets, such was the ineptitude of their owners.

Come across Woody Johnson, baby shampoo impresario, possessor of the New York Jets and Ambassador to Great Britain—because yes, men of great fortune and nifty wisdom can do anything they set their minds to—except draft a competent NFL quarterback.

Which brings us back to the Reds’ owner. Mr. Castellini need not wait east to New York to see an object lesson on the dangers of ownership & hubris. He needs merely to look across the expanse of concrete parking lots, downriver to Paul Dark-brown Stadium. Has any possessor in Cincinnati sports history been more than reviled than Mike Chocolate-brown is today?

Bob Castellini is not Mike Brown. Unlike Brown, Bob Castellini wants to win. And he kept Joey here and I will always dearest him for that. Only, the possessor is a fan and fans should never run baseball teams. Owners should spend their coin wisely and turn the baseball decisions over to the very people they have so wisely hired.

The decision to pull Matt Harvey back and keep him feels like another Carmelo Anthony movement. Holding on to the past or attempting to leverage big names into ticket and jersey sales at the expense of youth and the futurity is the complete opposite of where the smart people in baseball are heading. Whether it’s holding onto Homer Bailey because of money owed, or sticking with Billy Hamilton considering of the sometimes excitement he generates, or investing in years of Scooter Gennett considering he’s part Pete Rose, function Ryan Freel and all grit, these are all decisions that demand to be fabricated not with the centre, merely with a articulate thought process, devoid of sentimentality—and yes, hubris.

Everyone thinks Cincinnati sports are jinxed. If that’due south true, perchance what information technology will take is inspirational thinking and yes, some magic beans to finally intermission the fever.

What the Reds don’t need are sacred cows.

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Source: https://www.redlegnation.com/2018/08/25/bob-castellinis-big-moment/