The Cincinnati Reds hired David Bell before the 2019 season. In the six years since then, he has a managing record of 406 wins and 453 losses. Cincinnati has only entered the playoffs once in those six years, in 2020, when the team ended 31-29 in a shortened season that saw eight teams advance to the playoffs in each league. That season was one of Bell’s three winning seasons with the Reds. There is still a potential that this season will be a winning one, but the squad must go 9-2 or better the remainder of the way.
In an interview with Reds.com’s Mark Sheldon, President of Baseball Operations Nick Krall stated this regarding David Bell when asked about the club’s manager and coaches for 2025:
“He’s got a contract for next year,” Krall said when asked about Bell before Friday’s game. “As of right now, we’re going to evaluate everything at the end of the year and see what we have to do to move forward.”
That is not a good response to hear if you are David Bell or a member of his coaching staff.
This season, the team has not performed as expected. Some of this is likely due to injuries. However, some of this could be ascribed to the coaching staff. And, while I feel it is perfectly fair to suggest that the front office/ownership is equally to blame – we’re talking about team expectations for 2024 rather than an endeavor to put together a squad capable of competing for the division, league, and so on.
On paper, most projection systems had the team around.500 entering the year. It doesn’t seem like they will be getting there unless they go on a big run starting tomorrow night and take it through the next two weeks.
There’s an ancient saying (especially in baseball) that a manager is only as good as his team. This writer feels that is mostly accurate. You can’t win if your squad isn’t good enough. This is not football, where you can plan your way around a lack of talent (or try to). Outside of 2020, Cincinnati’s front office hasn’t exactly put a good club on the field during Bell’s term as manager, and we didn’t get to see how they would perform over the course of a complete season.
Still, at some time, someone will be “responsible” for the team’s failure to win. Even when the squad has won a season, it has only finished slightly over average.There are 500 forms of winning. That is undoubtedly better than the club’s 62-100 record in 2022, but the goal should not be to finish 83-79. The goal should be to make the playoffs and have a club capable of winning the World Series.
The Reds have fallen well short of it during the last decade. The question of how much of this is the fault of David Bell and his coaching team is valid. Another factor to consider is how much can be attributed to the front office and ownership. However, one of the two groups gets to decide who to blame if they choose that someone should be “responsible” and it’s not going to be Bell and the coaches that get to decide that.
