by Chris Ball
Loveland, Ohio – the Reds’ disappointing 2024 campaign is soon to draw to a close, and David Bell couldn’t quite make it until the end. Cincinnati chose to fire Bell this past Sunday night with a full week of games left to be played. Bell has been the Reds manager since 2019 and during that time has posted a 405-456 record. Under his watch Cincinnati made the playoffs once in 2020. They were close to returning to the playoffs in 2023 (after many predicted them to lose more than 100 games) but fell apart in the second half of the season to come up just short. The optimism from last season led to an extension of his contract, but even that extension wasn’t enough to save his job after underachieving in 2024.
For his part, Cincinnati’s president of baseball operations Nick Krall discussed that parting ways with Bell came down to problems that Reds fans are all too familiar with. These included their poor record in one-run games, defensive miscues, and costly baserunning mistakes that seemed to cost the team in so many key games this year. While not naming anyone specifically, Krall also pointed out how several players were not playing up to their potential, and this was something that (rightly or not) was laid at the former manager’s doorstep.
Reds beat writers are already discussing numerous candidates for Bell’s replacement. These include former Cincinnati players like Barry Larkin, David Ross and Skip Schumaker, among other big names like Aaron Boone and Terry Francona. There is also a chance that the front office could choose to promote someone from within the organization. In that case, Freddie Benavides might be the main option as he’s the current interim manager and was the bench coach prior to Bell’s departure.
Whichever prospective managers the Reds might end up pursuing, they would be taking the helm of a team with as much young potential as any in major league baseball. Elly De La Cruz is already one of the most electric players in the game. Spencer Steer, Matt McLain, Christian Encarnacion Strand, and Edwin Arroyo are all in the early parts of their careers and are primed to make huge strides in the next few years. Established players like T.J. Friedl, Jonathan India, and Tyler Stephenson stand ready to help shepherd the young guns along the way. And most importantly, the rotation is anchored by an ace in Hunter Greene, talented arms in Nick Lodolo and Andrew Abbott, and up and coming flamethrowers like Rhett Lowder.
Put simply, it’s a job that should be easy to fill based upon the stable of starts and talent the Reds possess.
The one stumbling block, as always, will be the front office. After promising sweeping changes and a path to success in the past, those at the helm of this franchise have had precious little actual success in terms of attracting and/or signing impact free agents to fill in some of the most glaring holes in the lineup. Finding the right manager and making a genuine investment in that person (no matter the price) gives the ownership and management a clear chance to prove to fans that they are actually serious about turning around the track for this team. As everyone knows, the window for small market teams to make deep playoff runs can be crushingly small and so the time for excuses has come to an end.
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Christopher Ball is a longtime Loveland resident and an attorney. He graduated from Loveland High School in 2003 and was a member of the football team before going on to become a coach’s assistant at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. He has been following and rooting for the Reds and Bengals since the early 1990s and has been through the many ups and downs that fandom has wrought over the years.
