Bryan Price Becomes a Scapegoat

We thought the Reds were going to be pretty awful. FanGraphs’ preseason projections had Cincinnati finishing last in the NL Central with 71 wins, a 2% chance of reaching the postseason, and zero chance of winning the World Series.

The Reds have been even worse than expected to begin he season, entering play Thursday with a 3-15 record, the most losses in the majors and also (along with Kansas City) the fewest wins. The Reds are also the owners of the major’s worst run differential (-46).

So Cincinnati gave us the most traditional of responses Thursday morning, firing manager Bryan Price. In four-plus seasons with the Reds, Price had a 279-387 mark. He recorded one season of 70 wins or better, a 76-win 2014 campaign. The club also removed pitching coach Mack Jenkins.

The Reds have announced they are replacing manager Bryan Price and pitching coach Mack Jenkins. Effective immediately, bench coach Jim Riggleman is interim manager, Louisville manager Pat Kelly is bench coach, and Pensacola pitching coach Danny Darwin is major league staff.

— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 19, 2018

Later in the year, the team will conduct a thorough managerial search for a permanent replacement. #Reds

— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 19, 2018

It should be noted that Price was not hired by the current regime, the one led by Dick Williams (although former Reds GM Walt Jocketty remains in an advisory role). That said, one of Price’s strengths — as a former pitching coach — was supposed to be working with a pitching staff and developing young pitchers. This is what Jocketty said when hiring Price on Oct. 22, 2013 :

“We’ve all seen his work here with our pitching staff. He has proven himself to be an excellent communicator and leader and clearly is one of the most respected people not only in our clubhouse but in baseball in general.”

While Price didn’t have ideal raw material with which to work on the north bank of the Ohio River, there wasn’t much positive development among the club’s young pitching staff outside of Luis Castillo’s success last year and maybe the emergence of Raisel Iglesias — but even Castillo has underperformed his peripheral numbers early this season.

Since Price’s hiring, the Reds rank last in the majors in ERA- (111) and pitching WAR (24.7), numbers that adjust for whatever advantages Great America Ballpark offers batters. This season, the Reds have the second-youngest pitching staff in the majors (average age of 26.8 years), more senior than only the Phillies. But only the White Sox (141) have a worse ERA- than that of the Reds (138) — and the Reds rank last in the majors in pitching WAR (-0.5) and FIP- (132).

The Reds are a smaller-market team. They have to draft and develop their own pitching to be successful. While the talent level was less than ideal for Price, there’s little argument to be made that he was developing talent and extracting more skill out of pitchers. And that is perhaps more damning — and more of a fireable offense — than his win-loss total. The rebuilding Reds would probably be fine with capturing the No. 1 overall in 2019 if their pitching staff was showing improvement and promise.

That the Reds would want a new voice is not all that surprising.

Buddy Bell, John Farrell, and Barry Larkin are among the names already being mentioned by the Cincinnati Enquirer.

While this change shouldn’t surprise us, while it’s defensible, the idea that a manager is mostly responsible for a team’s failures is becoming less and less credible to the public at large. I doubt few believe Jim Riggleman is going to have much impact on the team’s fortunes, though Riggleman has plenty of experience in this role.

Jim Riggleman is an interim manager for the fourth time in his career — Padres (92), Mariners (08), Nationals (09)

— C. Trent Rosecrans (@ctrent) April 19, 2018

Managers have gradually lost more and more power over roster construction and even in-game strategy. They have generally become more and more extensions of the front office. The manager is working with the players and information a front office hands him.

We understand that talent usually wins the day. And it’s easier to measure value in baseball since we can better isolate pitcher and batter performance, compared, to say, what a left guard’s contributions are in football. Managers undoubtedly make value-add (or value-subtract) contributions in terms of player development, communication, and other intangibles, but their overall share of power and impact has decreased.

And yet, as the game has moved further away from tradition in many respects, the manager — the face of the team who interacts twice a day with the local media before and after games and is posted nightly in the corner of the dugout — remains the most traditional of scapegoats.

Price is not blameless. But when a manager is fired, he also carries the failures of others — poor draft picks, poor development practices, poor trades — in the name of expediency.

A modern organization’s success is the byproduct of a collective effort. While the Reds’ farm system entered 2018 ranked ninth by Baseball America, it ranked in the middle of the pack the previous five year (2013 – 14th, 2014 – 16th, 2015 – 16th, 2016 – 12th, 2017 – 13th). The system did not produce a top 50 trade value asset in our rankings last summer, though Senzel and Castillo are candidates to be ranked this summer.

Of course, teams cannot fire players on guaranteed contracts. General managers and club presidents typically do not fire themselves. So if a club wants to make some sort of statement that a level of performance is unacceptable, the manager remains the obvious candidate.

The Reds have work to do. The club’s star, Joey Votto, began to express some impatience regarding the process this spring. The Reds have suffered back-to-back season of sub-2 million in attendance for the first time since 2001-02. Ultimately the club needs Nick Senzel to be a star, while Hunter Greene and Castillo must pitch near the top of a rotation. That core must be surrounded with homegrown and externally added talent upgrades. A manager and his staff can play little role in that process. A club’s leadership can only fire so many managers.

A generally conservative sport has broken from many conventional beliefs in recent years, but its firing practices remain most traditional. Price shares part of the blame but hardly the lion’s share.