The Reds Can’t Unring a Bell, but They Can Fire Him
Last Friday and Saturday, the Cincinnati Reds routed the Pittsburgh Pirates in back-to-back games by a combined score of 15-4. The Reds were 74-80 when the Pirates came to town for the three-game series, and their chances of finishing above .500 and matching last year’s 82-80 record were slim, but they kept those hopes alive over those two games.
Then Paul Skenes took the mound. On Sunday, the Pirates pulled off a shutout on the back of five brilliant innings from their first-year ace. It was the third time the rookie phenom has dominated the Reds this season. Cincinnati managed just three hits and one walk all afternoon, striking out 13 times (nine against Skenes). After Jonathan India, Elly De La Cruz, and Tyler Stephenson went down one-two-three in the bottom of the ninth, the Reds fell to 76-81, assuring they would finish with a worse record than they did last season.
Around 6:30 that evening, president of baseball operations Nick Krall informed manager David Bell that his services were no longer required. Bench coach Freddie Benavides was named the interim manager for the five games remaining in the 2024 season. This was Bell’s sixth season as the Reds manager. He also managed in their minor league system from 2009-12, giving him just under 10 years of service with the club. Although he’s the only member of the Bell family’s three generations of major leaguers to never play for the Reds — his grandfather, father, and brother all suited up for the family team – David is the Bell who spent the most time with the club.
Krall inadvertently set off alarm bells a couple of weeks ago, when he sidestepped a question asking him to confirm if Bell would be back in 2025. At the time, Krall suggested he would “evaluate everything at the end of the year.” Evidently, the end of the year wasn’t coming soon enough. Indeed, Krall had this to say at Monday’s press conference about Bell’s dismissal: “If we make the decision now, it allows us to meet with everybody on the last road trip. It allows us to start this process and gives us a week head start as opposed to waiting when you know what the decision is going to be.”
Still, it’s hard to think Bell’s late-season firing wasn’t about public perception, at least in part. An extra week at the end of September doesn’t seem like it would be particularly beneficial in the managerial hiring process. I’ve never worked in an MLB front office, but I did go to high school, and I can tell you this. When a teenager breaks up with their high school sweetheart after graduation, it just means they’re looking for new experiences in college. But if they do the dumping a week before graduation, they probably also want to stir up some drama. Likewise, a managerial firing this late in the season is about making a statement, one that can be read as a grand gesture of sorts: An executive is trying to show fans that the team is taking its disappointing season very seriously.
Over the past six years, Bell developed a reputation for picking fights with umpires and getting ejected on behalf of his team. It often didn’t matter if the argument was justified; it was a symbolic sign of support for his players as much as anything else. This time, sadly, it’s his own team that has ejected him. It doesn’t matter if it was justified, and it may have been symbolic as much as anything else.
Six-and-a-half years ago, when Krall was merely an assistant general manager, the Reds made an even more dramatic gesture: They fired manager Bryan Price 18 games into the 2018 season. The following offseason, Bell was hired to replace interim manager Jim Riggleman, who had stepped in for Price. The Price/Riggleman years were a dark time for the Reds. They went 343-467 (.423), never finishing higher than fourth in the NL Central. Bringing in Bell was supposed to represent the beginning of a new era, as the team came out on the other side of the rebuilding process. Lo and behold, the first-time manager (ahem) answered the bell during his first season at the helm. The Reds went 75-87 with a -10 run differential in 2019, a notable improvement over their 67-95 record and -123 run differential from the year before. They improved again in 2020, finishing above .500 (31-29) for the first time since 2013. They even made the playoffs that year, albeit as the NL’s seventh seed in an expanded postseason format.
Bell and the Reds took another incremental step forward in 2021. They finished 83-79 with a +26 run differential, marking the first time in eight years that they scored more runs than they allowed. While the Reds missed the playoffs that year, they finished with the sixth-best record in the NL and would have qualified under the 12-team postseason format that was introduced the following season. The front office, clearly pleased with the way the team was progressing under Bell’s leadership, extended him through the 2023 season.
Unfortunately, the 2022 campaign marked a huge step backward for Bell’s squad, though that could hardly be attributed to the manager. Nick Castellanos left in free agency, while the front office dumped Sonny Gray, Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suárez, and Wade Miley to cut costs. Those were the moves that ultimately led president and chief operating officer Phil Castellini to ask the fanbase his now infamous question: “Where are you gonna go?” Adding injury to insult, the Reds lost more players to the IL than just about any other team that season. After the year got off to a predictably poor start, the front office sold big at the trade deadline, shipping off Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle, among several other players.
Following a glacial 2022-23 offseason, it seemed as if the Reds were content to enter another rebuild without ever having truly escaped the first. It was this offseason that Castellini suggested his club was out of contention before the season even began. While he acknowledged the wealth of talent in the farm system, he also “joked” that the team would inevitably lose all those promising young players in the future.
Yet, Bell and the Reds surprised the baseball world in 2023, surpassing all expectations to finish 82-80. The manager entered the season a lame duck, and it wouldn’t have been surprising to see him fired if the team struggled once again. Instead, with Cincinnati sitting in postseason position on July 28, 2023, he signed another contract extension, this time a three-year deal running through the 2026 campaign.
After Bell signed his new deal, however, the Reds went 26-32 over the rest of the season. Add that to this year’s 76-81 record, and the Reds have gone 102-113 since Bell put pen to paper. Needless to say, that’s not what the front office was hoping for. At the same time, it’s not as if the Reds have wildly underperformed over the last 14 months. It was clear as a bell they were playing over their heads in 2023. When Bell signed his latest extension, the Reds were holding the final NL Wild Card spot, but their run differential was -6. Their playoff odds were only 28.9%; their projected rest-of-season record was 26-32. As for 2024, Bell’s squad came into the year with just a 23.1% chance of making the playoffs and a 79-83 projected record. All the Reds have to do is go 3-2 over their final five games and they’ll hit that projection on the head. In other words, the team wasn’t exactly set up for success. The front office assembled a slightly below-average roster; in turn, Bell managed that roster to a slightly below-average record.
At the same time, it’s not unreasonable to expect a manager to help his players surpass their 50th-percentile projections. One could argue that a manager who only ever meets preseason expectations isn’t doing enough. Yet, even if the Reds were holding Bell to that high standard, I’m having trouble seeing how he didn’t do his job. De La Cruz and Hunter Greene, arguably the two most important pieces of the Cincinnati core, have enjoyed wildly successful 2024 seasons. Stephenson is having the finest year of his career, and India has bounced back after a couple of disappointing campaigns. Meanwhile, Bell isn’t to blame for the injuries of Matt McLain and Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and it certainly wasn’t his fault that Noelvi Marte was suspended for the first 80 games of the season after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug. Yes, of course, a manager’s job is to win ballgames, and Bell didn’t do that often enough, but he was not the primary source of his team’s struggles this season.
In his press conference, Krall highlighted a couple of specific areas in which he believes the team underperformed under Bell this season. For one, Krall discussed his team’s baserunning, claiming that the Reds “took a lot of extra bases” but also “got thrown out a lot.” He’s certainly right that the Reds have taken plenty of extra bases; they’re on pace for their highest single-season stolen base total since World War I. He’s also technically correct that they get thrown out a lot; they’re tied for fourth with 44 thwarted stolen base attempts this season. However, what Krall didn’t mention is that the Reds are stealing with their best success rate since 1975. And Cincinnati’s baserunning success extends beyond just steals; the team ranks second in the majors with 16.6 BsR.
Krall’s other point of criticism, the defense, was at least more accurate. The Reds have been one of the worst teams in baseball by pretty much every defensive statistic. However, it’s important to look at more than just team-wide metrics. Some of the team’s least valuable defenders are guys who have actually taken big steps forward in 2024, including Stephenson and Spencer Steer. Similarly, the team’s most valuable defender, De La Cruz, has also improved by leaps and bounds. Moreover, Krall also is also to blame for the poor defense. Players like Ty France and Jeimer Candelario had spotty defensive records when Krall acquired them, and there’s only so much a manager can do with veterans like that.
Simply put, it just doesn’t seem fair to pin this team’s problems on the manager, whose greatest sin is that he didn’t help the middling, injury-plagued roster he was handed win as many games as the front office had hoped it would. Yet, having said all that, I still don’t think this was necessarily the wrong decision on Krall’s part. Sometimes, a team that’s stuck in a rut just needs a change. Sometimes, a team needs a new manager even when the previous one doesn’t deserve to be fired. Bell had been the Reds manager for six years. The lows were low, the highs were brief, and ultimately, mediocrity was the defining trait of the David Bell era in Cincinnati. Perhaps it was time to ring the passing bell and usher in a new era of Reds baseball. But it’ll take more than a new manager to ensure that the path ahead is better than the one the Reds are leaving behind.
Leo has written for FanGraphs, MLB Trade Rumors, Baseball Prospectus, and Lindy’s Sports. You can follow him on Bluesky @leomorgenstern.bsky.social.
Do I want to know how you know this? Or is this a case where if you give me the answer I’m going to regret asking?
All it tells me is that Castellini is running the Reds like a high school locker room, and that doesn’t actually surprise me in the slightest. Has there ever been a worse executive for an MLB team? Not owner, the Reds have experience there, and Jerry Reinsdorf exists. But as an executive, Castellini’s small-dick energy, lack of self-awareness, and loser mentality have to be up there.
On the other hand, when you know you know. If a breakup is happening there is no sense in prolonging things to to reach some arbitrary external deadline. Staying together for the kids’ sake doesn’t help in real life, and it doesn’t help in baseball.
I find this comparison illustrative about the Pirates and Reds franchises.
Bell’s record as Reds manager: 409-453 (.473)
Shelton’s record as Pirates manager: 291-411 (.415)
Bell’s been fired and Shelton has been publicly backed by the GM (although I guess he might still be fired at the end of the season). Neither team has had a lot of talent. Maybe it’s the case that the Reds have had a lot more talent than the Pirates, but it sure feels like these are two not very good teams. One manager got his team to play slightly below average, and the other managed his team to play significantly below average.
-A Sad Pirates Fan
On the position-player side, the Reds are about equal to the Pirates, though Elly blows that divide open. But for most of the two manager’s tenures, the Reds have had better pitching, and it’s only looked superficially close because they play in a bandbox and the Pirates play in PNC, which is decently pitcher-friendly iirc.
2024 (to date) Reds: 6th (16.7 fWAR
2024 (to date) Pirates: 14th (13.9 fWAR)
2023 Reds: 16th (14.8 fWAR)
2023 Pirates: 23rd (12.0 fWAR)
2022 Reds: 21st (10.6 fWAR)
2022 Pirates: 25th (9.2 fWAR)
2021 Reds 9th (17.2 fWAR)
2021 Pirates 28th (5.1 fWAR)
2020 Reds: 2nd (10.1 fWAR)
2020 Pirates: 26th (2.9 fWAR)
2019 Reds: 7th (19.8 fWAR)
2019 Pirates: 22nd (8.7 fWAR)
So on that end, they’ve only really been close over the past three years, and not that close outside of ’22.
The Reds have also been better at creating an actual pipeline of talent, they’ve just been wasting them on playing out of position or bad trades.
I’m sorry, the Reds front office complaining about the defense after they’ve stacked the entire organization with third basemen who can’t play defense is pretty rich. Noelvi Marte has had huge red flags on defense since before he was pat of the Reds, Jonathan India has made huge strides to become a scratch defender at second base, and Spencer Steer has never had any position. They had to play Will Benson in center field for a bunch of games.
Bell is absolutely a scapegoat for a team is unable to draft and develop as well as the best lower-revenue clubs (Rays, Brewers, Guardians, D-Backs, Orioles) and unable / unwilling to spend enough to make up the difference. They need to extend anyone they think is going to be good in four years through 2029 now and hope that that McLain recovers, Lodolo and Greene stay healthy, and that some set of Burns / Lowder / Arroyo / Stewart are good, because that’s the only way they’re going to get a winning core for a few years here.
The Reds both lack a unified strategy for making themselves a good baseball team & too many of the moves that they have made have been incoherent on their own. Just a real commitment to mediocrity from ownership and the front office. I agree, firing Bell may or may not have been needed, but it’s nowhere near enough to turn around the Reds in a meaningful way.
The problem is that they have been successful enough with developing players that they always think they are turning the corner. But whatever they are doing, it is not enough on its own.
It’s one thing to overstock your team with shortstops, because they are generally athletic enough to pick up other positions, at least passably well. Third basemen tend to have a specific skillset (fast twitch/reaction over speed, big enough arm to make the throws) that doesn’t play that well outside of 3B. It’s why I’ve never been able to intuit where I think 3B should be on the defensive spectrum.
Natural 3Bs can play well in the corners (outfield jump is often the same skillset as the twitch reaction of 3B). But 2B, SS, and CF will always be out of their zone, unless they get a lot of reps to try and make it work, and even then they’ll have issues and most can’t pull it off. The bigger issue with the Reds assortment of 3Bs is that many are fringy even at their natural position, so they’ll of course struggle trying to fit into other roles.
Having too many third basemen has not problem this year because India played an average second base, Steer can’t play third anyway, Marte has been terrible, and Candelario has regressed a bit. But it is hard to see where they go from here.
Have watched a fair share of Reds games over the last half-decade and was never impressed by Bell. His bullpens always underperformed IMO, despite the Reds system yielding no shortage of flamethrowers. Maybe blowing games late is more likely in a park as homer-happy as GAB, but the Braves, Phillies, Dodgers, Astros and Yankees seem to manage all right. I’m surprised Krall didn’t cite this as the death knell over marginal baserunning, but he must intend to keep Derek Johnson as pitching coach.
GAB is the most homer-friendly ballpark in MLB by a huge margin, and it’s nearly as hitter-friendly in general as any other top contender. Only Fenway is close among non-Coors ballparks, and Kauffman’s is overinflated. The Dodgers are close in homers but nothing else, they run an exactly neutral park factor. Yankee Stadium is slightly pitcher-friendly outside of homers!
The real problem with the Reds bullpens is both lacking bullpen management, and lacking command. BP pitchers need it too, and their mistakes are punished much more harshly because they get fewer opportunities to make up for them.
Fenway swallows home runs but gives it back with the doubles and the triples. I don’t think any park plays as weird as that one.
Glad someone else pointed out how poor Bell is at managing a bullpen.
If you could only take a team away from one owner would it be Castellini or Montfort and why?
Fisher
There are no other candidates
Reinsdorf has tried his gods-honest best to be in this conversation, and even there he’s somehow a failure.
It’s hard to top “I’m going to singlehandedly destroy the team, burn every bridge it has ever built, and them move because I couldn’t get others to cover for my utter financial ineptitude”. Reinsdorf is, in his own special way, at least trying to actually win games. He’s the guy at the gym who way overdoes it every day and ends up making no progress, ultimately harming himself. Fisher tries to burn down the gym because he didn’t get a free membership.
The only answer.
Bell should have been fired after the 2020 season.
One of the great advantages of the COVID year was we got to see exactly how well managers handle their pitchers but especially as it pertained to bullpen management. And Bell was laughable bad then and nothing has changed since then. It was an absolute joke that he got a four year extension.