Reds Beat: Time To Face The Ugly Facts, This Franchise Desperately Needs An Overhaul From Top to Bottom

CINCINNATI — The Fourth of July is typically a time to take stock of where your club stands as it enters the summer heat and the dog days of August. The Reds have experienced another stock market crash that has bankrupted all faith in the team from an already dispirited fan base.

Since opening the season 20-11, they have plummeted to 20-36 mark over the next 56 games. Analytically, they stand at the bottom of nearly every statistical category. Teams have found that if you don’t let Elly De La Cruz and Sal Stewart beat you, you have no reason to fear the rest of the lineup.

Teams have also discovered that after Chase Burns and Andrew Abbott, the Reds possess no starting pitchers that threaten the sixth and seventh innings. Maybe that’ll change with Hunter Greene’s return but more likely than not, they’ll be cautious with Greene’s surgically cleaned up right elbow. The bullpen has been decimated by the lack of resilience from the starting rotation, the apparent lack of desire or urgency to push any of the the starters to go deep into the game.

The pen has, of course, been decimated by injuries, too. Emilio Pagan just returned from missing six weeks with a hamstring injury. Graham Ashcraft is gone until late August or September (if he returns at all) from a right forearm strain. Tony Santillan is out with an oblique strain. Caleb Ferguson missed the first two months. Pierce Johnson has been banged up. It’s been a train wreck. And the results have proven that Reds are not an organization that can bring up arm after arm from the minor leagues and expect them to contribute in high leverage situations.

No one knows what goes on in the clubhouse when media is not in there. There’s been no reports of tension or players calling each other out. While that’s great for keeping the peace and continuity over the course of 162 games, it’s not great when you don’t have veteran leaders to call everyone out on the carpet for what has been a disheartening and apathetic brand of baseball that has generated even more apathy from a fan base that has been treated to exactly four home playoff games (0 wins) in the last 31 years.

When was the last time a player called out the listless at-bats, the careless baserunning, the inability to nail down games late or get into the sixth or seventh innings? When was the last time you heard anger and frustration from the players themselves, giving a nod to the paying customers who continue to support a team that meanders aimlessly light years behind the likes of the Brewers, Braves, Dodgers and Phillies? The loyal Reds fan – which is dwindling in number – would like to see some indication that the losing hurts the players.

The Reds would be well-advised to take a page out of the Bengals playbook and completely reshuffle the roster and bring in players with championship rings and attitude and players who are hungry to win that first one. The Reds have relied far too much on their elite prospects to bring up the level of talent. But far too often, they seem to be alone on an island with precious little support. There’s no denying the talent of Elly, Sal Stewart, Chase Burns and presumably Edwin Arroyo. Noelvi Marte still looks like he could be a productive starting outfielder, though he’s been demoted already twice in his career because he needed more minor league seasoning.

In the Bengals’ case, they decided not to change the front office but rather invest in giving the front office better pieces to work with. That strategy could work for the Reds, but only if the Castellini’s are willing to pour tens of millions into player procurement and development. This is the piece that Terry Francona was banking on when he took the job in Oct. 2024.

If the Castellins are not willing to invest the cash or sell the team, then their only other viable option is completely overhaul the people making the decisions, from top to bottom, and attempt to operate like the Milwaukees and Tampa Bays of MLB.

At this point, Reds are in obvious sell mode. They’ve demonstrated for half the season that they’re not a serious contender and if you’re not a serious contender and you’re a small budget team, being in purgatory is hell. The season to this point has been an ultimate organizational abomination. The tough decision is how serious are they about rebuilding the franchise from top to bottom, with collective bargaining Armageddon on the horizon? The Reds face critical questions about their future and who should be in charge of running baseball operations and on field staff with no idea of what the parameters will be going forward. They are easily the team in the worst position, heading into labor uncertainty. An abject disaster. It’s no wonder a majority of fan base has lost all hope and passion for a team they thought was in position to build on a modest playoff appearance in 2025.

Then there’s future Hall of Fame manager Terry Francona. He might feel like he’s been sold a bill of goods. The young talent he was promised when he took the job on Oct. 4, 2024 has been there in most cases. But still, even with elite talent, there’s a lack of teaching the game the right way, which has surfaced in mental mistakes that the Reds continue to make in critical late-game situations. The front office hasn’t landed enough accomplished veterans and put them around the younger stars.

The lack of any production at the top of the order, and injuries to Blake Dunn and Dane Myers finally forced his hand to just put his best two hitters at the top of the lineup, batting Elly leadoff and Sal Stewart second, hoping that some combination of JJ Bleday, Spencer Steer, Eugenio Suarez and Tyler Stephenson can offer some life. As we’ve seen of late, that’s not exactly working out so swell.

Francona does own responsibility for the horrid and totally unacceptable 2-16 record against NL Central opposition. Against the Brewers, the Reds looked like a minor league team with some nice prospects that has no business being on the field with a World Series contender.

With labor uncertainty and a lack of resources from the front office and ownership to sign anything more than Suarez to a one-year, $15 million bandaid deal, Francona might just take a look and realize that it’s just not going to happen in Cincinnati. If things don’t miraculously turn around, we’re looking at the end of the Francona era after just two seasons.

What is apparent after watching the Reds over the past two months is that they need an organizational overhaul.

The Reds entered the 2026 Major League Baseball season fueled by immense expectations. Instead, the campaign has rapidly deteriorated into a nightmare. Mired near the bottom of the division with an abysmal 2–16 record against divisional opponents, the fan base is growing restless. While many frustrated fans are echoing the long-running sentiment to “sell the team”, forcing an ownership change with the Castellini family is a slow, legally complex process, and if Phil (and father Bob) Castellini decide they’re going nowhere, then the next best hope is a change in how the team is operated.

The franchise can be fixed without a change in majority ownership but it will require an investment of tens of millions in player acquisition, player development, potentially new baseball operation leadership, scouting overhaul and elite personnel leadership the likes of which are already apparent in places like Milwaukee, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Tampa Bay.