Castillo to Seattle

[CJD]

(08-01-2022, 02:00 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: Who knows what Greene, Lodolo, and Ashcraft will be in two years ? But it seems they may be building a decent foundation for starting pitching and that's what separates the great teams from the good ones.

Maybe, just maybe on rebuild #9 or whatever current ownership is on they've finally figured it out ?

We made a lot of mistakes in terms of when to trigger the rebuild in the past. Like holding onto Todd Frazier because we were hosting the all star game. He won the home run derby in his home stadium as part of the Reds and that was fantastic, but then he slumped HARD in the 2nd half of that season (.890, 1.081, .908 OPS in April, May, June, .634, .656, .716 OPS in July, August, September) and we ended up getting pennies on the dollar for him in December of that year (Jose Peraza, Brandon Dixon, Scott Schebler).

In a similar move, they chose not to trade Johnny Cueto in 2014, a season in which they finished 10 games under .500, when he still had team control because he was in the running for NL Cy Young (He ultimately came in second to Kershaw). The following season they traded him as a rental and, honestly, didn't get that much in return. It looked like an okay return at the time but Finnegan was the only player who was considered a top 100 prospect and Reed was one of these "once he puts it all together, he'll be great" prospects who never put it all together. Lamb was an injured prospect who never recovered from injuries, so we ended up getting essentially nothing for Cueto either.

Aroldis Chapman may be the most abhorrent example, as we panic traded him for what can only be considered "nothing" after he got in some legal trouble for firing his gun in his garage and domestic violence. They traded him before his suspension was announced because they were terrified that he'd be suspended for the whole year and lose all of his value. Turns out, he was only suspended for 30 games. We got Eric Jagielo, Tony Renda, Caleb Cotham and Rookie Davis. I'm not sure a single one of them spent much time in the majors. My only recollection was of Davis being terrible for a few appearances here and there. What stung even more was that the Yankees traded Chapman at the deadline for, if I recall correctly, a top 10 prospect in all of baseball (ranked #3 in 2017), Gleyber Torres, who is currently on the Yankees' roster as their starting SS with 3.1 WAR so far this season. 

And then the 2018 trade for Puig, Kemp, Wood and Farmer for Homer Bailey, Josiah Gray and Jeter Downs did delay our rebuild because we gave up two highly rated prospects for a few rentals and a salary dump. This one didn't even up hurting as badly as it initially looked like it would because Gray and Downs are not yet elite players, but Gray is consistently starting in Washington now. Downs was traded to Boston as the main piece in the Mookie Betts trade and was called up this season, but his prospect status remains iffy, as he had an absolutely horrific 2021 and beginning of 2022 (.191/.272/.333 with 14 home runs and 39 runs batted in last season and then posting a slash line of .180/.297/.397 through 53 games this season as of June 20th). He dropped from #44 in the top 100 to out of the top 100 entirely because of those stats, but he still has some prospect shine to him, we'll see if he ever makes something out of it.


The Castillo trade, however, feels like the first time in any of the rebuilds of my lifetime that they actually got a REALLY good return for a veteran. That alone makes me much more optimistic about this rebuild than the last few. The 2020-2021 "rebuild" was not a true rebuild because it was built around free agency and relatively short rentals rather than prospects (Castellanos on a surprisingly cheap short term deal, Trevor Bauer possibly cheating to get the Cy Young, Sonny Gray playing well above his trade value etc). It kind of felt like they were trying to sneak a world series out before it all, predictably, came crashing down (which it did, very quickly).


I am hopeful that this time we do it the right way, with several elite talents hitting the major leagues at the same time and giving us a full 5 to 7 year window of cheap, team controlled talent in players like EDLC, Marte, India, Stephenson, McClain and Senzel all playing in the lineup with Lodolo, Greene, Ashcraft, Williamson and someone like Petty or Stoudt filling out the starting rotation. 

We should be done with Votto and Moose after 2023 (assuming we buy both of them out in 2024), so we should have some money to fill in those last few pieces like the bullpen and potentially the outfield (if Marte moves to 3B, McClain stays at SS and EDLC moves to CF, that would likely move Senzel to LF and we'd need a RF, DH and 1B) in 2024 and 2025. And that is a team that is actually sustainably built and should largely stay together until at least 2027 or so. That is a large enough window for us to get 3 to 4 years of genuinely enjoyable baseball out of the team, even if they remain cheap like they have been this season.

Collier and Arroyo would also sneak into that team in some form at the latter half of it (late 2025 to 2027).



Of course, this is all assuming the players like Marte and EDLC turn into the all star players they have the potential to be. This rebuild could fail just like any other if the players don't work out. But, at the very least, it seems the Reds are actually doing it correctly this time, rather than the Band-aid rebuild of 2020-21 or the failed rebuilds of 2015 through 2018 (via terrible value trades).