A huge first step
Hunter Greene signs a long-term contract. Is this the first domino to fall?
Well, what do you know? The Cincinnati Reds and pitcher Hunter Greene have agreed to a six-year, $53 million contract extension that includes a $21 million club option for a seventh year (and could reach up to $96.2 million with incentives). What a time to be alive.
In the Opening Day issue of the Magazine three weeks ago, I presented a 5-point plan for how the Reds could mimic the Bengals to build a winner and rebuild the relationship with fans. Number two on that list: Build Around Your Young Stars. Here’s what I wrote:
On the final day of the 2019 regular season, the Bengals clinched the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft, which was used to select Burrow. The following year, they nabbed wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase in round one. And just like that, the Bengals had two young pieces to build a franchise around, not to mention receiver Tee Higgins, kicker Evan McPherson, tackle Jonah Williams, and linebackers Germaine Pratt and Logan Wilson, all drafted in recent years.
Burrow, Chase, and company became big-time contributors pretty much from the day they arrived, of course, while even the best baseball prospects take years to develop into major leaguers. But building around young studs can absolutely work for the Reds. “What the Reds are trying to do will require a bunch of things to go right,” says Egger, “but they do have the building block of starting pitchers Hunter Greene, Graham Ashcraft, and Nick Lodolo to build around, which isn’t insignificant. I’ve got to think that lots of MLB franchises starting a rebuild would like to have those three pitchers as their foundation.”
Atlanta provides an instructive example. In recent years, Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos has been steadfast in a commitment to signing his young stars—including Ronald Acuña Jr., Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, and Spencer Strider—to contracts that bought out their arbitration-eligible years or seasons in which they would have been free agents.
The Reds should look to lock up young players such as catcher Tyler Stephenson, second baseman Jonathan India, and the trio of Greene, Ashcraft, and Lodolo to deals that give the players some financial certainty while providing the team with a nucleus to build around. Then, as the celebrated prospects from the restocked farm system begin to arrive on the big league level, Krall must be prepared to identify those who might fit into that nucleus and lock them up as well.
I’m certainly not claiming that I had some brilliant insight here, and I’m not the first to say that the Reds need to follow the Braves example (or the mid- to late-90s Indians) by locking up young stars. But if you concede that the Reds absolutely had to dump all payroll and fill up their coffers with prospects (a point which I do not concede)…well, the only way that would make sense is if the Reds looked to lock up a young nucleus to build around. After all, why go to all the trouble of acquiring a young nucleus if you aren’t going to build around them?
And that’s where most Reds fans, including yours truly, became skeptical. Because if executing a fire sale and trading away all available assets was part of a grand plan, well, the Reds were going to have to stick to that plan. The Castellini-era Reds have never stuck to a plan for more than a year or two.
And besides, the Reds never actually got around to telling fans what the plan actually was, other than some “peaks and valleys” silliness from general manager Nick Krall. The Reds are a billion dollar business and they stumble around like a punch-drunk boxer when trying to communicate with their customers.
And guess what? I’m still skeptical. Anyone who isn’t skeptical about Reds management after the last decade and a half should have his head examined. They’ve given us no reason whatsoever to trust that they know what they’re doing and that they’ll finish the job of building a competitive team.
But…
But…
But…signing Hunter Greene was a great first step towards convincing a beleaguered fan base that things are going to be different this time.* And if you had to pick one of the young stars to be the first to ink a long-term deal, Greene was the perfect choice.
*Insert gif of Lucy holding a football for Charlie Brown here.
It’s not just that he’s good at throwing baseballs, and he is most certainly very good at throwing baseballs. (And he’s only going to get better, I promise.) But by being the first of the young players to commit to the Reds for the foreseeable future, Greene is now the Face of the Franchise (tm) by default.* And Hunter Greene is literally perfect for the role.
*Okay, Joey Votto will be the face of the franchise until he retires. But despite Jonathan India’s heroic efforts to grab the mantle, Greene is the face of the next generation of the franchise.
Check out what he said at the press conference announcing the contract extension:
“I really just want to be at the forefront of it all,” Greene. said. “To be a good piece along with a lot of other pieces that are part of the team and part of the organization. I’m just one of many.”
“It’s easy to look at the stadium and say ‘there are no fans, I’ll wait and go (elsewhere),’” Greene told The Athletic. “But if I can look back and know that I was part of bringing fans back into the stadium, filling the seats, bringing that back to the city, that’s awesome. For me, that’s the main reason why.”
Let’s be honest: helping to fill the seats is absolutely not the main reason why Greene signed the deal. That pile of money the Reds have committed to him, along with the certainty of having a guaranteed contract, regardless of his health, for the rest of his twenties…I’m guessing those were pretty big factors in his decision to sign.
But the fact that Greene said those things shows that he gets what his role is now. Go watch his press conference. That is a kid who is mature beyond his 23 years. And he’s a kid who you want as a representative of your team and your city.
So, great work, Reds! Now what’s next? The logical next step, of course, is to lock up a couple more kids. Krall claims that they’ve had discussions with other players. Nick Lodolo confirmed he has had contract extension talks, India says he hasn’t had any conversations, and Graham Ashcraft demurred.
Ideally, the Reds would move quickly to lock up Lodolo and catcher Tyler Stephenson sooner rather than later. I might wait a bit on Ashcraft, but wouldn’t argue if the Reds wanted to offer him an extension, as well. India…well, that’s a topic for a different day. I love that guy and I want him to be a Red for a long time. I just have some concerns.
But if the Reds wanted to make a huge splash, I know how they can do it. They should sign super-prospect Elly De La Cruz to a long-term contract before the year is out. I’ll be writing about that very soon.
These deals make sense for the Reds, as they get some cost certainty and they get a kid like Greene for far below his market value. They make sense for the players because it’s a life-changing amount of money, guaranteed…with the ability to make even more later. Financial security is a big deal.
The Greene deal is a great first step for the Reds, but it’s only the first step. After all, Greene — the youngest player on the team — is now the only Red with a guaranteed contract for next season. The Reds have much work to do if they really want to turn a team that’s on pace to lose 100 games for the second consecutive season into a contender. But you can’t take the second, third, or fourth steps in the process without taking that first one, right?
As for me, I’m just very happy I get to root for Hunter Greene for a few more years. The kid is special.
How many starting pitchers do the Reds really need?
This week at Cincinnati Magazine, I addressed the elephant in the room. Three out of every five days, the Reds are a pretty fun team! But when Greene/Lodolo/Ashcraft aren’t starting, it’s a disaster.
So I wrote about the decision not to employ any actual pitchers for the 4/5 slots in the rotation, and looked at short-term (not so great) and long-term (decent?) options. I also crunched the numbers and dreamed about starters the Reds could have acquired if, you know, they had actually wanted a full rotation of legitimate big league pitchers.
On Saturday, Reds starter Graham Ashcraft twirled six shutout innings, improving his record to 2-0 as Cincinnati clubbed Philadelphia 13-0. It was the third consecutive strong start to begin his sophomore campaign, and the future for the kid has never appeared brighter. The least-heralded of Cincinnati’s “Big Three” starters, Ashcraft has been brilliant, seemingly in a competition to outshine Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo for supremacy in the starting rotation.
Unfortunately for Reds fans, starting rotations in the year 2023 require at least five pitchers, not three. What happened before and after Ashcraft’s outing is illustrative of a problem that will face the Reds for the rest of the season.
What’s Chad Watching?
I was traveling this week, so didn’t get a chance to watch much of anything. Two of these were re-watches, but I did mark one film off my watchlist: “Safety Last,” a Harold Lloyd silent picture.* Leonard Maltin’s synopsis: “Crackerjack silent comedy about go-getter Harold determined to make good in the big city includes his justly famous building-climbing sequence—still hair-raising after all these years.”
*Yes, if you were sitting next to me on the plane, I was the guy watching a silent movie on my iPad. I’m that guy.
Kind of an iconic movie from the early days, and it was pretty good!
I finished reading Charles Portis’ novel True Grit last week, so I decided to revisit the original John Wayne adaptation. I actually prefer the Coen Brother’s version starring Jeff Bridges, for what it’s worth.
As for “Fever Pitch”…well, that movie just isn’t very good at all. Cringeworthy acting and dialogue throughout. And I love it anyway.