There are two things that are pretty paramount for making a sports team something you’ll go out of your way to watch, and the first is obvious:
You’ve got to win games.
Winning is enjoyable. It’s satisfying. It’s engaging to see the team whose logo you wear on your hat score more points before the final whistle. If you’re going to spend all that time, money, effort, and adrenaline to root for something, well, it’s nice to be rewarded with a good outcome.
The second? That’s being fun, funny, and/or entertaining.
The early-aughts Cincinnati Reds were decidedly not good. No bueno. From 2001 through 2009 they never once finished higher than 3rd in the NL Central, finished dead last on five occasions, and only once won so many as 80 games in a season (just 80, still a losing record). But man, did they ever sock the hell out of some homers. Adam Dunn hit balls 535 feet, Junior Griffey pulled them into the RF seats of the stadium he built (when healthy), and even Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez managed to get in on that action, too. The Reds were bad – really bad – but they were at least an enjoyable bunch of idiots getting sent to the showers after 12-10 losses.
The David Bell Era of Reds baseball featured almost exclusively none of either. Their surprise 2023 was so out of left field that not even the front office believed in it at the deadline, and that season burnt out like a snap-pop. The rest of his years were lifeless, dingerless campaigns where we all were just forced to play the waiting game, rebuilding seasons featuring a manager with daily interviews that were less engaged as a nun. That entire era featured zero winning and was as entertaining as finding sand in your swim trunks two hours after you’d left the beach.
I still don’t know how good the 2025 Cincinnati Reds were. They snuck into the playoffs with 83 wins, and there’s a part of me that wonders if this is just how good this group can ever be if they stay as healthy as they did this year. That’s me actively wondering that in a year where Hunter Greene, Rhett Lowder, Austin Hays, Noelvi Marte, and Tyler Stephenson all got hurt we still saw about as much of them collectively as we ever will. They were better than they’d been in a while, though, and the stagnant malaise of the Bell Era officially had been turned over to the gregarious Terry Francona.
Francona, as the title way above that meandering series of side notes suggested, was named a finalist for the NL Manager of the Year Award late Monday night. He was joined in the finalists group by Pat Murphy of the Milwaukee Brewers and Rob Thomson of the Philadelphia Phillies, and while I don’t think Tito has a shot in heck at actually winning this award (this time around), I do think it’s worth pointing out that the Reds significantly improved in both paramount aspects of why you go out of your way to watch a team play sports.
In the second aspect – being fun, funny, and/or entertaining – it was Tito himself providing the gas. While many of his managerial tendencies scream old school and dated, it’s impossible not to want to hear him talk about the game of baseball. He’s a riot, we get to hear him and read about his thoughts, and that’s precisely what the players in the dugout get way more often than we ever do. Francona lights up a clubhouse in ways few others ever have, and that’s vital in a sport where you play every single day for six-plus months while travelling constantly.
For that latter part I applaud him more than I do for the 83 wins, though as I opined already, I’m not truly sure any manager out there could coax a whole lot more out of this roster than that. The rest of the winning needs to come from the owners and front office (groan), and the fact that Francona is a finalist at all reflects that I’m far from the only person who thinks that. The BBWAA voters put him in that trio of finalists not for having won 83 games, but for having won 83 games with this roster from this franchise.
In other Reds news, bench coach Brad Mills retired. He’s 68 and seen a ton, and despite being Tito’s right-hand man for decades he found it time to hang up his spikes for good.
MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon had notes on the ripple effect this has on the rest of the coaching staff, though the announcement of Mills’ retirement paired with the entire rest of the coaching staff being revealed at the very same time means all of this has been in the works for quite awhile. A bombshell this was not, in other words. Willie Harris will take over as the 3B coach with a promotion from having managed in the minors for the Reds in 2025, while Mike Napoli will be the assistant bench coach to Freddie Benavides – who was co-bench coach with Mills just last year. Bill Haselman will take over as actaching coach for JR House, who left for the Diamondbacks, while House’s former role at 3B will now go to Harris. Napoli, who you remember as a prominent catcher of the aughts and teens, is not the catching coach. Got it?
The Reds traded Ryan Vilade to the Tampa Bay Rays for some sweet, sweet cash just yesterday. Most importantly, though, they traded a guy who was on the 40-man roster for something that does not require a 40-man roster spot, so they’ve got an additional one open as they look to welcome back Rhett Lowder, Brandon Williamson, and Julian Aguiar from the 60-day IL this week.
You remember Ryan Vilade the Cincinnati Red, right? Right?
Finally – in NL Central news relevant to the Reds interests – Shota Imanaga became a surprise free agent this morning, ending his partnership with the Chicago Cubs after just two seasons.
Turns out that his contract had a clause where the Cubs had to decide whether to pick up a 3-year club option after this year that would have guaranteed Imanaga a 3-year, $57.75 total contract through 2028, and declined to do so. That, in turn, triggered a clause where Imanaga could make a call on a $15 million player option for 2026, and he declined to do so, too.
Imanaga was pretty brilliant in 2024, pitching to a 2.91 ERA across 173.1 IP for the Cubs, earning an All Star appearance as a 30 year old rookie and being valued at 3.0 bWAR/3.1 fWAR. Those numbers became a 3.73 ERA in just 144.2 IP in 2025, however, and his FIP jumped from 3.72 up to 4.86. In other words, he still managed to out-pitch his peripherals but not nearly to the same extent, and apparently that was enough to scare off the Cubs.
Either that or a looming 2027 strike/lockout did, and they’re doing as much as they can to keep as much guaranteed money off the books before the entire economic structure of baseball implodes.
Anyway, it’s Reds-relevant not only because their division rival lost a rock-solid starting pitcher, but also because that adds another pitcher to the ‘available’ market this winter when the Reds best asset right now is their own pitching depth. In other words, the idea of using Nick Lodolo or Andrew Abbott as a trade chip to get help elsewhere just got muddied by there now being another left-handed starter out there that teams can jump at signing, and that’s not exactly a boon to Cincinnati’s leverage.
