Baseball kicked off a few weeks ago and so spring training articles were dropped in baseball markets all across the country. Hope springs eternal and these balmy write-ups are basically a timeless baseball tradition on par with the 7th inning stretch. Would there be another round of “The Best Shape of His Life” or would it be a “Everyone is Underestimating Us!” article? This year the well-oiled pipeline from Reds PR to the Reds beat writers settled on the new young players desire in bringing a winning culture to the Reds.
I’m happy to see the next generation of Reds players wanting to own the culture of the team as ideally the Reds move towards actual winning baseball in the coming years. It truly is important for the players to be buying into the concept that they are building towards a playoff caliber team. You normally would say it’s a passing of the torch to a new generation of players but unfortunately that torch hasn’t been lit in Cincinnati for a long time. Just seeing that torch on fire and able to sustain any brisk winds that head in its direction would be a welcomed change for most. You know… lighting the proverbial way to the bright future we keep hearing about.
When I read the culture articles, my reaction was the following: “That’s nice… wait… <eyeroll induced>”. It’s one of those things where your initial reaction is positive but when you take a moment you get annoyed because the coverage is surface level and fails to ask the next logical question. My mind was immediately led to a question on how culture/leadership develops and where the actual power of culture change resides within the Reds. I’ll be honest this line of thought spiraled into several tangents but for the sake of having to read my ramblings I’ll try to keep it as focused as possible.
I’m absolutely encouraged the young players want to take an active role and build something in Cincinnati. I do contend that culture isn’t something that you simply state into existence but is cultivated through a multi-year process. Additionally, leadership roles are not something that is declared but something that is earned. But these points are nitpicking of what I see as the larger issue around building a winning baseball culture. When discussing sports teams, so much about a “winning culture” really is diverted into a discussion on the clubhouse environment. While a positive or negative clubhouse environment can impact a season, I would contend that within the realm of the 162-game season of baseball its impact isn’t considerably larger than the other random events that occur. These would be the lucky/unlucky moments in games, the injuries or lack thereof, personnel changes, etc.. Generally speaking, with MLB players who are the best in the world, if you have 90 win talent you are going to get around 90 wins and if you have 100 loss talent you will have around 100 losses… the culture of the clubhouse be damned. Sure, it can play a role, but I feel those occur on the edge cases of a terrible locker room with a bad team or a good locker room on a great team. I’m also not a pro sportsball player and could be completely full of it.
So why does the culture of a baseball team seemingly get moved to being a discussion about the temperament of the clubhouse? To me the answer is simple. It’s to move accountability from ownership to the players. Culture is a top-down organizational choice. Full stop. And if the contention is to have a “winning” culture then ownership has nearly all the power in deciding the course of that culture. If the employees aren’t given the tools to their jobs and ownership doesn’t bring in top talent (or retain them) then how can you ever expect to consistently end up on top? Now, I’m not looking to move this into another ownership bash fest (despite them earning that criticism) but if we are going to discuss how the players are trying to develop a winning culture then why aren’t we diving deep into ownership's larger role in that culture? That is the immediate question that should be asked when discussing this topic and should at least have some column inches alongside the player’s comments.
The ownership group has all the power to bring a winning culture to Cincinnati Reds baseball. So, what are the owners doing to cultivate this culture? It’s an honest question that I keep hoping we get an answer to. We seem to get lamented with generic buzz word responses on the goals of the Reds. The “we need to build a core group of players” or the “we have to develop from within to contend” or even the infamous “eliminate peaks and valleys” talking points. You could have a whole discussion reviewing Nick Kral’s tenure but again my focus is on ownership as Krall is working within the walled garden ownership created for him.
But for a second I want to put my “employee” hat on and ask some questions…
What are the goals for the Reds in 2023? 2024? 2025?
What is ownership's target for the Reds having a winning record?
Target for making the playoffs?
Being a legitimate World Series contender?
What are the Reds doing differently to avoid failing short again?
When will payroll be expanding?
None of these questions are remotely hostile but I can’t remember any statements from ownership about specific goals beyond the typical generic platitudes. After a generation of tasting only the breadcrumbs of success I think it’s fair for the fans to ask for some distinct publicly stated goals. Perhaps there has been and I just can’t get past the pandering in so many of the ownership’s statements. Maybe I’m blinded and morose from the lack of performance by the Reds in my adult years. But in my opinion, stating actual goals has never occurred. Maybe this all happens behind closed doors and the fans are never permitted to see these goals. However, I contend that there is a responsibility to the fans to give us some clue on specific expectations. Is there a fear in putting specific goals out there? Even worse, are specifics not stated because ownership fears just the perception of failure? Failure is perhaps the greatest teacher and accountability is a powerful tool for the growth of a winning culture. Too often it has felt as though the safe and familiar is ownerships preferred route with many of their decisions. In the hypercompetitive market of professional sports, safe is death.
But has there ever been a winning culture under the current ownership group? This is where I start to think and cry internally as I fall into an abyss of despair. The only truly sustained success was from 2010-2013 with a decent number of the core players carrying over from previous ownership. Several of the ownership's early moves worked out and things were looking up. But then like a young player who breezes through the minor leagues and runs into their first true failures in the show, ownership seemingly hit a wall and was stopped in their tracks. Since then, we have had a failed reboot, a failed rebuild, and then the self-sabotage by ownership leading to The Haul. We have comments from ex-Reds after they have left the team from multiple “eras” about ownership not really having an interest in winning. And now it seems that the COO wants to go out of his way to kill all expectations both now and in the future with comments of how the Reds are out of it before the season starts, how they can’t retain talent, and how he wishes guaranteed contracts didn’t exist. In my opinion that’s where an established winning culture would win out by weathering the storm of a low point and turning the ship around in the span of a few seasons. Instead, we hear excuses of how things just aren’t fair… It's just time and time again it seems as though ownership is only focused on the short term and can’t remain focused on the long term. If you can’t keep your sights focused down the road and see through the short-term ups and down, then you’re never going to be a culture centered around anything more than individualistic short-term progression. A winning culture can face adversity or failure and come out the other end just as strong, if not stronger. While certainly there have been a few winning moments under the current ownership, there hasn’t been a winning culture truly established.
You have the players talking about building towards a winning culture while ownership publicly has stated about the polar opposite of that goal. Perhaps behind closed doors things are different but from what we can see it just looks to be a dysfunctional organization. As Reds fans we have to eternally live with “The Cardinal Way” obnoxiously being mentioned at any given moment. There has been plenty of player rollover in that organization yet that TCW still seems to be very much alive. Why is that? Could it be because ownership is committed to that culture and remains focused on maintaining their long-term organizational goals? Could it be accountability? Could it be avoiding the knee jerk reactions? Is it the understanding that cultivating and maintaining a culture leads to both internal and external organizational reputation which affects acquiring/retaining not only players but front office and other non-player personnel? Or is it truly just all those damn Cardinal fans selling their soul to the devil? If so, can a few Reds fans slide into the devil’s DMs…
I do hope some lessons have been learned by the Reds owners from their previous mistakes and they will finally commit to a plan. I find myself suspending belief in anything until the owners show they can stick to a plan for more than 2 or 3 seasons. It’s been a decade since the Reds have won a playoff game. It’s been TWENTY-F’N-SEVEN seasons since the Reds last advanced in the playoffs. I feel fans have a right to withhold blind faith that succuss is just around the corner… yet again. Hopefully, everyone in the organization from the principal owner to the last player on the 40-man roster is open to changing their behavior so the culture of the organization can move away from all the failures and into a sustained period of succuss. But make no mistake, ownership are the ones who decide the culture of the Reds both now and in the future. I just hope they are as eager to win as these young players. Boy, we certainly are a long way from “we're just not going to lose anymore”.
Too Long. Don’t Care.