Loading ...Are we seeing a pattern here?
Another long-time member of the Cincinnati Reds front office is gone.
Johnny Almaraz, director of player development/international operations, turned in his resignation and the Reds are expected to announce it today.
At the end of last season, highly regarded senior special assistant Larry Barton Jr. quit after 39 years in the Reds’ organization.
Both Barton and Almaraz were unhappy that their input with new General Manager Wayne Krivsky was minimal and they were out of the loop.
When Larry Barton resigned last week, I was quick to dismiss his grumbling as sour grapes. My first reaction here is a similar one. This, however, makes me wonder if the Reds are operating a high school study hall rather than a Major League Baseball organization:
“I’m not included in any of the discussions and, in fact, when I walked into the suite during the winter meetings Wayne and his people would lower their voices to a whisper or take their discussions into the bedroom,” Almaraz said.
Bizarre.
Individually, I can see your point, but when two long term employees are headed out the door and the current group is questionable to begin with (i.e. decisions that have been made since they took over), I think you have to be seriously concerned about the direction this franchise is headed.
i’m surprised you thought the first one was sour grapes chad. The guy seemed to be saying that he tried to stop THE TRADE and other terrible kriv moves, was told to chove it, and finally got off this sinking ship. Seemed like pretty reasonable grapes to me.
Almarez isn’t very specific, but it sounds like generally the same deal here. Krivsky is a lunatic, people tell him he should stop being so dumb and crazy, he refuses, and they leave so as not to be associated with his lunacy any longer than they already have been so they have a shot at getting another job some day. It’s what i’d do.
If this Reds disorganization continues, Castellini could get fed up and bring in his friend Beattie as the GM.
WHAT IS GOING ON IN THIS ORGANIZATION?!!!
High school study hall is exactly right. This isn’t the behavior of a mature, confident manager. If Barton and Almaraz were useless, fire them. Don’t freeze them out like one of the Mean Girls.
Meanwhile, he’s relying on “Jerry Narron’s brother” and the guy who recommended Robert Manuel as adequate swag for Dave Williams.
While that’s pretty unprofessional, I’m all for some housecleaning. The Reds minor league system has stunk for years. They haven’t won a World Series since 1990, or a pennant since 1995. Ron Oester said a few years ago that they need to go through this organization with a big broom. Looks like Krivsky brought a snowplow instead.
strange
I’ve had about enough of Krivsky as I can take.
I agree with John K. While Krivsky isn’t doing much to inspire hope right now, it’s not like keeping long-term employees for a franchise that has been pretty bad for the last fifteen-plus years is harmful. Obviously, if those guys were brilliant, they didn’t have much input with Bowden or O’Brien. Plus, if they were brilliant, they’d be in charge of something.
Any Barry Larkin sightings yet?
What happened to the spirit of REDS past
It would be nice to hear a positive move by the organization instead of mostly negative stories.
Want a positive spin? Here’s John Fay’s pro-Krivsky story on Almaraz leaving.
Castelini buys team promises a winner and then hires Krivsky to deliver it. Krivsky does a pretty good job initially with Arroyo, Ross, Phillips, Dunn resigning and team takes off and has great first half. Krivsky then makes the boneheaded deal with Nats that appears to have ultimately led to teams late season swoon and mars what could have been a winning season in Cincy. Since offseason ended, club has not improved, and seems currently primed for a season long battle with Milwaukee for fourth place next season and antoher losing season. Now every long term, well respected front office guy seems to be jumping ship before it sinks to the bottom. We seem to be teetering on the edge of being an organization that is most likely to be the butt of embarrasing jokes around the league. As far as I’m concerned, it’s now or never for Krivsky. He needs to step up now and show he is capable of making some solid baseball decisions and immensly improve this club before we go to spring training.
Tom
I agree with Tom, to a point. I liked the Ross signing and the Phillips signing, hate the Kearns trade. The two brightest stars in the minor league system were signed and scouted by O’Brien’s staff, not Krivsky, and I didn’t like Krivsky’s draft last year at all. Krivsky seemed in panic mode toward the end of last year.
I give…where’s the positive spin in Fay’s story? It’s just stating what happened. I don’t see the pro-Krivsky angle either. It states the obvious–new front office hires bring in their own people. Happens all the time.
but with who? He’s sat out all of the top signings, and most of the good risks at this point. I could see signing Okha and Wilson, and that would help the team, but would it be “immensly?”
Who else is left? Who would you want to trade for and with what? I guess freel or Deno might bring you something if you think they’re redundant, and a non-big3 prospect might get something, but probably not an impact bat, quality starter, or closer.
The reds are decent now and they don’t need any more decent players. What we lack is impact players and there aren’t many left on the market, and there aren’t many that we can trade for without killing our current team or future.
also, i don’t know that fay’s article was entirely pro-kriv, but it is a reaction i’ve heard a lot: it’s business. Almarez wanted to be GM, he didn’t get it, and eventually he gets let go.
And that rationalle would be fine with me if we had a sane GM. But it’s clear we don’t. I’m can’t be convinced that these guys leaving is just business, when i would want to leave too if we traded felo for royce clayton and signed chad moeller (5th worst catcher in the NL by vorp last year).
Lopez was not traded for Clayton. Clayton was a stopgap for a few months.
Almaraz wasn’t fired. He resigned for ebing left out of the inner circle on the team’s direction.
i know the trade wasn’t straight up, but it might have well’ve been. doesn’t make it any better that there were more players involved.
and while almarez did resign, lots of people are guessing that he was obviously shown the door.
No, if you read the papers, Castellini said he didn’t want Almaraz to leave and tried to talk him out of it.
And no, the hypothetical of “might have well been” doesn’t apply because there WERE other players involved. It is what is it: Clayton was a stopgap and this is reflected in Larry Barton Jr.’s comments in the DDN that he asked Krivsky “who’s going to play shortstop next year?”
The jist (from my understanding) is that both Barton and Alamarez left in great part due to Krivsky “not listening” to their advice. Based on the track record over the last dozen years explain to me how this is a bad thing? Almarez’s claim to fame (in large part) was the signing of Adam Dunn. Wow! That was a real stretch. Maybe we should all pat the guy on the back who signed Derek Jeter too.
I’m sure during the entire tenure of both they were not exclusive to player development but this is an organization that went from having the second best minor league system in baseball after 2000 to having the 26th best heading into 2005. Under their watch (and others) the Reds haven’t produced a home grown 15 game winner since Tom Browning. So why should Krivsky listen to their advice. For my money it hasn’t proven to be real effective over the last few years.
Like every other former baseball op’s guy and player development person, I’m sure they end up working for Bowden in D.C.
Sean, I think you’re seeing what you want to see. Castellini is saying what he has to say. If he really thought Almaraz was important and wanted him to stay, he’d have told Krivsky to cut the junior-high antics, stop disenfranchising valuable people, and find a way to work with Almaraz. He didn’t, or Krivsky wouldn’t listen. If there’s a plausible, pro-Krivsky way to interpret this, I can’t think of it. (The only one I can think of is that he’s miles smarter than both Almaraz and Barton and the organization is better off for their absence…and I don’t think I can buy that one).
It was interesting that even Fay’s article said that Krivsky’s lack of management experience might be part of his problems.
Chris I don’t think we are entitled to read between the lines of what Castellini or anyone else says unless we can see their face or infliction of tone. Otherwise, your statement about Catsellini paying lip service is a guess.
Just like my “guess” is that perhaps Castellini really did want Almaraz to stay—if he didn’t, Krivsky could have fired him the first week he was on the job, or he certainly would not have promoted him–but Almaraz was determined to leave.
Additionally, perhaps Castellini wanted Almaraz to stay but didn’t want to overrule his GM and start setting precedent–a bad precedent–of ownership meddling in some of the baseball matters.
But then, these are all guesses. One thing we can agree on that is fact: Almaraz is gone.
I hear what you’re saying, but I’m just not willing to turn off my B.S. Detector, whether for politicians, car salesmen, the prophet on the street corner, or Major League Baseball executives. We don’t have to take anything at face value, especially something as – frankly, preposterous as Castellini’s statement.
Castellini’s comments were not a statement. They were made to the Cinti Enquirer reporter at the UC-XU game.
Well, if we’re going to be precise about language, I was actually referring this this statement, issued by Krivsky “on behalf of Bob Castellini…”