Over the years, the baseball fan base has seen teams dump their star players during the offseason in order to rebuild, because of the current team not quite performing well enough to bring home a WS trophy. This offseason (2014), has seen a few teams head in the rebuilding or remodeling direction, such as the D-backs, A’s, Braves, Red Sox, Phillies, and the Reds. There are multiple ways this process could go; dumping all-stars for top-rated prospects, letting franchise players walk in free agency, trading stars for established rookie players, etc. The road the Reds decided to take in the 2014 offseason is trading away a couple of their star players for prospects.
The reason claimed by Cincinnati’s GM, Walt Jocketty, to go with the option of dumping their all-stars was because of the fear of not being able to resign them at the end of the 2015 season or sometime in the next couple years. The two players that have been traded away so far by Walt are starting pitchers Alfredo Simon and Mat Latos. Alfredo Simon is a reliever turned starter who appeared in the 2014 all-star game during his first year as a full-time starter. Simon ended his terrific starting pitching campaign in 2014 with a record of 15-10 with a .600 win-loss% and an ERA of 3.44. Since Alfredo was just an OK reliever before becoming a presence in the starting rotation, the Reds are afraid that his stellar performance this past year might be a fluke, and in that case Cincy might not be able to get much for him in return from a trade after the 2015 season (Simon becomes a free agent after 2016 season). Mat Latos’ case is similar, as he also becomes a free agent after the 2016 season, but the difference between him and Simon is that Latos is already an established big league starter. Mat, however, only made 16 of his starts in 2014 due to elbow injuries. Mat has been a key part of the Reds’ rotation since being acquired in 2012 from the Padres in a trade, but since Walt Jocketty has a plan, in essence, to re-create this Cincy team after “basically” having a tryout season in 2014 in which different players were tested, Latos was unfortunately one of the veterans to go in the process of putting together a new-look Red team.
After losing the 2013 Wild Card Playoff game to the Pirates, the Reds decided that since the current team at the time hadn’t been good enough to make it to the Fall Classic, the front office decided to start renovating the team. The first move was to fire the manager, Dusty Baker, and hire Byran Price to replace Dusty. The next move was allowing Shin-Soo Choo to walk in free agency during the 2013 offseason, while the Reds brought up top prospect Billy Hamilton to play centerfield. Then the decided since they liked the way Todd Frazier and Devin Mesoraco played at 3B and catcher, those players were going to be the future at those positions. Finally after making the decisions inside of the franchise, the Reds moved onto free agency and contracts; as they signed Skip Schumaker and Homer Bailey (re-sign). This led the Reds into 2014 with some new additions (Skip Schumaker), futures of the franchise (Hamilton, Mesarasco, Bailey, and Frazier), and experiments (Bryan Price). The 2014 season was a tryout to see which players they wanted on the 2016 championship contending squad. So now with the 2014 season over, GM, Walt Jocketty, has decided to part ways with Alfredo Simon and Mat Latos in exchange for prospects that are most likely going to be a big part of the 2016 squad. Now without the two veteran pitchers’ salaries on the books, it makes room for signing ace, Johnny Cueto to a long-term deal worth over $100 million. For the remainder of the Red’s 2014 offseason, little maneuvers will be made in order to complete the reconstructed Cincinnati Reds roster that will be planned to train together in 2015 in order to be prepared to make a championship run in 2016.
