It’s Not Bryan Price’s Fault the Cincinnati Reds are Losing

The Cincinnati Reds have not played well, but don’t put all the blame on the manager.

As the Reds continue to lose games in predictable ways, I’ve noticed a trend on social media. Many fans want to blame manager Bryan Price for the losing, the bullpen and anything else that has gone wrong with the Reds in 2016.

I understand why fans want to blame Price and why it’s all over social media. We live in an instantaneous culture, where people will post their first, reactionary thoughts on the internet. We also live in a culture where someone has to be blamed for everything. Fans want to place blame somewhere. Yet, they don’t want to blame the players. It’s easy to skip over the players. Fans fall in love with players and then it’s easy to avoid placing blame on them. That leaves the manager to take the blame.

However, scapegoating the manager on a team clearly rebuilding is, in my mind, a cop-out. Look at the Atlanta Braves, in a similar rebuilding situation as the Reds. The Braves just fired their manager, Fredi Gonzalez, on Tuesday, even though they gutted their team last season and now are one of the worst teams in baseball. Was it Gonzalez’s fault that most of the best players got traded, leaving him to manage prospects and players who likely would be bench players on contending teams?

Is it Price’s fault the Reds bullpen has a 6.46 ERA, the worst in the league? Is it his fault the starting pitchers have combined to average 5.11 innings per start, the worst in MLB? Is it his fault the Reds have been beset with an unreasonable number of injuries to start the season?

Price has tried nearly every combination of relief pitchers in every game. He can’t over use his starters, regardless of how many runs they give up. And injuries happen. It’s a part of the game. Has Price made mistakes managing? Of course. He’s not perfect and as a first-time manager, he’s still learning.

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But at some point, the players have to perform. They have to get outs. When players don’t perform, sometimes teams can send those players to the minor leagues if those players are not established veterans. Unfortunately, the Reds are not in a position to send everyone down to the minors. The Reds have given chances to players. Some players like Jumbo Diaz and J.J. Hoover have failed and were sent down. Others are going to be up here until they work through whatever issue they face (i.e. Billy Hamilton) because the alternative of younger players just aren’t ready.

Look at it this way: the Reds would not magically get better if Price was fired tomorrow. The same players would still be on the team. The only way the Reds will look different this year is if the team starts trading players come July and young players get called up for the rest of the season. Trades seem inevitable, but contending teams aren’t ready to make trades just yet.

When the Reds hired Price going into the 2014 season, he got dealt a bad hand. The Reds had just come off a horrible loss in the wild card game and released Dusty Baker from his contract, a manager who players loved. The team was just starting its decline. It took another season-and-a-half for the upper management to realize they needed to start again from the bottom.

If fans want to place blame somewhere, put it on the front office for not starting the rebuild sooner. Blame it on the players, particularly the bullpen, for not performing up to the standards they might be capable of. But don’t blame Price for doing everything he can with what he was given. He’s in a no-win situation and it’s unfair to him that he is in the final year of his three-year contract. Price may not be the manager of the future, but it would be unwise for the Reds to fire him simply because of wins and losses.

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