Nick Krall’s defense of Chris Valaika highlights Reds' broken process

Nick Krall has come under fire for the Cincinnati Reds' failures, not just in 2026, but over the last several years. After squeaking into the playoffs in 2025, watching the team fall flat in 2026 was a bitter pill for the Reds' faithful, and it was clear that despite a talented young core, Krall failed miserably at building a competent supporting cast.

If this were a court of law, Krall did just enough to sow the seeds of reasonable doubt just as the heat on him was reaching scorching levels. The embattled executive accused the Castellini family of blocking the kinds of moves that would have turned the Reds into the Milwaukee Brewers. Given Bob Castellini's checkered history as the Reds' owner, Krall's allegations seemed credible.

While this was a situation that could have been combustible, the two sides have made nice. The Castellinis know that if Krall fails again, he'll have hanged himself, as far as the fans are concerned.

Krall might have already done that with his latest comments. Cincinnati's president of baseball operations came out in defense of the highly criticized director of hitting and major league hitting coach, Chris Valaika.

"We brought in players that didn’t necessarily fit that [contact hitting] philosophy," Krall said. "We need to make sure we give those guys better players for them to develop.”

Both Nick Krall and Chris Valaika are responsible for the Reds' offensive struggles

The fact of the matter is that Krall's right to a certain extent. He signed guys like Eugenio Suárez and JJ Bleday, who are known as power hitters with big whiff tendencies. They're not guys who are going to post high batting averages year in and year out.

It makes you wonder why Krall made those choices if he knew Valaika preferred a different hitter archetype. One would think that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. From Krall's comments, it sounds like he was clued in, but made different choices anyway.

There's a flip side, though. Cincinnati's shoestring budget means that the club can't be picky when it comes to adding talent. Bleday was coming off a down year, and Suárez was coming off a poor second half with the Seattle Mariners. They were buy-low candidates with upside, meaning they both signed for relatively cheap rates.

Now, the best coaches adapt their system to fit the talent that they have rather than trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Given how things turned out, Valaika didn't do what needed to be done.

Elite-level coaches are able to lift their players to new heights relative to the team priorities. If hitting for contact was Valaika's priority, he failed miserably because the Reds finished dead last in the majors in batting average (.229) and strikeout rate (25.5%).

Another Valaika priority was situational hitting, and that's an area where everyone not named Sal Stewart failed miserably. It's one thing to fall short on secondary objectives, but to fail with the things that are most fundamental to your vision is simply inexcusable.

The Reds, against fans' wishes, are retaining Valaika, just the same way that they're keeping Krall in the fold. After Krall called out the shortcoming, he put the spotlight firmly on himself. Now it's time to put up or shut up for both Krall and Valaika; otherwise, both should be gone heading into 2028. They both probably should be gone already.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow