Who will take the fall for the Cincinnati Reds miserable start to the 2022 season?

3. GM Nick Krall will take the fall for the Reds poor performance.

Now this I can get behind. Just like I think it's unfair to lay the blame at David Bell's feet, it's unreasonable to think that the Cincinnati Reds' shortcoming can be blamed on general manager Nick Krall.

Krall was given a budget before the season began by ownership and was told to make it work. Krall has famously said the Reds were "aligning payroll to our resources" and trying to eliminate "peaks and valleys".

While Krall isn't fully responsible for the absence of talent from the Reds roster, some of the moves he made were just bad. Waiving Wade Miley was foolish, and Cincinnati lost their best pitcher from a year ago to a division rival for nothing.

Krall would later trade Amir Garrett to the Kansas City Royals for Mike Minor; a left-handed starter who strangely will make the same salary as Miley in 2022. Minor has yet to pitch for the Reds this season. To be fair, Miley has been injured to begin the 2022 season as well.

I honestly didn't mind the trade that Nick Krall swung with the Minnesota Twins. Sonny Gray was sent to the Twin Cities in exchange for Minnesota's first-round pick from a year ago, Chase Petty. The Reds were never going to pick up Gray's 2023 team-option and the right-hander landed on the IL three times in 2021.

The biggest mistake Krall made was trading Eugenio Suárez and Jesse Winker to the Seattle Mariners. While Connor Phillips and Brandon Williamson may eventually become starters in the Reds rotation, that one move was the equivalent of waving the white flag and giving up on the 2022 season.

Nick Krall is not the biggest reason why the Cincinnati Reds are not competitive, but the trades that he made this offseason were atrocious. Somebody has to take the fall for putting this team together and it very well could, and should be the general manager.