The Cincinnati Reds have traded away Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez, in addition to already dealing Wade Miley and Tucker Barnhart prior to the lockout.
It’s clear that the Reds are in sell mode, with their main goal being shedding a good portion of their salary, rather than focusing on trying to win and improving the team.
FOX Sports baseball analyst Ben Verlander commented on the Reds’ current strategy, stating on Twitter that somebody should probably make it clear to the Reds that there is now a draft lottery in place that is designed to curb tanking as a result of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Somebody should inform the Reds that there’s a Draft Lottery now
— Ben Verlander (@BenVerlander) March 14, 2022
Why Are The Reds Tanking?
It’s odd why the Reds are trying to shed payroll.
Though they missed the postseason in 2021, they still had a ton of talent on their roster and were not a bad team on paper by any stretch of the imagination.
The postseason has now been expanded to 12 teams, and had that format been in place last year, the Reds, despite having only won 83 games, would have reached the postseason.
Tanking is something that the players union had hoped to stop with the new CBA.
That’s why there’s now a draft lottery.
But thus far, it appears that the new CBA has done little to stop teams from tanking, as the Reds have made perfectly clear by trading off several of their assets.
With the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals likely to be the teams competing for an NL Central title, the Reds don’t have much hope of contending with them.
But one would think that at the very least, they would try and add to what was already a solid nucleus of players and put the team in position to win.
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