The Cincinnati Reds are clearly in rebuild mode.
After trading away players such as Tucker Barnhart, Sonny Gray, Wade Miley, Jesse Winker, and Eugenio Suarez, the Reds are not planning on winning in 2022.
With that being said, they managed to slash a huge chunk of their payroll.
Who knows if more moves are coming, but at the moment, they have a ton of money saved for 2022.
This is what the players hoped to stop with the new CBA, but clearly, that isn’t working.
As a result, one of the Reds’ highest-paid players in 2022 is somebody who isn’t even on the roster and retired over a decade ago.
FWIW per @spotrac Ken Griffey Jr. is the sixth-highest paid #Reds player this season at $3.59 million
— Richard Skinner (@Local12Skinny) March 14, 2022
A Bad Look In Cincy
While a player of Ken Griffey Jr.‘s caliber certainly deserves to make a ton of money with a big contract, he was traded from the Reds in 2008 to the Chicago White Sox, and is obviously retired.
This is a rough bit of information for the Reds and their fans, and almost instantly draws comparisons to the New York Mets and their situation with Bobby Bonilla.
It’s quite embarrassing too.
When one of your highest-paid players is somebody who isn’t even playing anymore, that shows that a team really does not plan on winning.
Instead, they’re doing what the players had hoped to curb in CBA negotiations: tanking.
The Reds are tanking and are doing it to save money.
We’ll see what else the Reds try to do.
Maybe more moves are coming.
But as of now, they look to be throwing in the towel on 2022.
NEXT: The Reds Are In An Endless Rebuild
