Elly De La Cruz made his big league debut three years ago tonight.
That day - and the walkoff win that night over the Dodgers - felt significant. Elly's debut and what appeared to be a nice stockpile of young players made it seem like years of waiting for the Reds contend were finally going to payoff. Maybe not immediately, but sometime in the not-so distant future. Certainly by the middle of the decade.
Since then, the Reds are 246-243. A winning percentage of .503. The Reds don't seem dramatically better than they did 489 games ago. The familiar early-summer themes of "not sure if they're buyers or sellers" have become an annual thing. The number of foundational pieces and truly established players remains startingly small.
When the Reds chose to be really bad in 2022, there was lots of chatter from the front office about the desire to eliminate peaks and valleys moving forward.
It seems as if that mission has been accomplished.
Ohioans, part of your $600 million in tax dollars just went to the University of Tennessee
Jimmy straight up stole from you and gave it to his home state
the most clarifying thing I’ve learned by paying attention to MLB labor relations for the last decade is that some of you are just losers. you are sad losers who wish that a billionaire would smile at you for a fleeting moment while sticking his hand in your wallet