GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Heading into the last day of the 2021 season, reliever Bryan Shaw was pretty much out of gas. The 10-year veteran had thrown in a league-high 80 games during that season, and he had pitched in each of the Cleveland Guardians’ two most recent games. Terry Francona, the manager of the Guardians at the time and now the new manager of the Cincinnati Reds, had no intention of pitching Shaw in the season finale.
On that day in 2021, Shaw went to his manager with a request. Shaw wanted to pitch in the season finale because it would mean that he’d pitch in exactly half of the games in a season. He’d reach a goal of his. The Guardians weren’t fighting for a playoff spot, and Francona wanted to reward a pitcher who had sacrificed so much for him all season. “I thought he deserved it,” Francona says four years later.
In 2025, Shaw is hanging on as a professional pitcher. The 37-year-old who has made nearly $40 million in his career signed a minor league deal with the Reds during the winter. He was always a long shot to make the Reds’ 2025 Opening Day roster, and he officially was assigned to Triple-A last Saturday. When Shaw learned that he wasn’t going to make the Reds’ Opening Day roster this year, he told Francona and the front office that he wanted to stick around and pitch for the Reds’ Triple-A affiliate instead of looking for an opportunity with another team. Shaw hopes that he’ll be able to make an impact on the Reds’ big league club at some point in 2025.
Francona has managed much bigger personalities than Shaw as well as players who were a lot more important to the roster. Under a lot of managers, players like Shaw fade into the background. Francona, though, is different. As a result, Shaw would do just about anything for him.
“(Francona) gets the guys to believe in playing for the team, not just playing for yourself,” says Shaw. “He has a reason behind everything. When you get put in a situation, you have that confidence from him, and that gives you extra confidence in yourself. You know there’s a reason for putting you in there, so you know you can do it.”
To really get to know the Reds’ new manager, ask the people who were with Francona in Cleveland and followed him to Cincinnati. There’s Shaw, the journeyman reliever who pitched in 519 games for Francona in Cleveland. There’s assistant coach Mike Napoli, the former All-Star catcher who Francona believes is a future manager. There’s hitting coach Chris Valaika, who Francona plucked off of the Guardians’ coaching staff in October.
No one on the planet knows Francona better than new Reds bench coach Brad Mills, who’s been by his side since they were teammates at the University of Arizona in the 1970s. “He cares about people,” says Mills. “He cares about his players a ton. He cares about the franchise. He cares about his coaches. He cares about everybody. He has fun doing it. Guys really enjoy playing for him, and he’s to be around because of that.”
None of these guys had to take a job in Cincinnati this year. They’re all here because they wanted to follow Francona Tito. They’re here because of everything he’s done for them and because they want to pay it forward.
Mills, 68, had been retired for four seasons. He stepped away from Francona’s staff in Cleveland in 2020 following the tragic death of his 18-month-old grandson, Beau. For the last four years, he was focusing on his family.
When Francona took the Reds’ job, he made a point not to reach out to Mills to gauge his interest in returning to baseball. He wanted to give Mills the space he needed. But when Mills returned his call, Francona had his bench coach back. “I think it’s important that we have people who know how I like to do stuff,” says Francona. “Mills knows what I want to do before I do.”
Francona hired Valaika in Cleveland in 2022 and gave him his first shot to be a lead hitting coach in the big leagues. Valaika stayed on Cleveland’s staff after Francona’s departure. Last year, the Guardians won 92 games and advanced to the ACLS, where they lost to the New York Yankees.
Things were going very well for Valaika in Cleveland. Then Francona called. “Somebody with that track record as a manager, it speaks for itself,” says Valaika. “When I got the opportunity to join him here, you don’t bat an eye at that stuff. He empowers us to do our jobs. It’s easy to work for a guy you know always has your back.”
Francona jokes that he sees Valaika just once a day. “He pops his head in in the morning and says he’s going to the cage,” says Francona. “I don’t see him the rest of the day. I love it because I know we’re getting our (stuff) done. It’s a nice feeling.”
The trust goes both ways. “He helped me learn my voice in the dugout,” Valaika says. “He trusted me. He gave me the reins. I checked in with him, but he wasn’t watching over me. He hired me to trust me. He puts people in positions to succeed. He’ll never put someone in a situation they can’t handle. If that happens, he’ll be the first one to have your back and build you back up when things go bad.”
That rings true with Shaw as much as anyone else. He was a solid reliever in Cleveland, posting a 3.44 ERA during seven years there, but became a bit of a punching bag for the fanbase. Maybe that went back to Shaw being the reliever who took the loss in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series as the Guardians lost to the Chicago Cubs. Maybe it goes back to the fact that Shaw doesn’t necessarily pass the eye test and doesn’t look like a prototypical setup reliever.
When Shaw had a bad game, he was usually in a brighter spotlight than the average reliever. “Tito is very good at defending you in the media when questions arise,” he says. “He defended the reasons why he put someone into that spot. He defends the players.”
Francona had Shaw’s back, so Shaw did everything he could for his skipper. “I have a bullpen card I put in the dugout every day because it’s important,” says Francona. “If you (mess) the bullpen up, you (mess) the year up. There are days when I’d put next to his name ‘DOWN’ (not available to pitch). When I wasn’t looking, he’d cross it out before he went to the bullpen.”
Francona would often take Shaw up on the offer to pitch, and Shaw pushed himself to the limit to pitch as many innings as he could every season.
While Shaw is an easy-going, go-with-the-flow type of guy, Francona also has had to be able to relate to the pricklier personalities in the clubhouse. Francona says that Napoli is the toughest player he’s ever been around.
Napoli played for Francona in Cleveland in 2016, when there wasn’t the universal designated hitter in MLB. So in the World Series against the Cubs, Francona had to adjust his lineup. In Game 3, he took a big chance and stuck DH/first baseman Carlos Santana in left field. Francona didn’t feel like he could take that risk again in Game 4, so he decided to start Santana at first base and put Napoli on the bench.
“It was probably the single biggest mistake I’ve ever made,” Francona says nine years later. “I thought we overachieved in 2016, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he was on that team and the leader of that team.”
Before Game 4, Francona wanted to clear the air with Napoli, recalling, “I knew he was going to want to kill me.” Francona took a seat next to Napoli at the cards table in the middle of the visiting clubhouse at Wrigley Field. Napoli wouldn’t talk to him. Francona said, “Nap, I’m not leaving until you talk to me.” It took about an hour.
Napoli was in the lineup for every other game in that World Series but finished the series with a .173 batting average. “Looking back on it, I (messed) up,” says Francona. “It still eats at me.”
Clearly, the bridges weren’t burned between them. Napoli still thinks so highly of Francona that he jumped at the chance to join his Reds’ coaching staff even though he doesn’t have an official title. Unofficially, he’s the “Swiss Army knife” who will work with the catchers, the base runners, the hitters, and even the coaches. “He sees the game so well,” says Francona. “I was thrilled that we could figure out a way to get him here because I think that he’s going to be a manager.”
Reds President of Baseball Operations Nick Krall says that the biggest impact Francona will make on the franchise is creating an environment where everyone is genuinely excited to show up for work every day. Before the first full squad workout of spring training, Francona delivered a prepared speech to the team, telling the group about his expectations and what it takes to win. And he told the Reds, “We’re all in this together.”
The guys in the room who already knew Francona nodded along. They’ve heard this speech before, and they say it still gets them fired up every time they hear it again.
Charlie Goldsmith has covered the Reds and Bengals since 2020, and his newsletter on the teams can be found at charlieschalkboard.substack.com. He’s @CharlieG__ on X.
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