Barry Larkin sounded less a Hall of Famer doing color commentary over the weekend and more like, well, me: “I think these last three weeks of baseball playing against some of the better teams that are going to the postseason really illustrates how far we are behind at this big league level. And change has to happen. This city deserves better than that, and I know every player down there feels that. But something has to give. We have to get better because we are so, so far behind.”
Indeed. The gap between the first-place Milwaukee Brewers and the last-place Cincinnati Reds is far larger than just the 26-game difference in their win totals. These are small-market division rivals playing the same schedule, and while there are huge differences between these organizations, it’s not a resources gap. It is a competence gap. Milwaukee’s front office is sharp. Cincinnati’s is not. We now have a decade of evidence on this point.
Let’s talk payroll first. From 2017 through 2019, the Reds actually outspent Milwaukee on Opening Day payroll; in 2017 alone, Cincinnati outspent Milwaukee by roughly $22 million, about 35 percent. The Brewers, running the smallest payroll in baseball that year, went 86-76. Cincinnati, spending far more, went 68-94 and captured last place.
In 2018 the pattern held: Reds spent more, finished 67-95; Brewers spent less, won 96 games and a division title. From 2021 forward, the two payrolls converged and sometimes tilted slightly toward Milwaukee, but the gap on the field never changed. It widened, in fact: Four division titles and an NLCS appearance for Milwaukee against a 100-loss season and two embarrassing playoff sweeps for the Redlegs.
There is no year in the last decade where “we don’t have the money” was true. And there are some clear reasons why Milwaukee has been consistent winners and Cincinnati has been also-rans while spending similar amounts of money.
Milwaukee knows when to hold, sell, or walk away. Cincinnati does not.
The Brewers lock up foundational hitters early and cheap, betting on players who age well at the plate, such as Christian Yelich and Jackson Chourio. They sell star pitchers at peak value before age (or an elbow) makes the decision for them: See Corbin Burnes, Josh Hader, Freddy Peralta, and Devin Williams. Milwaukee owner Mark Attanasio has described the approach this way: “One of the advantages and, frankly, one of the strengths of our baseball operations group is they don’t set a paradigm and try to meet it.” They read the opportunity in front of them instead, and they’re good at it.
Cincinnati’s recent history is the opposite of a philosophy. An extension for Eugenio Suarez in 2018 was a reasonable bet on a hitter. Since then, what? In 2023, the front office extended Hunter Greene (a hard-throwing young starter, exactly the volatile asset class I warned about in a 2018 tweet).This year, Greene returned from a March bone-chip surgery and made five shaky starts with a 6.83 ERA. In the middle of that stretch, the front office extended another hard-throwing young starter, Chase Burns, for seven years and $105 million. Three weeks later, Greene’s elbow gave out again; his third career elbow surgery was season-ending.
I’m certainly happy that I get to watch Burns in a Reds uniform for the foreseeable future. But there’s no suggestion of a plan anywhere here, and there’s plenty of the exact same risk as we saw with the Greene extension.
There’s more, of course. The Reds lowballed hometown favorite Kyle Schwarber last winter, missed, and then settled for a consolation-prize Suarez deal that has delivered 24 home runs, a .209 average, and a .729 OPS. I love Geno and always will, but the point is that there’s no coherent organizational philosophy in any of these moves.
Milwaukee evaluates talent better, both on the field and off.
Their bullpen alone is proof of a system. They consistently find good relievers literally everywhere they look.
Trade: Trevor Megill (2.72 ERA, 29 saves) arrived for cash and a player to be named later.
Draft: Aaron Ashby (2.79 ERA over the last three seasons) was a fourth-round pick.
International: Abner Uribe (1.83 ERA and 4.9 WAR over the last two seasons) signed with the Brewers as an international free agent out of the Dominican Republic.
Scrap heap: Jared Koenig (injured early this season, but a 2.67 ERA over 127 games the last two years) climbed out of independent ball and the Brewers signed him as a minor league free agent after two other organizations gave up.
I don’t need to tell you what Cincinnati’s bullpen has looked like in recent years. And it’s not just pitchers. The Reds have five of the nine worst hitters in all of baseball this year. Nick Krall traded for four of them..
The differences in player evaluation are stark. Milwaukee’s farm system was considered the sport’s best at the beginning of this season. Cincinnati’s farm system recently got the lowest grade in baseball by Baseball America. Internationally, Krall himself admitted in 2022 that the Reds ranked 30th of 30 teams in free-agent production over a decade.
There is actually one area where the Reds have distinguished themselves: developing premium pitching through the draft. I’m talking about Greene, Burns, Nick Lodolo, Rhett Lowder, and Andrew Abbott. Even here, though, Milwaukee’s response was instructive. It hired away Bryan Conger, the Reds’ former minor-league pitching coordinator, to rebuild Milwaukee’s pipeline in that exact image.
Continuity and stability, which work only if you have the right system in place. Milwaukee does.
Both clubs have had stable ownership for two decades. But when key personnel leave, Milwaukee hasn’t skipped a beat. David Stearns had been the architect as their GM, president of baseball operations, and advisor to ownership. He left for the Mets in September 2023. Manager Craig Counsell was poached by the Cubs. Those are both bigger jobs presumably, right?
Well, the Brew Crew didn’t miss a step under Matt Arnold and Pat Murphy. Arnold is now GM and president of baseball operations, and his club has the best record in baseball in 2026. Murphy has been NL Manager of the Year each of the last two years, and he’s doing a great job this season as well. Meanwhile, nobody is trying to poach Nick Krall for a bigger job anywhere in baseball.
Both clubs have stability at the higher levels of the organization. It’s worked well for Milwaukee, but I can’t see any reason why Cincinnati’s ownership wants continuity when they fail year after year after year.
Which brings me back to Larkin’s comments. Shortly before he went off-script, there was a report that Krall expects himself, GM Brad Meador, and manager Terry Francona to all return for 2027. To his credit, Krall took responsibility: “Obviously, it all comes back on me. And we’ve got to make better decisions as an organization, and that’s on me.” Since he took the top job, the Reds are 457-502, 10th-worst in baseball. Of the nine teams below them, eight fired their top executive. Only the Reds and the Pirates have not.
But notice the wording. That is Krall’s own expectation, not a confirmed decision from ownership. Nobody in the Castellini family has said a word publicly. Maybe someone will listen to Larkin. Maybe someone with power in this organization will recognize that he was right: Something has to change.
And that brings me to the Castellinis. Bob and Phil, I know you’re both probably still salty over the billboard. Fair enough. I blamed you guys for this disaster and, in the wake of that, it wasn’t Phil’s finest moment.
But I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. You can still fix this! Bob, you said it yourself at your introductory press conference in 2006: “We’re buying the Reds to win. Anything else is unacceptable.” That’s the standard you set. Phil, you’re the one who now holds the title that can make this happen.
You have to clean house in the front office. Milwaukee has proven that their philosophy can survive losing its own architects. Maybe that means someone in Wisconsin right now is the next Matt Arnold. Go get him, or someone like him from another well-run organization. Arnold used to work for the Reds before learning how to run small market clubs in Tampa and Milwaukee. There are others like him. Go find one.
Larkin said something has to give. Bob and Phil, you have to stop giving the benefit of the doubt to a front office that has failed over and over and over to deliver on Bob’s promise back in 2006. Do you want to make us forget the “Where ya’ gonna go?” debacle? Then take my advice: Fire everyone who has failed over the last decade and bring in smart executives who can win in a small market environment.
The Brewers have shown us the blueprint. The question now is whether ownership cares about the fans enough to shamelessly copy their example.
Chad Dotson helms Reds coverage at Cincinnati Magazine and is co-author of “The Big 50: The Men and Moments That Made the Cincinnati Reds.” His newsletter about Cincinnati sports can be found at chaddotson.com.
