In baseball, they say “hope springs eternal.” Each year, baseball fans of every team can squint hard enough and try to run through all the scenarios in which their hometown team can compete. That’s the beauty of baseball. It’s a long season and there will be ups and downs for every team. Usually, ownership and the front office will try to say something to make fans hopeful about the future or the season. Most of Reds country wasn’t getting that dose of positivity before the Reds home opener on Tuesday.

Cincinnati Radio Host Mo Egger asked a legitimate question on 700 WLW to Cincinnati Reds President and COO Phil Castellini regarding why fans should still have faith in this ownership group.

“Where are you gonna go? Sell the team to who?” Castellini said. “If you want to look at what would you do to have this team be more profitable and compete more in the current economic system that exists it would be to pick it up and move it somewhere else. So be careful what you ask for.”

An answer that left me shocked but also disappointed. Why couldn’t he talk about the exciting young core in this system? It would have been vanilla, but it would have been acceptable. Instead, he made it personal and pinned this on the fans.

I’m disappointed in the off-season. I’m disappointed in how they went about the off-season, but this goes deeper than that to me.

If the Reds had a World Series appearance or even a playoff series win during the Castellini’s ownership, then maybe there wouldn’t need to be a lecture about “having faith” in this ownership group.

This off-season sucked, but you know what was much worse? Whatever the hell 2014-2019 was. We sat through six years knowing we’d have essentially no shot of making the playoffs for what?

One playoff series loss during a 60-game season where we scored zero runs in two playoff games and an enjoyable but flawed 83-79 team in 2021.

Yes, there was a pandemic. I know that hurts the finances, but the Reds are worth over a billion dollars. Good organizations should be able to adapt.

The future might be bright with Hunter Greene, Jonathan India, Tyler Stephenson, and Nick Lodolo, but does it matter if they don’t commit to building around them and investing in the team?

Do we have to wait another three to four years for the Reds to get their finances in order before they can contend again?

I don’t know where most Reds fans are “going,” but if they aren’t busting down the gates at Great American Ball Park after Tuesday’s comments then how can anyone blame them?

Featured Image Courtesy of David Jablonski/Dayton Daily News