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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2008 > April > 23
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Arroyo assaulted again
What should the Cincinnati Reds do with Bronson Arroyo - and let’s play nice here…no vulgarities and nothing to do with guns, knives and garrotes.
Take away his guitar? Make him grow corn rows again the way he did a couple of years ago when he went 10 games without a win, vowing to wear the hideous hair-style until he won a game?
Send him back to Boston doesn’t work. They don’t want him. Nor does Pittsburgh.
For the fifth time this year, Arroyo couldn’t make it past 5 2/3 innings. This time he made it through only 3 2/3 innings, giving up eight runs and 10 hits to the Houston Almighty Astros.
His fastball, normally at 91, was at 88 and spun up there with a smile and a message, “Hit me, hit me, hit me.” And the Astros hit them.
Arroyo, a No. 2 on this team and probably a No. 4 or No. 5 on most other teams (we all know Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez are ahead of him) has a 7.56 ERA. Now I’m no pitching coach, but something tells me that isn’t very good.
For the moment manager Dusty Baker is making no noises about moving Arroyo out of the rotation, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the Dustman isn’t knocking on new GM Walt Jocketty’s door with his first request: “Homer Bailey, please?”
Arroyo, Baker and pitching coach Dick Pole all are dumbfounded.
“I don’t know how to do it, but I’ll try,” said Baker about putting corn rows in Arroyo’s hair. “They may not look like corn rows.”
That’s OK because Arroyo isn’t looking like a pitcher right now.
“Boy, I know he is going crazy and we’re trying to help him figure it out and right now we don’t have any answers,” said Baker. “He had better location tonight, but he didn’t have the velocity he had before.
“He’s looked at video, tried that, and I asked Dick (Pole), ‘What can we do?’ We’re all a little lost right now,” said Baker. Physical problems? “No, I don’t think so. I hope not. When he gets the ball up and makes a mistake, they’re not missing.”
Said Arroyo, “I can’t figure it out. I feel good physically, great physically. The velocity isn’t there. It’s hard to get the zip on the ball. I’ve watched video and there is nothing to see. I’m just getting beat, man, that’s all there is to it. That’s about all I have to say.”
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TweetStarting over…again
The first thing that came to mind when Bob Castellini spoke was former Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on a podium at the United Nations and saying, “We will bury you.”
Castellini, his face a solid concrete etched in solemn passion, looked down when asked, “Why now? Why fire general manager Wayne Krivsky now?”
Then his head shot up and he said, “We’ve come to the point where we just aren’t going to lose anymore.”
You could almost see Krivsky’s successor, Walt Jocketty, cringe at those words, although he later said, “I’m not worried about it, I do it because I want to do it, not that I need to do it.”
Castellini said the reason for Krivsky’s dismissal can mostly be found in the won-lost column. Is that fair? 9-12? Twenty-one games. Even Tony Perez lasted longer than that into a season, 44 games as manager before Jim Bowden fired him.
“Nobody in the organization is happy with our 9-12 won-loss record,” Castellini said. “We’ve had two losing seasons under our new ownership and we’ve started out this season poorly, on a won-loss basis, and that’s the primary reason we made the change.”
Castellini was testy when asked about continuity - five managers and six general managers (two were co-GMs on an interim basis in the last six seasons.
“We haven’t had six, we’ve had two,” he said, using semantics. The organization has had six GMs since 2002 - Jim Bowden, co-interims Brad Kullman and Leland Maddox, Dan O’Brien, Krivsky and Jocketty. “The franchise has…yes.”
So is he concerned about continuity? “Absolutely I am. Absolutely. I respect the question, but this has been a very tough decision. Krivsky did a whale of a job in some areas.”
Jocketty jumped to Castellini’s rescue.
“I believe in continuity,” he said. “Very much so. But sometime it takes a little time to get thins the way you want. There are a lot of quality people and quite a few quality players here and now we have to find a way to make it work.”
Jocketty says he is impressed with the staff, on the field and in the front office, and doesn’t anticipate any changes.
Manager Dusty Baker, the fifth manager in six years (Bob Boone, Dave Miley, Jerry Narron, interim Pete Mackanin, Baker) addressed the continuity issue, too. Asked about the importance of continuity, he said, “I think it is very important. Wayne did some great things here. He built our farm system. It is very important to keep some consistency, which is one reason I kept the coaching staff.
“I mean, you listen to quarterbacks complain about four offensive co-ordinators in four years. Doesn’t work. Good organizations keep a lot of the same people for a long period of time,” Baker added.
Krivsky appeared in the back of the press box after the Jocketty press conference and said his removal was a shot out of the dark. He said Castellini asked him Tuesday night to meet with him Wednesday morning at 8:30 and Krivsky didn’t see the axe above the door.
“It came out of the blue, it really did,” said Krivsky. “Completely shocked. I didn’t see this coming at all. What hurts so much is not to be able to see the job through. I had visions of being in the clubhouse with people pouring champagne over everybody. I’m hugely disappointed I’m not able to finish the job.
“I fought for an hour to keep my job,” he said. “I fought hard for my job. I love it here. I loved my job. And I had laughs. You have to have laughs in this job and I did in two years. I only wish it was 22. It wasn’t my call. But I disagree strongly with the decision. I still think I’m the right guy for this job. But Bob will admit he is an impatient man. I’ll sleep good tonight…well, maybe not tonight.
“Look at an unbiased source like Baseball America, who had the Reds farm system rated 27th to 30th when I got here, now they rank us in the top three or four,” said Krivsky. “In two years? Dam right I’m proud of that. I’m damned proud of that. We’re one of the most respected organizations in baseball and I’m damn proud of that.”
Jocketty is confident he can do in Cincinnati what he did in St. Louis, turning a similar market from moribund into a winner, seven playoffs in 13 years.
“This franchise is very similar to what we had in St. Louis, a winning tradition, great fans, great community, but they hadn’t won in a long time in St. Louis, either,” said Jocketty. “There are a lot of similarities between St. Louis and Cincinnati. This is a storied franchise with tradition. Dusty Baker and I are very motivated, guys with a vendetta and a little chip on our shoulder.”
That’s because Jocketty was fired in St. Louis after last season and Baker was fired in Chicago after 2006.
Asked about his basic philosophy, Jocketty said, “Win.”
That’s what they all say.
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TweetKrivsky his own enemy
Bob Castellini is a businessman, the nation’s leading fruit and vegetable magnate, and if the price of lettuce and tomatoes has soared the last couple of years, it might be traced back to Wayne Krivsky.
Castellini, CEO of the Cincinnati Reds, fired general manager Krivsky today, replacing him with Walt Jocketty.
During Krivsky’s regime, the team has had to eat more dollar bills than the number of heads of lettuce Castellini sells.
Some questionable contracts that forced the team to pay money to players no longer playing for the Reds didn’t help Krivsky’s cause.
It started with when he signed pitcher Rheal Cormier to a two-year contract. When the team released him it had to pay him something like $3 million NOT to pitch.
When the Reds released pitcher Mike Stanton this spring, it forced them to pay him $3.5 million this year NOT to pitch.
And there is that curious contract he gave outfielder Corey Patterson, who was sitting at home doing nothing during spring training, pursued by no other teams. Krivsky signed him for $3 million when Patterson probably would have taken $500,000 and paid his own way to camp.
He gave utility player Ryan Freel a deal that pays him $3 million this year and $4 million next year and couldn’t trade him unless the team absorbed some of that money.
He gave pitcher Josh Fogg a $1.5 million deal mid-spring training when no other teams were pursuing him, a panic move when Krivsky wasn’t certain how good Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez would be.
The $46 million, three-deal for closer Francisco Cordero looked good at the time, but so far, after 21 games, he has had only two save opportunities. That contract may pan out, but right now one wonders.
All this could be overlooked by Castellini if the team showed a propensity for winning, which it hasn’t during Krivsky’s tenure. After all, Castellini signed off on all those deals, taking Krivsky’s advice. Castellini wants to win and he wants to win now.
He and Jocketty worked together in St. Louis when Jocketty helped piece together a team that was not contending to one that contended for more than a decade.
Krivsky and I were friends long before he was named Reds GM. When he worked for the Minnesota Twins, he traveled the country scouting other teams and I encountered him often. We had many lunches together and talked often.
His ambition, of course, was to be a GM and he would say, “If I’d get the Reds job, there are a lot of things I would do and we’d have a lot of fun.”
It wasn’t fun. Krivsky remained my friend, but he changed. He was not forthcoming with information to the media, not even on the most menial things. He was guarded, overly guarded.
Two years ago during the winter meetings in Orlando, I took him aside in his suite after another unproductive media meeting in which he divulged nothing about what the team was doing or trying to do.
I said, “Wayne, remember when we had lunches and chatted about your future and how much fun we’d have together with the Reds?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Well, I’m not having fun,” I said. “Remember when I told you how difficult it was sometimes getting information from your predecessor, Dan O’Brien? Well, you’re worse.”
Krivsky seemed to think about it, but nothing changed. And nothing changed with the Reds.
Nobody likes to see anybody lose his job, especially a friend. But Krivsky cut his own throat.
Jocketty is a good man, too, and a solid baseball man. Things should change, and much for the better.
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TweetJocketty replaces Krivsky
The Wayne Krivsky Era as general manager of the Cincinnati Reds is over and the Walt Jocketty era has begun.
The Reds confirmed this morning that Krivsky has been relieved of his duties and has been replaced by Jocketty. A media conference is scheduled this afternoon at 4 o’clock in Great American Ball Park before thee game with the Houston Astros.
Although Krivsky’s contract doesn’t run out until the end of the season, CEO Bob Castellini is unhappy with the team’s sluggish start.
It was almost a foregone conclusion that Jocketty would succeed Krivsky, but most thought it wouldn’t happen until after the season, if the Reds didn’t shed their seven years of losing.
Jocketty and Castellini worked together in St. Louis when Jocketty was GM of the Cardinals and Castellini was a minority owner.
When Jocketty left the Cardinals after last season, Castellini hired him as a special advisor in January and the handwriting was splattered all over the clubhouse walls.
There was a hint of something to come on the team’s last trip to Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Chicago when Jocketty was on the trip and Krivsky wasn’t.
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