Here's why this rebuild should work out better

This story was excerpted from Mark Sheldon’s Reds Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

There are certainly Reds fans who have agita over seeing Luis Castillo, Tyler Mahle and other veteran players shipped out for prospects ahead of Tuesday's Trade Deadline. As the previous rebuild got underway in 2014-15, Cincinnati moved Johnny Cueto, Jay Bruce, Aroldis Chapman and others for less than stellar returns.

The uniting factor in those previous moves was that the Reds waited too long to trade the players, who were past their peak value when finally dealt.

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Chapman’s domestic violence incident ahead of his trade played a role in his diminished value when he went to the Yankees in December 2015.

But the Cueto deal remains a particular sore spot for many fans. In the 2015 trade with the Royals for their ace, the Reds got three lefty pitchers in Brandon Finnegan, Cody Reed and John Lamb. All three were on the big league club but none of them really panned out.

There’s a significant difference between the Cueto and Castillo/Mahle trades. Cueto was a rental player who would be a free agent after the season. He helped the Royals win a World Series and signed with the Giants that next offseason.

Castillo and Mahle were both under club control for another full season in 2023. General manager Nick Krall said this after the Castillo trade was completed about why the prospects received could net better outcomes:

“I think our scouts, our analytics staff, all the people in our room went through an extensive process, got background information on all those guys, we’re just really excited to have every one of them and be able to add them to our group in our pipeline,” Krall said.

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Obviously, there are no guarantees with prospects. But the baseball world has been praising Krall for the returns the Reds received for their veteran players. It’s been a painful stretch for fans to watch but if the moves yield sustained winning, this could be where the turning point began.

“We’re all trying to accomplish the same thing. That’s to win a World Series as soon as possible,” Reds manager David Bell said. “I understand what’s happening. I understand the plan. Our goal as a staff and our goal as a clubhouse is to make all of that happen much faster than anyone anticipates. The only way you can do that is to go out every day and do your job, just like how our team has been doing. We’ll see what happens. It doesn’t really change anything for us.”