Reason for optimism: Down goes Frazier! Goodbye, Aroldis Chapman. Hey Milwaukee -- this is how you tank!
Reason for pessimism: Joey Votto is still good enough to play the roles of Roger Dorn and/or Willie Mays Hayes and mess up management's plan to suck.
Take a 98-loss team, subtract the superstar closer with a 100-plus-mph fastball and 1.63 ERA, and remove the team's leading RBI and home run producer. While it's hard to recall that Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake were significant contributors to the 2015 team, because they were traded in July, they did give the Reds 40 starts' worth of 3.10 ERA production. Remove all of those players, make no material upgrades in the offseason and allegedly contemplate turning the closer role over to a low-strikeout, high-walk, flyball pitcher, and you have the formula for possibly losing 100 games.
The trades of Cueto and Leake started the Reds' teardown last summer, but this winter's moves to send baseball's most recognizable closer (Chapman) to the Yankees, and their immensely popular slugging third baseman (Todd Frazier) to the White Sox -- both for prospects -- truly announced Cincinnati's voluntary arrival in the bottom quadrant of baseball's teams.
With one notable exception, every single player slated to start for the Reds this year has been a below-average offensive contributor over the past two or three seasons, and some -- like Jay Bruce and Zack Cozart -- have been below replacement-level at the plate. The one exception, of course, is the sublime Votto, who appears destined to become the most underrated player -- nay, superstar -- of his generation.
Votto turns 33 during the season, though, and he's in just the third year of a 10-year contract paying him more than $20 million a season. The contract also has a complete no-trade clause, meaning that even if the Reds are quickly approaching the optimal time to move Votto with the purpose of assembling a competitive team in 2019, they may not be able to (hence, the "Major League" reference at the top of this piece). Votto -- and the 1.000 OPS he posted last year -- has the potential to make the Reds just good enough to not be bad enough to rebuild.
While trading Votto may be out of their hands, Cincinnati's front office does have some other levers to pull. They're apparently going to allow J.J. Hoover to close, which is a passive-aggressive way of telling Votto, "We're going to sabotage any ninth-inning leads your offensive production manages to give us." Hoover walks batters at an increasing rate each year, topping out in 2015 at an 11.7 percent clip -- a trait which should immediately disqualify him from closing.
If that's not bad enough, Hoover pairs that gaudy walk rate with a pedestrian strikeout rate of 19.7 percent. Among the 78 relievers who pitched at least 60 innings last year, that 8 percent spread between K rate and walk rate (19.7-11.7) ranks 73rd -- and of the five below Hoover, only Brad Ziegler has ever closed. Ziegler, however, survives with that skill set because he induces ground balls at a ridiculous rate of 72.8 percent. Hoover, with a career GB rate of 32 percent, is actually on the opposite end of the spectrum as an extreme fly-ball pitcher.
It has to be monumentally disappointing to Reds fans that an era of homegrown talent featuring Votto, Cueto, Bruce, Chapman and Homer Bailey didn't win a single playoff series, despite two National League Central titles. The days of expectations high enough to make playoff losses a disappointment are now long gone.
Cincinnati has a legitimate chance to set the franchise record for losses, which is currently held by a 1982 squad that lost 101 games. Vegas knows this, of course, and has set the win total at 69.5. It's not a play for me, but I certainly see more scenarios in which the Reds finish under that total than above it.
2016 projection: 67-95 (fifth, NL Central)
Bet recommendation: Under (lean)