After the Reds fired Bryan Price on Thursday after four bad seasons and a horrible start to a fifth, I settled on one thought: Dexter Fowler Jersey The Reds seem like a troubled franchise.So let's talk about the trouble ofa team that has had streaks of greatne s and relevancybut now seems stuck in the Bad Place.

Here's an ugly truth: Cincinnati hasn't had a winning season since 2013.Here's an uglier truth: Since winning the 1990 World Series, the Reds have had eight winning seasons in 27 years. And here's perhaps the ugliest truth: Barring major changes, there's no real reason to believe the trend will stop.

Reds to Price's firing was a mix of joy, anger and frustration all rolled together in a blob of emotion common among fan bases sick of losing.

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But the Reds' status as a lost franchise isnotsolely (if much at all) the fault Jose Martinez Jersey of Price or any of the 10 managers who've helmed the team over thepast 28 seasons. It's more about a franchise that has either failed to properly develop good players, failed to keep the good players it doeshave, or failed to get the most from good rosterswhen the right ingredients exist. As is usually the case with teams that fail to consistently win, the answer is some combination of the three.

The current big-league Reds are 3-15 and already nine games out of first place. They've scored the fourth-fewest runs in baseball and have the sixth-lowest on-base percentage. They're tied with the Rangers for the most runs allowed and have the second-highest team ERA (5.42). While Joey Votto remains their best player and alsocriminally underrated, he's started slowly. The rest of the lineup is spotty, and the pitching staff is poor. In other words, it Orlando Cepeda Jersey 's not a good time to be a Reds fan again.

It's a sad state for a franchise that has at various points in its history been a sociated with consistentsucce s. The pinnacle, of course, was the Big Red Machine and its back-to-back titles in 1975 and 1976, which was part of a greater run of succe s that saw the Reds claim nine winning seasons,five division titles and four NLpennants. Butthe '80s also saw sustained, if modest, succe s, with six winning seasons.It was a similar story in the '90s five winning seasons (plus one .500 season), and that1990 championship.

Since then? It's been mostly crickets and tumbleweeds in the Queen City. The Reds have managed justfour winning seasons since 2000,with the current season unlikely to boost that total. The short-term future isn't Tyler O'Neill Jersey especially rosy, either.

The Reds' current farm system ranks somewhere in the bottom of the top 10, according to most listings. While having, say, the No. 8 farm system in the majors may sound like a good place to be, it's really not high enough to make much difference in the foreseeable future. Though Nick Senzel should make an impact this season, other prospects such asHunter Greene and Taylor Trammell, though promising, aren't anywhere near ready. And none of the others knocking on MLB's door look to be the kind of difference-makers a team needs to turn things around quickly.

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A lack of debut-ready prospectsleaves trades and free-agent signings as the best ways to bring about change. But, as we've seen in recent years, the Reds Red Schoendienst Jersey aren't exactly in acquisition mode. Their 2018 payroll of $101.2 million ranks , just about $3 million ahead of the lowly Marlins. That's the company the Reds currently keepas they pre s on with a seemingly unending rebuild.

If the team has a plan, it's sure been hard to tell. Stan Musial Jersey Not having a viable plan is a bad way to attract managers who are willing to take a ship that'sbadly off course andsteer it in the right direction. But when a ship has no tools, no steering wheel and no propellers, it tends to drift with the tide.

Bryan Price, his flaws notwithstanding, was helple s tosave it, so the Reds threw himoverboard. If nothing changes, the next manager'sfocus will be the arrangementof deck chairs.