Reds curtain closing, but. . .

Their next (offseason) act has to be equally compelling

Welcome back to the Thursday Free-For-All, in which my gratitude to youse Mobsters comes in the form of a full no-charge TML. Thank you for everyone’s support.

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The end of the baseball season is always a bummer for melancholia-prone dopes like me. No baseball foreshadows no cigars on the porch, no Cowboy, no Keystone under the stars. Only the annual foreboding encouraged by the shrinking presence of the sun.

I don’t like fall because I know what comes next. I hate winter like three-putts. I once knew a well-known national baseball scribe who cried at the end of each World Series. I used to think that reaction was somewhat, well, extreme. Maybe not so much these days.

Baseball is a state of mind. Much of it has little to do, directly, with the games themselves. Since I dumped My Pirates Who Suck five or so years ago, I have no direct rooting interest. No, the play isn’t necessarily the thing. The concept is, and the baseball-as summer concept never fails.

On Sunday in St. Louis, when the ‘23 Reds very likely close the curtain on what has been their best season in a decade (and most compelling campaign in more than 30 years), I’ll be in Mournful Mode. Watching football is a decent alternative. But I’m not allowed to smoke inside. From the couch, I can’t see the stars.

Football is a once-a-week Big Deal. As such it is often as much hype as substance. We need something to fill the six-day vacuum. Baseball’s constancy is far more comforting.

Judging the ‘23 Reds is simple. They gave us 180 days of unexpected pleasure. They were a delightful bunch whose genuine enthusiasm for the game and each other awakened what had become a dangerously doze-y fan base. Remember in April and May, when FC Cincinnati was outdrawing the Reds?

If I were a fan, I’d have few complaints about this year. Nick Krall, David Bell, Spencer Steer, Matt McLain, TJ Friedl. . .

. . . The eruption of Mt. De La Cruz, which single-handedly resurrected baseball passion here. . .

. . . and the sweet sadness of truth, in the form of Joey Votto, and the send-off he received at the Small Park last weekend. It’s possible in baseball to feel young when you’re not. It’s not possible to play young when you’re not. Votto, for me, put the encouraging season in perspective.

Hot Stove isn’t much of an alternative, but it’s what we’ve got. So let’s get on with it, and with what I really wanted to discuss today, before what Bob Castellini calls my “black Irish’’ kicked in.

Now, then. . .

A REDS ROAD MAP? There is this fascinating piece on Yahoo! this AM, on the way the juggernaut Atlanta Braves have been assembled. The idea: The front office shrewdly used local ties and affections to help lock up several Southeast-US-born players. Two other mainstay stars — Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuna Jr. — traded the potential for mega-richness for long-term security in an organization poised to win a lot for a long time.

The Point here: Wonder as much this offseason if the Reds will try to do likewise, on a smaller scale. Make that a focus of your curiosity, not whom The Club should pursue in free agency. Yahoo:

The Braves’ spate of extensions — seven in total, covering 53 seasons worth $735 million at a minimum or 63 years worth $895 million if all options are exercised — represent an incredible coup for the organization. The best team in baseball has assured itself cost certainty and a core of players capable of winning more than 100 games for seasons to come.

As we’ve written before, Atlanta's top eight position players by fWAR — Acuña, Olson, Riley, Murphy, Harris, Albies, Orlando Arcia and Marcell Ozuna — are signed through at least 2025, and only Ozuna is over 30 years old. The top six are signed through at least 2027. Strider, the team’s best pitcher and a Cy Young contender down the stretch, is 24 years old and signed through 2029.

The Braves targeted players whose agents worked in “small shops,’’ ie, not the multi-national corporations embodied by Scott Boras. These smaller agencies are more mindful of having their big-ticket players poached and thus more open to team-friendly contracts for their clients. Yahoo:

In 2019, Acuña and Albies agreed to contracts that immediately looked like gross underpayments. Acuña’s eight-year, $100 million extension that maxes out with club options at 10 years, $134 million made him the youngest player to sign a nine-figure deal, but it now represents a steal.

Albies’ deal was far more egregious; including team options, the Braves bought nine years of his services for a mere $45 million.

In recent years, the Braves have rarely employed players represented by Scott Boras, baseball’s super-agent to the stars whose players tend to test free agency. No one on their current 40-man roster is represented by BorasCorp.

This is music to The Big Man’s ears.

Do the Reds focus on taking care of their own? Incredibly, Hunter Greene is the only player currently on the roster who has a guaranteed contract for 2024. Does ownership make a big run at locking up, say, Nick Lodolo and Graham Ashcraft?

What are the chances they try to make Spencer Steer a multi-year Red? Matt McLain? (Eh, maybe not. McLain is a Boras guy.)

You might look at Greene’s deal — 6 years, $53 mil, signed in June — and cringe. Greene has been wonderful sometimes and woeful other times. But if he delivers on the potential we’ve all seen. . .

This is where Krall and his lieutenants have to get it right. It’s more important than any trades they might make. Can they project accurately the futures of the fresh faces they have now?

Is it too soon even to talk about? Lodolo, De La Cruz, Marte, Benson. All are under team control for several years. Do the Reds wait and see? Caution could cost them money.

Almost every kid they promoted to The Show this year panned out. Can Krall & Co. have similar success projecting futures?

IT WAS 82 YEARS AGO TODAY that Ted Williams ended the year with a .406 batting average. The most remarkable pieces of that singular achievement:

He went into the final day of the season — a doubleheader — hitting .39955. It would have counted as .400 if he'd sat out. Williams refused. He went 6-for-8 in the doubleheader. He also finished the season striking out just 27 times.

And he finished 2nd in the balloting for AL MVP, to Joe DiMaggio.

I’M A GOLF GEEK, SO HUMOR ME. . . The Ryder Cup starts tomorrow in that golfing hotbed of Rome, Italy. On paper, the US team should win. Only the Yanks haven’t won a Cup on foreign soil since 1993.

The Euro team is top-heavy with stars — McIlroy, Rahm, Hovland, all in the top 4 in the world golf rankings. The Americans have more depth. AP:

The 12 U.S. players have won a combined 85 times on the PGA Tour, which players from both sides would agree is the most competitive tour in the world. European team members have won 59 times on the PGA Tour; McIlroy has 24 of those victories.

Players on the U.S. team have combined to win 15 majors, including five of the past eight and three of the four this past season.

Even if you’re the most casual golf fan, the Ryder Cup is compelling theatre and a very good look at a player’s insides. I think the US will end the 30-year drought across the pond. But it won’t be as easy as the stats make it seem.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . The Reds aren’t really, quite sincerely dead, but it’s close. Do it or die, you might say. My favorite tune from an underappreciated Southern band.