Nick Krall and the Cincinnati Reds front office: A mid-season grade

Thanks to a blazing hot past few weeks, general manager Nick Krall has the Cincinnati Reds as the talk of baseball. Krall stirred things with his decision to promote heralded rookie Elly De La Cruz, a decision that happened to coincide with the early stages of a 12-game winning streak.

Suddenly the Reds, picked by many to finish on the bottom of the pudding-soft NL Central, led their division.

Since that streak ended, three losses in their next five games have the Reds holding on tight in an effort to keep pace with the Milwaukee Brewers. The Reds have a lot of young offense, and the question around Cincinnati is whether Krall can stir up some pitching to match.

Grading the Cincinnati Reds at the midway point of the 2023 schedule

What follows is a mid-term assessment of Krall’s personnel decisions since the conclusion of the 2022 World Series with a particular focus on the extent to which those decisions have helped or hindered the Reds’ performance.

The standard of measurement in Wins Above Average (WAA), a variant of Wins Above Replacement (WAR). For this purpose, WAA is preferable because unlike WAR, it is zero-based. That means the sum of all the decisions made by Krall impacting the 2023 team gives at least a good estimate of the number of games those moves have improved (or worsened) the team’s status this season.

A team’s front office impacts that team’s standing in five ways. Those five are:

1.       By the impact of players it acquires from other teams via trade, purchase or waiver claim.

2.       By the impact of players it surrenders to other teams in those same transactions.

3.       By the impact of players it signs at free agency or extends.

4.       By the impact of players it loses to free agency or releases.

5.       By the impact of players it promotes from its own farm system.

Here’s how Krall stacks up by those five yardsticks.

Acquired or traded

Probably smartly, Krall has focused on building the Reds internally. That has meant only minimal activity with other teams. Possibly his most significant move in this area doesn’t count toward his 2023 score because it occurred during the 2022 season.

At the August 2 trade deadline, Krall sent Tyler Mahle to the Twins in exchange for three minor leaguers. He immediately called up one of them, infielder Spencer Steer, and Steer has been a revelation. Dividing time between first base, third base and the outfield, Steer is hitting .279 with 12 homers and 46 RBI.

As noted above, because Steer was a 2022 acquisition who saw major league time, he doesn’t count against Krall’s 2023 score. But because he played so little last year, he could count in the NL Rookie of the Year race, for which he is eligible.

Krall landed four players who do count toward his rating, and sadly for him three currently are carrying negative WAA scores. The hardest to take is veteran Kevin Newman (-1.2), who came over from Pittsburgh in November.

The outlier is outfielder Will Benson, obtained in a deal with Cleveland last winter. Benson started slowly, but has found more playing time as both he and the Reds have heated up. He’s got his average up to .278 in 35 games and his WAA recently turned positive at +0.1.

Only four players left the Reds orbit in deals with other teams, the biggest names being pitcher Chase Anderson and infielder Kyle Farmer. Neither is likely to be missed.

Farm system

No team in baseball has featured a more heralded rookie class this season than Krall’s Reds. De La Cruz has been the hot name since his June 6 call-up. He’s hitting .301 with good power and nine steals. The defensive numbers are unremarkable, but they’re also sparse. So far it adds up to a 0.3 WAA, which doesn’t sound like much until you consider that he’s had fewer than 90 plate appearances.

For volume, consider Matt McLain, who was the shortstop until De La Cruz arrived. They’re both now officially “infielders.” McLain is batting .316. His defensive numbers, too, are not sensational, but his 1.2 WAA is tied for third-best on the team.

One of the two guys ahead of him is Andrew Abbott (+1.6). Debuting in early June, Abbott has made five starts, compiling a 1.21 ERA and a 4-0 record.

McLain, De La Cruz and Abbott are the three-pronged core of a class of seven system products used by Krall to greater or lesser extents this year.

This rookie class is so far rivaling the 2021 Reds group, one that featured infielder Jonathan India and catcher Tyler Stephenson. Both are now integral parts of the rising Reds team.

Overall grade

The system products are the obvious engines to Cincinnati’s surprising rise to contention. That shows up in the data on Krall as well; his trades and free agent signings both have stacked up as lackluster.

Here’s the first half report card on the Krall front office. Note that grades for players departing the organization are based on the reverse of those players’ WAAs with their new teams.

Mode                    WAA                   Grade

Acquired              -1.9                        D

Traded                    0.0                        C

Signed                  -0.8                        C

FA Lost                 -0.1                        C

Rookies                +2.3                       B

Overall                 -0.3                        C

Keep in mind that this is only a mid-term report. Kids are especially volatile, so it’s possible for Krall’s season-ending grade to look much better or much worse. That may depend on what if anything he can do to patch the pitching problems.

Those problems are serious. Despite a winning record, the Reds have been outscored by 16 runs. The Reds to date are fifth in runs per game and OPS, but 14th in ERA and runs allowed per game.

They have already played 18 games decided by five runs or more, and they’re record in those 18 is 6-12. It’s difficult to win with the league’s second worst pitching staff.