The Cincinnati Reds have had a fairly quiet offseason coming off a 90-win season in 2013. The Reds lost Shin-Soo Choo and Bronson Arroyo to free agency, signed Skip Schumaker and Brayan Pena, traded Ryan Hanigan for a pitching prospect, and that’s about it.
Reds owner Bob Castellini says the team is interested in being fiscally responsible and has no plans to “blow the franchise up” by overextending itself with offseason additions. But because the Reds didn’t make many moves, that was the storyline reporters focused on during the offseason, and Castellini says that coverage has negatively affected the team’s season ticket sales.
“When you guys start writing right during the caravan about money, the fact that we didn’t add any guys … well, we had all these guys hurt. We knew we wanted to sign Homer. We knew we were going to make some other commitments. It’s not that we didn’t look. It gets written in such a way — ‘Well, the Reds aren’t doing anything’ — that really does affect people buying season tickets,” Castellini told John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The Reds signed starting pitcher Homer Bailey to a six-year, $105 million contract extension in February, but he wasn’t an addition.
“Personally, I get a little ticked off,” Castellini said. “(Chief operating officer) Phil (Castellini) and his guys are out there trying to sell 20-game packages. It hurts when (the media is obsessed with money). It came at the wrong time with the wrong emphasis. That hurts us.”
Reds season ticket sales are up from 2013 but are still short of the team’s 2014 goal of 13,000 to 14,000.
Photo via Twitter/@Reds
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