How will Reds sell rebuilding to fans?

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Pity the poor Reds sales department. The team lost 98 games in 2015 and some of the team's most recognizable names may be headed out the door.

Gone already are Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake. Next up? Perhaps Aroldis Chapman, maybe Jay Bruce or even Todd Frazier or Brandon Phillips.

Yet this much is sure, there will be a 2016 season held at Great American Ball Park, and they would like to sell tickets to those games.

That's not exactly an easy sell for the Reds' business side, nor is it for the baseball side. Walt Jocketty, the president of baseball operations, and Dick Williams, the general manager, say they anticipate 2016 being better than 2015, but said it will be at least 2017 or 2018 before the team is back competing at a championship level.

So, how does Jocketty sell 2016 to his bosses and fans?

"I think what we have to do is sell the future – you have to sell the fact that you're going to have some fun, young, aggressive ballplayers," Jocketty said at the MLB General Managers Meetings at the Boca Raton Club & Resort this week. "That's what we're hoping to provide them with this year. It's the sales approach our people are taking, come see the future, this is the young guys that we're going to be building the nucleus of our championship-caliber clubs in the next year or two. You're still going to see good baseball, it's going to be quality baseball, you're just going to have to try to convince that these younger players are going to be fun to watch."

That process started this season when the Reds had a rookie starting pitcher for the final 64 games of the season and went 20-44 over that span.

And those "young, exciting players"?

Eugenio Suarez, acquired in the Alfredo Simon trade with the Tigers last December, was one of the few that fit that description, unless you add Billy Hamilton, who took a large step back offensively in his sophomore season.

But the off-season, with no games to lose, is where hope is built. For the Reds, it will likely be built through trades.

"We'll see when we get through making our deals," Jocketty said about just who will bring more excitement.

Rebuilding, retooling or whatever you want to call it usually means low win totals, lower interest and the risk of alienating a fan base.

The Astros, winners of the American League Wild Card game this season, lost 310 games in general manager Jeff Luhnow's first three seasons before not only winning 86 regular-season games this year and making the playoffs.

"Any time you're going through 162 games and you're losing over 100 of them, we all have the competitive side that doesn't like that," Luhnow said. "I think part of how I rationalize it or lived with it, we had very clear objectives in terms of our pipeline and developing the minor leagues and having success throughout the minor leagues and seeing our prospects continue to develop. I really felt even in the years where we lost 100-plus games, on those metrics we were succeeding and succeeding wildly and we knew it was a matter of time before that came around and helped us with the ultimate metric, which is winning in the major leagues."

The Astros turned it around in Luhnow's fourth year, and the Cubs went to the playoffs in the fourth year of Theo Epstein's reign in Chicago. The Cubs lost in the National League Championship Series in 2015 after losing a total of 286 games in the first three seasons under Epstein.

"I think it's important to know you can turn a franchise around in five years, as opposed to somewhere between five-and-10 years, because fans lose interest," Luhnow said. "And once they start losing interest, they stop buying tickets and they stop watching on TV and then you end up with a gap of half of a generation or longer and it's tough to get those fans back. The fact that we were able to get to the postseason this year re-energized and energized new fans in our market"

Luhnow said he and owner Jim Crane offered to meet with every season ticket holder. They met them in small groups and in town-hall style meetings.

"We encouraged them to ask questions and we shared as much as we could about the plan and allowed them to feel invested, like they were part of it," Luhnow said. "It was a time-consuming strategy, it took a lot of days that normally Jim and I would be doing other things, but we did that."

Jocketty was scheduled to meet with some Reds season ticket holders on Thursday after returning from the GM meetings.

It's a tactic many have had to fill, but the Cubs and Astros have shown it can be done, as have the Pirates. But that's not to say there weren't lean years.

"The messaging was always hard," said Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer. "Once you got past that point where it was clear that it was going to be a dismal season and we're trading guys away, you try to be transparent, like we're trying to build for the future, we're trying to draft well, we're trying to stockpile good players through trades and we think this will work. We tried to sell that plan as best we could."

The Reds are doing that as well, pointing to the two trades that kicked off this rebuilding process. The Reds had four starters entering their final year before free agency and traded two before the season started and two more at the trade deadline. Last December, the Reds traded Mat Latos to the Marlins in exchange for right-hander Anthony DeSclafani and catcher Chad Wallach, and flipped right-hander Alfredo Simon for shortstop Eugenio Suarez and right-hander Jonathan Crawford. With those trades, the Reds got roughly 3.3 more wins combined, according to Baseball-Reference.com, at somewhere around $14 million less in salary.

The Reds also traded Johnny Cueto to the Royals and Mike Leake to the Giants. In those deals, they received four young pitchers – two of whom finished in the majors and the other two are on the team's Top 10 prospects list from Baseball America – and a power bat in Adam Duvall.

Moves of Chapman and others will bring in more talent and create possible payroll flexibility in the future. It's a proven strategy from other teams, but there are no guarantees.

Luhnow, Hoyer and Pittsburgh general manager Neil Huntington each said they'd understand had ownership lost faith after losing seasons. The Pirates lost 105 games after Huntington's third year in charge, yet they stuck with him.

"I count my blessings every day that they decided to stay with us and as a result, we do believe that patience has helped us continue to grow this thing as we move forward," Huntington said.

The Reds aren't alone in rebuilding and trading away players who are seemingly irreplaceable. The Braves traded closer Craig Kimbrel before the 2015 season and on Thursday traded shortstop Andrelton Simmons to the Angels, receiving Anaheim's top two pitching prospects in return.

Braves general manager John Coppolella said his sales pitch is pretty simple.

"How do I sell it? I look at the World Series," Coppolella said. "The Mets traded a Cy Young winner and got back (Noah Syndergaard and Travis d'Arnaud), the Royals traded away a 27-year-old Cy Young winner (Zack Greinke) and got back three critical pieces (Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain and Jake Odorizzi)."

Those deals took some time to pan out – the Dickey deal was before the 2013 season and the Greinke deal was two years earlier. But neither team would go back and undo those trades.

The Royals also used those lean years to stock up on high draft picks, the upside of seasons like the Reds' 98-loss 2015. The Reds will pick second in the upcoming draft, the same spot where Royals picked Alex Gordon in 2005, Mike Moustakas in 2007 and the Cubs took Kris Bryant in 2013.

"The Royals are a really good example, Moustakas is at third base, (Eric) Hosmer is at first base (No. 3 pick in 2008), they traded Greinke to get Cain and Escobar, and Alex Gordon is in left field," Hoyer noted. "There's some really high picks on that team. Having a period of losing and getting a chance to make deals and high picks is a pretty proven way to rebuild."

It is not, however, an easy sell.