Here's a plan for the Cincinnati Reds to consider in free agency: Keep the band together

John Fay | Cincinnati Enquirer

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We’re less than two weeks from the trade deadline, so things will be heating up. Here’s a plan that may or may not be considered down at 100 Joe Nuxhall Way:

“Let’s keep the band together.”

By that, I mean, stand pat. Don’t trade Matt Harvey. Don’t trade Raisel Iglesias. Don’t trade Adam Duvall. Don’t trade Billy Hamilton. Don’t trade Scooter Gennett.

I say that knowing that mathematically it is very difficult for the Cincinnati Reds even to get back in the playoff race – much less play into October. The Reds are 10 games out of the Wild Card with seven teams to jump over with 66 games to play.

But there may be some merit in keeping this team together and trying to win for the rest of the year. (If the Reds do that and do win, it pretty much assures Jim Riggleman of getting the permanent gig).

I fully understand that trading Harvey is the wise thing to do. He’s a free agent. Chances of him re-signing are limited. And he’d bring a decent return.

So why keep him and the others mentioned above?

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First, the recent surge has really played well with the fans, according to my unscientific findings. “The Reds are really fun to watch,” is what I keep hearing over and over again.

This is from the same people who had given up in May. But when you go into the All-Star Break on a 21-10 roll, people take notice. It’s not only that the Reds are winning, it's how they’re winning.

Lots of offense.

Lots of comebacks.

Lots of players contributing.

The second reason to consider trying to win for the rest of the year is to keep that winning feeling going among the players. The Reds haven’t sniffed a winning season in any of the last four years.

That means only two players on the current active roster – Joey Votto and Billy Hamilton – have ever played on a winning Reds team. I thought about that last week when I was writing about Adam Dunn. Dunn played for the Reds for eight years. The team never won in that span.

When you lose every year, you get used to it. It becomes acceptable, and that’s a hard cycle to break. The Reds went nine years without a winning season until the cycle was broken in 2010.

Ending the current streak at four losing seasons is within reach because of the good play over nearly three months. The Reds are 40-35 since their 3-18 start. That’s nearly a half-season of good, solid baseball – a start to breaking the losing cycle.

The other thing that’s shown is the Reds aren’t that far away. You could bring back the offense intact for 2019 and be confident that they’d score enough runs to win.

The Reds are third in the National League in runs, second in on-base percentage (.341) and fourth in on-base plus slugging (.748). When you have Joey Votto, Gennett and Eugenio Suárez in the middle, the rest of the lineup falls in order fairly easily.

The backend of the bullpen – Iglesias, Jared Hughes, David Hernandez, Michael Lorenzen and Amir Garrett – have all been excellent. No reason to think they won’t be again in ’19.

As always, the starting pitching is the question. When the Reds added Harvey and Anthony DeSclafani and subtracted Homer Bailey and Brandon Finnegan, the good, current roll got going. But starting pitching will have to be addressed in the offseason. Of course, the Reds could try to address that at the trade deadline.

And, again, that’s what conventional wisdom says to do.

But, while trading Harvey, Iglesias and whoever makes sense long-term, there’s little question that it’s going to make the Reds a worse team for the rest of 2018.

It’s impossible to quantify the effect of a good finish over a bad one. And the Reds would be foolish not to listen to offers on Harvey and Co.

But now that you’ve got the fans' attention back, it’s worth considering trying to keep and keep winning.