Joel Sherman of MLB Network and the New York Post says that the Cincinnati Reds are looking to hire a “face of the franchise” type of manager. It’s a small line about the managerial search in Cincinnati, but let’s dive into the tweet itself.

#Reds are said to be looking more for face of franchise type as manager so Girardi might make more sense there or John Farrell. Both are championship managers who have interviewed with Cincy. — Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) October 12, 2018

As noted, Joel Sherman writes for the New York Post. Joe Girardi last managed for the New York Yankees. He interviewed today with the Texas Rangers for their managerial position. Sherman’s tweet about Girardi making more sense there is in regards to the Rangers or Reds job. Same for John Farrell, in terms of being a “face” that people will recognize.

Let me start this off by saying that I, and you, should not care one ounce if we know the manager that is hired from John the barber while walking down the street. If several of the guys that the Reds have interviewed walked into my office right now, I’d have no clue who they were. And the fact that I wouldn’t recognize them doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Cincinnati Reds hire THE RIGHT GUY for the job. I don’t care if that is Joe Girardi or David Bell or “mystery candidate”.

The second point that I want to make is one that Lance McAlister made on twitter about 20 minutes ago. This seems like something that the owner says, and not someone in the front office that isn’t the owner would say. It’s something that would be used in marketing. And we’ve seen it suggested time and time again that Bob Castellini makes moves that he thinks the fans will buy tickets for. That doesn’t last very long unless the product on the field matches up.

Hiring a manager that Joe Redsfan knows isn’t going to get him to buy more tickets after April if the team isn’t playing well, if it gets him to buy tickets at all. You can’t shine up terrible baseball with lipstick. Maybe if this were still 2015 and there was hope that the magic from 2010-2013 could return because most of the players had shown themselves to be very successful that would work. But 2015-2018 happened. The fans have seen 90+ losses for four straight seasons. They aren’t coming back because of a mangerial hire. They will come back when the team shows that they not only are winning, but look like they will continue to win.

It’s certainly possible that a “face of the franchise” manager IS the right hire. And if that’s the case, great. But with all of the things we seem to hear about Bob Castellini and his input on baseball decisions, this should be a bit concerning. There’s a chance that Joel Sherman simply isn’t correct here. There’s a chance that he is and I, and many others, are simply reading into the quote in the very wrong way. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t immediately jump to my mind that this was another case where the owner seems to have a different idea than the baseball people when it comes to baseball moves.