Move to ax Krivsky is no surprise

Walt Jocketty (left) takes over a Reds team that hasn't made the playoffs since 1995. AP

The timing was said to be the surprise in the early firing of Wayne Krivsky as Reds GM on Wednesday. But really, it shouldn't have been such a shock. Cincinnati had just won two of three games to get to 9-12, and Reds owner Bob Castellini surely knew it would be harder to justify making the move if his club got to .500, even with his favored Walt Jocketty waiting for the job since he joined the team in January.

Really, Jocketty's appointment as GM has been almost a foregone conclusion since he came aboard as special adviser (a.k.a. GM-in-waiting). Since then, Jocketty has been working hand-in-hand with Castellini, a limited partner with the Cardinals when Jocketty won six division titles as their GM.

There can be no quibble with the new appointment, a former World Series winner who happens to be a two-time Executive of the Year. But in 27 months at the helm, Castellini has shown a distinct tendency toward impetuousness, continuing a foolhardy Reds trend that began before he arrived. Jocketty becomes the Reds' fourth GM in six years. Just as bad, the strategically-challenged Dusty Baker is the fifth manager in that span, which goes back well before the Castellini era began in January, 2006.

Castellini, who rang himself up for his "impatience'' upon making the change Wednesday, noted that it wouldn't be fair to judge Krivsky by individual transactions. Truth be told, if player moves were the only standard, he'd be forced to keep Krivsky.

The deposed GM's ledger wasn't half bad. He picked up all-around talent Brandon Phillips for minor-league pitcher Jeff Stevens, traded one-dimensional disappointment Wily Mo Pena for All-Star pitcher Bronson Arroyo, signed Scott Hatteberg to a cost-effective $750,000 deal and selected via the Rule V draft the ultra-talented reclamation project Josh Hamilton, whom he later traded for valuable young starter Edinson Volquez.

Some will point to the ill-advised $975,00 for just-designated utility man Juan Castro, $6 million-plus over two years for the steroid-aided 40-year-old Mike Stanton (who was released on the eve of the season) and a $3 million for scrappy backup outfielder Ryan Freel. But taken together, that still amounts to small potatoes.

The last-ditch $3 million spring contract for the .206-hitting Corey Patterson (who also has a career .297 on-base percentage) when top prospect Jay Bruce may be close to ready was ill-advised, but the strong suspicion is Patterson was Baker's idea since Patterson had played for Baker on the Cubs. In fact, Baker's hiring itself may have been instigated by Castellini, and the manager got a robust $11 million over three years following a Cubs tenure that was most memorable for Steve Bartman and the high pitch counts of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood. Baker's magic, obviously evident back in his San Francisco days, could well be wearing thin.

Krivsky, who didn't return a phone call, was said to be surprised at his ouster. And indeed, it is unusual to change general managers only 21 games into a season, especially when the team was winning exactly the same percentage of games as it did a year ago (43 percent). But this move was far from shocking.

Krivsky got his job at age 51 after serving the Twins ably as an assistant GM, and Castellini probably never got over the idea he was doing Krivsky a favor by elevating him to such a plum position. The erudite, Duke-educated Krivsky had a rep for squeezing nickels in his old role (perhaps that was a reflection of the Twins' budget) but seemed to do a pretty solid job in Cincinnati when given the chance, beyond taking the risky plunge to do a deal with Nationals GM Jim Bowden, one of his predecessors in Cincinnati, who shipped rookie GM Krivsky multiple injured relievers in a bad eight-player trade halfway through the 2006 season. Some moves made lately, including the Patterson signing and quite likely the Baker hiring as well, indicated Krivsky may no longer have been calling all the shots, anyway.

The problem with the Reds, as it was before Krivsky got there, is that the whole never equaled the sum of its parts. And that remains true today. At this point, Ken Griffey's legacy will be his grace, swing and high home-run total (he hit No. 597 in the Reds' 9-3 defeat in their first game of the Jocketty regime); but it surely won't be winning. And their other marquee man, Adam Dunn, is a flat-out bust in the clutch, something the Reds understand intimately. Dunn, a career .221 hitter with runners in scoring position, is 2-for-13 this year. The whole team has a penchant for coming up small, with its .095 batting average in bases-loaded situations.

Krivsky leaves a club with decent talent. Rising pitching sensation Johnny Cueto finally gives depth to a rotation that starts with underrated Aaron Harang and Arroyo, a top closer in $46-million import Francisco Cordero, decent lineup balance and big-time prospects such as Bruce and hard-throwing pitcher Homer Bailey. But it's also a club of inveterate underachievement, and Jocketty and Baker have their hands full changing that trend.