Seth's 50 Centers

The Cincinnati Reds have fired general manager Wayne Krivsky, not even three full years into his deal.

As expected when he was hired as owner Bob Castellini’s “special adviser”, former St. Louis Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty has taken over for Krivsky.

I didn’t like some of the moves Krivsky made in his stint as the Reds’ GM — the day he traded Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez for what has so far yielded a bunch of pain in the bullpen, I spoke out angrily against the deal, which may still give us something because starting pitcher Daryl Thompson, a holdover from the deal, has torn up AA this year — but his move for Brandon Phillips, the Rule 5 draft of Jared Burton and the signing of Aaron Harang to a multi-year deal proved to be smart.

It’s going to be a tough thing to judge from here on out. Krivsky, along with Dan O’Brien who preceded him, stock piled the farm system and had it ranked third best in baseball going into this season — after nearly two decades of being in the bottom five in the game — but Jocketty’ has a reputation of trading some of his best prospects, including Dan Haren in the deal that netted Mark Mulder a few years ago.

Hopefully it’s a mix of both youth and established talent that gets the job done. In 13 years in St. Louis, Jocketty’s Cards made the playoffs seven times, and won the World Series in 2006. The Reds haven’t been to the “real” playoffs since 1995! They did advance to a one-game playoff for the wild card spot in 1999, but that counted as a regular season game.

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