Contracts for the New Core: Manny Machado | Jordan Barhorst

In today’s Contracts for the New Core post, we’re going to shake things up a bit by talking about a player not currently in the Red’s organization. After all, most teams who win the World Series do so after making some pretty big moves. While I don’t think it’d be impossible to build a championship team without signing or trading for any big names, the likelihood of it happening is slim.

So, when I took a look at the free agent market for the 2018-2019 offseason, I tried to match up the strengths of the market versus the weaknesses of the current Reds team. What the team is missing is a second (or third, depending on your opinion of Eugenio Suarez) bonafide offensive star to play alongside…