If he makes it through September, Bryan Price will have been the manager of the Cincinnati Reds for four seasons. Four long, losing seasons. The stats on Price’s Baseball-Reference page don’t inspire confidence. His Reds teams have had a winning percentage of .424. The fourth-place finish in the division in 2014 will be Price’s high-water mark.
Last September, the Reds took the unusual step of extending Price’s contract for one year, with a 2018 option. The aroma of temporizing wafted all the way up to Findlay Market. The front office, going through its own transition, concluded it wasn’t the right time to install a new manager.