Reds address fifth biggest organizational problem and fire manager David Bell

The Cincinnati Reds fired coach David Bell on Sunday night, ending his tenure at the helm of the club just a week before the end of his sixth season. The Reds won 409 games under his leadership, lost 455 and saw him ejected approximately 944 times during that time.

Freddie Benavides will reportedly steer the ship for the remainder of the season.

Mark Sheldon of MLB.com was one of many who helped break the news.

I'm happy to get excited about it.

I'd like to think that this is the beginning of a cleanup operation that would allow this struggling franchise to break free from its malaise and gain a fresh outside perspective.

I like to imagine that this was primarily about Bell.

However, none of this flows through these veins.

Bell was unremarkable, in part because the clubs he got were unremarkable. Every time they needed X, Y and Z, the front office in charge gave him T, U and V. The plan, if you read the signs, was for T, U and V to simply play one letter better than they ever had before, and – shock – none of that ever happened with any consistency under Bell.

Jeimer Candelario became a star at the age of 30 and left his mark as the big free agent hitter enough? No

Did the Reds' decision to forego signing an outfielder last winter and instead simply try to integrate an infielder and a few discards into the platoon's regular rotation pay off? No.

Did management ever resort to a short-term strategy to help Bell when their long-term plan resulted in numerous injuries and underperformance? No.

Bell has performed few miracles during his tenure. Few managers, if any, have done that. I don't blame him for that. However, the Reds' front office and their commitment to simply putting together a B team and in the hope that something will happen never came to fruition under Bell (shock), and now it's time they handed their craft over to someone else for a change, if only for posterity.

Speaking of …

My God.lat