Reds president Phil Castellini rankles some with comments on team at Reds supporters club lunch

Reds president Phil Castellini, less than a year shy of making his infamous Opening Day comments, spoke to a Reds supporters club on Saturday saying the Reds operate like a “nonprofit,” calling baseball an “industry in crisis,” and bemoaning the state of a sport that has an increased number of teams out of contention on Opening Day.

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Castellini and his father, team CEO Bob Castellini, have been the subject of many fans’ ire online since they started dismantling the team that made it to the playoffs in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season.

Last Opening Day, Castellini alienated Reds fans by asking “where you gonna go?” in response to the team trading off some of its biggest names before the season started. On the team’s flagship radio station before the home opener, Castellini said the way to make the team more profitable and compete, “would be to pick it up and move it somewhere else, so be careful what you wish for.” Castellini doubled down on his comments in a pregame TV interview, but released a statement apologizing for his words after the game.

Saturday, Castellini was the speaker at the Rosie Reds luncheon. The Rosie Reds is a philanthropic and social organization formed in 1964 amid rumors that owner Bill DeWitt wanted to move the team to San Diego. The group was founded as a “women’s only group” (but hasn’t been only women since 1967) and the name Rosie was an acronym for “Rooters Organized to Stimulate Interest and Enthusiasm” in the Reds.

Castellini started his remarks by stating that he’d only learned recently that “Rosie” was an acronym and asked if others knew that. The members groaned and said they did.

pic.twitter.com/itZlUKF87P

— table 28 (@Kelly_Gretchen) January 14, 2023

It didn’t seem to get better from there.

Reached Sunday, Karen Forgus, Reds senior vice president of business operations, declined comment. Major League Baseball also declined comment.

Although it was a members-only event, Castellini’s remarks were tweeted by several people in attendance.

Among his remarks was that the ownership group ran the team like a “nonprofit.” Rosie Reds president Sara Mathews said that was just part of the statement, noting that she believed the overall message was that Castellini meant the team put any profits back into the team. Others did not take that away from the comment.

“This team operates as a non-profit.”
-Phil Castellini

🫤 #RosieLunch2023

— ☃️❄️Brooke🥂🍾 (@HawkeyeBrooke) January 14, 2023

“He did open up that talk asserting that the Reds were a nonprofit organization,” said Tracey Johnson, a season ticket holder and Rosie Reds member. “I’ve worked for 501(c)(3)s and I was appalled, to say the least. It went down from there. He was very much trying to really back up, ‘hey, we’re trying and the system is fixed against us.’”

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Castellini bemoaned guaranteed contracts in the game, asking the group, “is anyone here paid to not do their job?”

Suzana Davis, a Rosie Reds board member who was in attendance on Saturday, said she believed Castellini’s remark about guaranteed contracts to be “tongue-in-cheek” and that overall his comments were misconstrued by those on social media.

Castellini also called Major League Baseball a business “in crisis,” noting the economic discrepancy between franchises due to individual television deals among other factors. Castellini brought a slide show, including a slide that declared there had been a 75 percent increase since 2019 in teams that are out of contention on Opening Day. He used FanGraphs’ playoff probability for that definition: his criteria included teams listed as having a 25 percent chance or less of reaching the playoffs when the season begins.

Wooooo? pic.twitter.com/JMEXDXPDs2

— Amy (@amyeditress) January 14, 2023

The Reds were one of those teams in 2022 and the expectation is they will be once again in 2023.

For now, Castellini said the team’s goal was “progress” from 2022.

Guys, we are going to lose less than 100. “Progress” pic.twitter.com/Uhos4ohtfA

— table 28 (@Kelly_Gretchen) January 14, 2023

According to Johnson, Castellini celebrated the team’s farm system and noted the team had promising prospects who would one day be great Reds — and then joked then they’d be ex-Reds, saying, Johnson recalled, “of course we’re going to lose them.”

Johnson said Castellini also bemoaned the economics of the game and what he saw as its inequities, including new rules that will allow teams to sell advertising rights on uniforms. While that is, in theory, a revenue generator, it’s uneven in his mind, as he explained the Reds received $5 million for their advertising space while the Red Sox received $17 million.

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“It was awful. The biggest part of his presentation was his analysis of where the game’s going, which is basically the regional sports networks are going to fold and it’s not sustainable,” Johnson said. “He was kind of acting like that was new information. And he said in the next two years there’s going to be the opportunity for the league to take back those rights.”

Mathews said she was surprised when she saw video, photos and tweets of Castellini’s comments.

“Overall, the feeling I got in the room was positive,” Mathews said. “I had quite a few people come up to me and say they actually appreciated the presentation. And even based on the Q&A (it was positive).”

Mathews said she felt the comments online were limited to a small group of attendees. Several people who tweeted from the event declined to comment or did not respond to interview requests.

Johnson said most at her table were unhappy with the comments and some of her members decided not to attend when Castellini was announced as the keynote speaker.

“It was a hot mess of a talk,” Johnson said. “I don’t know how they could portray it any other way.”

Castellini declined to comment when reached regarding the event.

The Reds lost 100 games in 2022, just the second time in franchise history the team reached that dubious milestone. Before the lockout following the 2021 season, the Reds traded Tucker Barnhart, didn’t tender a contract to Wade Miley and outfielder Nick Castellanos opted out of his contract. The Reds were the only team not to make a big-league signing before the lockout. After the lockout, the team traded away former All-Stars Sonny Gray, Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suárez, as well as reliever Amir Garrett. The Reds opened the season 3-22 and lost 11 straight games after Castellini’s comments.

At the trade deadline, the Reds traded several veteran players, including pitchers Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle, as well as Brandon Drury, Tyler Naquin and Tommy Pham. General manager Nick Krall was lauded for his moves throughout baseball, getting what was seen as impressive returns for the players traded. But it led to an inexperienced team, coupled with injuries to key players such as Joey Votto, Tyler Stephenson and Mike Moustakas.

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Moustakas, owed $22 million for the final year of his four-year, $64 million contract, was designated for assignment and released. Moustakas was the last remaining player from the team’s spending spree following the 2019 season. Then-president of baseball operations Dick Williams signed Moustakas, along with Castellanos, Miley, reliever Pedro Strop and outfielder Shogo Akiyama. Strop didn’t last long, Castellanos opted for free agency and a $100 million deal with the Phillies following the 2021 season, Miley was non-tendered and the Reds bought out the final season of Akiyama’s contract in the spring.

Castellini’s Opening Day comments and his “where you gonna go?” rhetorical question were punchlines throughout the season as the team’s attendance dropped to 1,387,947 over 79 home dates. Excluding the pandemic season of 2020, it was the lowest attendance total in the 19-year history of Great American Ball Park and the lowest overall since 1984. It was the fifth-lowest attendance total in a full season since the team moved from Crosley Field in 1970. The Reds drew even fewer fans than they did in 2021, when there were attendance restrictions because of COVID-19.

The Rosie Reds, Mathews noted, had 150 more members in 2022 than in 2021 and she said membership numbers are trending in a similar direction for 2023. The Rosie Reds also support youth baseball and softball among other philanthropic efforts.

Meeting with the Rosie Reds was a rare speaking appearance for Castellini since the Opening Day fiasco. Neither he nor his father took questions at RedsFest. Bob Castellini has often participated in fans’ Q&As during the team’s annual fan festival held every December. This year, ownership was noticeably absent from the programming.

(Photo of Castellini: John Minchillo / Associated Press)

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