Following an offseason in which the team parted ways with several established, higher-paid players in an apparent strategy to cut payroll and forego competing, Reds fans have not been shy about voicing their displeasure with the direction of their club. Four games into the season, there’s at least one key figure for which these complaints have fallen on deaf ears: team president and COO Phil Castellini.
Castellini, whose father, Robert, is the team’s controlling owner, spoke at Cincinnati’s Opening Day parade ahead of Tuesday’s home opener and was asked about criticism from the fans—including calls for the Castellini family to sell the team—and sent a warning that a change in ownership could mean relocation.
“Well, where are you going to go? Let’s start there,” Castellini said, per Fletcher Keel of WLWT. “Sell the team to who? You want to have this debate? If you want to look at what would you do with this team to be more profitable, make more money, compete more in the current economic system that this game exists, it would be to pick it up and move it somewhere else. So, be careful what you ask for.”
