Redleg Trade Review: Ken Raffensberger and Gus Bell

After winning the World Championship in 1940, the Reds remained competitive under manager Bill McKechnie through 1944. McKechnie stressed infield defense, and defense has been proven to be pretty much a young man’s game as quickness is one of the first of the major skills to fade. In 1940, the Reds’ positional age averaged 28.8 and their pitchers’ average age was 29.6 By 1944, the positional ages had increased to 30.4 and their pitchers had increased to 31.7. The Reds went into a steep decline, and the Reds faded from 89-65 in 1944 to an awful 61-93 in 1945, a 28 game drop. The Reds had a sub-.500 record through 1955. The Reds didn’t react quickly enough to the decline of their players. They didn’t make a lot of bad deals during this time, it’s just that nothing came of the deals they made…a better explanation may be they didn’t go after the right players when it came to making deals. They did sign Ted Kluszewski and Ewell Black...