David Bell’s time in Cincinnati is over.
The Reds officially fired their longtime manager after six seasons on Sunday night, shortly after the team’s 2-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Reds have just five games left in the 2024 season, and they are expected to miss playoffs for fourth straight year and Bell’s fifth time in six seasons with the team.
“David has brought the kind of stability we needed to our locker room over the past few seasons,” Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall said in a statement. “We felt change was necessary to move the team forward in the major leagues. We haven’t had the success we hoped for and we need to start focusing on 2025.”
Bell, 52, was first hired ahead of the 2019 campaign and led the franchise to the playoffs in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, though they were eliminated in the wild-card round that year. It was the only playoff berth the organization had had in more than a decade.
Bell finished his career with a 409-455 record as manager of the Reds, marking his first Major League Baseball managerial stint of his career. He finished above .500 twice, though his best campaign was an 83-79 finish in 2021, when they missed the playoffs.
The Reds are currently 76-81 with five games remaining in the regular season. They sit in fourth place in the National League Central and are 13.5 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers, who already won the division. They will conclude the regular season this week with a two-game series against the Cleveland Guardians and a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs. Replacement manager Freddie Benavides will lead the team the rest of the way.
