MILWAUKEE - Terry Francona’s future in Cincinnati is hardly looking like a true contract-year situation.
The Reds manager has one guaranteed season left on the three-year deal he signed with the club, along with a team option for 2028. But with the front office already looking ahead and comfortable with where things stand, the idea of Francona entering next season as a lame duck seems far less important than the relationship he has built with the people who hired him.
Team president Nick Krall made it clear he doesn’t see the need to rush into anything just to change the optics.
“I don’t think it’s a lame-duck status for a guy like that,” Krall said. “I also think we’ll sit down and have conversations with where he is and how he’s feeling and what he wants to do.
“I love working with the guy, and I couldn’t see myself working with somebody else in that role.”
That kind of trust is at the center of Francona’s place in the organization. The Reds brought him out of retirement two years ago next month, and the conversation now is less about contract mechanics than it is about whether he wants to keep going and how his health holds up.
Health helped push Francona toward retirement after the 2023 season in Cleveland. Since then, the 67-year-old has kept himself in shape by swimming daily, and he has looked energetic across his two seasons in Cincinnati, even with the grind of this year.
Francona said the bond he feels with the Reds has only grown stronger.
“There’s a honeymoon period whenever you go somewhere. That’s always the case,” Francona said. “But when you feel stronger about people after you’ve been there for a while, and after things haven’t gone necessarily like you want them to, that’s, to me, the biggest compliment I can give them.
“I care about them. I respect them.
They look out for me,” he added. “If anything, I feel like I want to try to run through a wall for them.
I can’t do it. But I’d try.”
For the Reds, that kind of fit is difficult to replace. Krall said the lines of communication with Francona stay open and honest, even when the conversations get difficult.
“He’s been really great to work with,” Krall said. “We have tough conversations.
But we can open and honestly have those conversations. And I feel good about the conversations we have.”
Francona echoed that sense of mutual respect, saying the things he sees away from the public eye matter just as much as anything on the field.
“There’s a lot of things that I see (out of the public eye) that I respect and appreciate. I see how much they care and how they treat people. And I appreciate it.”
Francona’s résumé only adds to the case that Cincinnati has something special here. He picked up his 2,103rd managerial win when the Reds beat the Brewers 4-3 on Sunday (Sept. 13), moving him to 11th on the all-time wins list. His .535 career winning percentage stacks up with the game’s best, and everyone ahead of him on the wins list is already in the Hall of Fame except Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker, who are both expected to get there as well.
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