The state of the rebuilding Cincinnati Reds

What we've been able to discern so far.You can effectively say that the origins of this Cincinnati Reds rebuild bubbled up almost exactly two full years ago. The 2014 Reds entered the All Star Break off a series victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates, and at 51-44 sat just 1.5 games out of first place in the National League Central. They'd gone 15-7 over their final 22 games of the first half, entering the break on the kind of roll reminiscent of their great regular seasons of the two previous seasons.

That successful run did a solid job of masking the underlying stories, for a time. Joey Votto, who had been struggling through a quad injury for the entire season, hit the DL for good on July…