Free Link to Mets360: The confusing roles of Jose Butto and Joey Lucchesi in the 2023 collapse

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By Brian Joura

In 1970, the Reds hired a new manager and went on to win 102 games and the future looked bright. But things fell apart for the team in 1971 and they finished under .500 for the season. Sound familiar? It’s a nice parallel for the 2022-2023 Mets. What happened to the Reds in 1972? Well, they rebounded to win 95 games. So, what the heck happened in ’71?

Johnny Bench and Tony Perez did not match their 1970 production. Bobby Tolan got hurt in the offseason playing basketball and missed the entire season. Dave Concepcion put up a 44 OPS+. On the pitching side, three starters who combined for 95 starts and went 48-25 in ’70 combined for 58 starts and posted a 13-30 record in ’71.

The reasons are pretty clear for anyone who looks at the Reds’ team pages on Baseball-Reference for those two seasons. You wouldn’t know that Tolan missed the year because of a basketball injury but everything else was there for all to see 50-something years later. A Reds fan at the time could fill you in on other details – specifically injuries to pitchers – but you didn’t have to be there to get a pretty good picture of what went down.

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