I wrote, not that long ago, that the corner infield and designated hitter spots weren’t being taken as seriously as the should be in terms of places the Cincinnati Reds should be looking to improve. Most of the focus has landed on the outfield. But I’m also aware that last year is unlikely to repeat itself. Each year is always different, you know. So I thought it might be an interesting exercise to take the a set of currently available projections for both current Reds players and free agents and see where Cincinnati could target money to get the best chance of significant improvement.
Okay, off we go.
For this exercise, I’m using the Steamer 600 projections which puts everyone on a level field for playing time. Yes, I know projections are imperfect and so forth. We’re all imperfect. Projections, are, at least, dispassionate. Also, I think it’s important to remember that defense matters both ways. With the exception of third base and center field, all the positions we’re discussing here are low-value defensively. That means a hitter needs to be not just average, but well above average to provide significant value at these spots.
Reds Outfielders:
- TJ Friedl, 2.2 WAR
- Jake Fraley, 1.0 WAR
- Will Benson, 0.6 WAR
Reds Corner IF/DH:
- Christian Encarnacion-Strand, 1.3 WAR
- Santiago Espinal, 1.3 WAR
- Jeimer Candelario, 0.6 WAR
- Noelvi Marte, 0.4 WAR
Spencer Steer Plays Everywhere Group:
- Spencer Steer, 1.4 WAR
Color me surprised that the projections think Espinal is the best option at third base. Though that’s more an indictment of the other options. Assuming Cincinnati find a platoon partner for Fraley, DH seems to be the biggest weakness on the team (and the Reds were god-awful there last year).
DH as a the weak spot means that it doesn’t really matter where a free agent acquisition plays. It matters that he can hit. So who are the best projected hitters of the current non-Soto free agent crop? Do keep in mind that, like most projection systems, Steamer pulls things to the mean. These guys are excellent hitters and all 30+, so the projections will come in south of their career numbers.
Best Hitting Non-Soto Free Agents (listed by projected wRC+)
- Pete Alonso, 1B, 125 wRC+
- Joc Pederson, OF/DH, 125 wRC+
- Alex Bregman, 3B, 122 wRC+
- Anthony Santander, OF, 119 wRC+
- Christian Walker, 1B, 119 wRC+
- Jesse “Born to DH” Winker, “OF”, 117 wRC+
- Jurickson Profar, OF, 116 wRC+
- Teoscar Hernandez, OF, 113 wRC+
FanGraphs provides us with crowdsourced guesses as to what each player will get in the free agent market (and the FanGraphs crowd has historically been pretty good at guessing), and it thinks all of these guys can be had for about $15-$20M per season EXCEPT for Bregman and Alonso, who are in the $25M/season neighborhood. AND except for Winker and his requisite baggage who the crowd thinks you can have for under $10M/year.
Bregman would be great, but seems unlikely unless the Reds are ready to completely give up on Marte. Bregman is an excellent third baseman and there’s no reason for a team signing him to try to move him.
Alonso, on the other hand, feels like he might be worth the money. I don’t think they’re likely to sign him, but I do think he would hit roughly one million home runs in Cincinnati.
Everyone else is pretty interchangeable. I’d be tempted to go with Pederson, who is the most bat-forward of the remaining crew, but you really can’t go wrong. The Reds should just go get one of these guys. Or even two. However much we might be infected with the “small-market” brain disease, $15-20M/season is just not that much in modern baseball. There’s no reason the Reds can’t enter the 2025 season with a substantially reinforced lineup. They should not be willing to field a lineup that includes automatic outs like they had much of last year.
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