Matt McLain has a home at 2B with the Reds, and the rest of the lineup is taking shape

That’s the ‘hope,’ at least.

If it feels like you have read fifty articles about the logjam within the Cincinnati Reds infield, you are not alone. This certainly feels like the thousandth time I’ve approached the topic over the last calendar year even if some of the key faces within it have changed significantly.

Matt McLain, the former 1st round pick of the Reds who broke out in a big, big way in 2023 before injuries rendered him shelved, is going to be the 2B in Cincinnati if things go right. Such was confirmed to Mark Sheldon of Reds.com by manager Terry Francona on Sunday.

How enamored with McLain being the ‘hope’ at 2B everyday is Francona, exactly? Well, Tito name-dropped a former MVP who just picked up 47 Hall of Fame votes this winter after winning the 2007 World Series with him – Dustin Pedroia. C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic relayed that tidbit from spring camp in Goodyear, Arizona where a healthy-again McLain appears to be putting on quite the good impression.

It’s nice when the best players on a roster have one position where they can be penciled in each and every day under ideal conditions. Though McLain spent the bulk of his 2023 time at SS with superstar Elly De La Cruz next to him at 3B, Elly broke out in a huge way in 2024 as the full-time SS and appears destined to return to that role again in 2025. Therefore, the defense up the middle sure does look both settled and optimized, with Elly and McLain likely the two best middle-infield defenders on the roster in the first place.

That sure does look like a Reds club that’s going to get their best players playing in their best positions and let the rest of the cards fall accordingly rather than potentially moving some of them around the diamond to more accommodate the rest of the roster. Elly, for instance, is a better defender at 3B than Jeimer Candelario, Spencer Steer, Gavin Lux, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand, but the Reds aren’t going to move Elly to the hot corner and take him off being the best defender at the most key defensive position.

It also doesn’t look like the Reds will move Elly to 3B, let McLain reprise his SS duties, and open up 2B for a guy like Lux, who has primarily been a 2B for the bulk of his big league career. Instead, it appears the Reds are intent on shoehorning Lux into different spots around the diamond where he is less experienced and, given his weak arm, not exactly the best defensive option – except early on in camp when he’s playing 2B and getting accustomed to Reds camp.

In theory, that opens up some tea leaves with which we can begin to read the Reds lineup options.

Lux is the confounding piece here, quite honestly. He’s a guy who you only start against RHP anyway, and finding a place for him to regularly play against RHP just keeps getting harder and harder to fathom.

Elly and McLain will be up the middle against RHP almost always, with TJ Friedl and Jake Fraley occupying CF/RF. CES, in case you never noticed, has reverse platoon splits at almost every step of the way as a pro, so if he’s going to be in the lineup ever it should be against RHP (and likely at 1B). All Spencer Steer can do right now is DH while banged up in camp, and while he’s hit righties and lefties both well enough in his career, he actually hit RHP better than LHP last year, too.

That effectively leaves just 3B and LF as openings against RHP, the regular positions of the two most recent ‘big’ free agent expenditures the Reds have made – Jeimer Candelario and Austin Hays. Hays, you can argue, should only really hit against LHP, but has been passable enough against RHP that you’d expect a veteran of his caliber to still get time against them more often than not. Candelario, meanwhile, is a switch-hitter who was signed to play everyday, even if his glove at 3B didn’t look nearly as good last year as any of us would have hoped.

If you squint, I think you can see Lux in the lineup against RHP maybe four out of every five days they face a RHP starter, rotating around through LF/DH/2B/3B to spell the others while always starting on the bench against LHP. At least, that sure looks like the role in which he’d get the most PA, even though it’ll be quite interesting to see if his defensive reputation at all non-2B spots improves in his time with the Reds. How quickly Steer can do things other than DH will potentially open up more time at DH for him, though that will only further muddy the rotation among LF/1B and maybe even 3B down the road.

That’s asking a lot of Lux while simultaneously acknowledging that the big offseason trade acquisition is neither a regular at a single position nor an everyday player, at least to start. That said, if he hits to begin his Reds career the way he did to end his Dodgers career, he could always hit his way into being in the lineup each and every single day the Reds face a RHP, pushing out CES or Fraley with ease if they both underperform again.

That’s the route lefty-swinging former 2B-only took when he first got to the Reds, after all, and that’s exactly what he did for a time.

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