They didn’t lose it, either.
The featured picture on this article is something of a microcosm of the 2025 Cincinnati Reds season. Since you don’t see that after opening articles here at SB Nation anymore, I’ll embed it again below.
Photo by Jeff Dean/Getty Images
You’ll recognize that trio as Elly De La Cruz, Hunter Greene, and Jeimer Candelario. The ‘microcosm’ of the 2025 comment references this:
- Elly, the young top-prospect-turned-superstar who was the breakout team leader in most every major offensive statistic of note
- Hunter, the young top-prospect-turned-superstar who was the breakout team leader in most every major pitching statistic of note…yet missed a lot of time with injury
- Jeimer, the veteran big-ticket free agent addition whose addition, at the end, didn’t end up adding at all what was hoped…and who missed a lot of time with injury
If all three of those players peaked perfectly in 2024, maybe we’d be writing a different recap than that of a 77-85 ballclub. A peak-ish, 3 WAR season from Jeimer paired with 8 more starts from Hunter could have put them in the Wild Card mix, at least, but that was far from the only thing holding them back. That picture above, for what it’s worth, has a lot of other would-be key pieces missing.
Matt McLain missed the entire season through injury. TJ Friedl missed a ton of it, and when he was back it was clear the leg injuries that sidelined him early had severely impacted his ability (and/or willingness) to use the running game to his advantage this year. Christian Encarnacion-Strand likely wishes he’d just missed the entire year, with the same probably able to be said for Noelvi Marte and Graham Ashcraft, too.
Injuries hit this Reds team hard, but they hit every team hard every year – just look at who was supposed to be key parts of the Los Angeles Dodgers club that actually did win the World Series and cross-reference the World Series box scores looking for their names. In the case of the Reds, though, it was all too often that when one player went down, there simply wasn’t enough stepping-in to replace them to bridge the divide.
Spencer Steer had a down year compared to 2023. Will Benson, my god, did as well. Nick Lodolo was once again banged up and took a marked step back in performance, while Jake Fraley was reduced to a player on the margins thanks to some unfathomably bad news off the field all season rightfully demanding as much of his focus as possible.
Candelario, meanwhile, looked more and more like the questionable 30+ year old positionless hitter we worried he’d be when signed. He admittedly showed enough offensively, at times, to make it feasible that he maybe can string together enough of a hot streak for an end-of-season slash line to look palatable once again before he’s done, but that’s hardly what you hope for when a frugal club splashes the kind of 3-year cash on a player that the Reds did.
The more short-term investments made by the Reds ended up helping keep the team afloat, all told. Nick Martinez rode the pitching staff’s rescue when the rest of his starting-capable cronies went down, enough so that he’ll opt into free agency in a few days and likely sign for a pile of money elsewhere. Opening Day starter Frankie Montas didn’t pan out well enough in his brief time with the Reds and was shipped to Milwaukee, but Jakob Junis – part of the return – proved to be a similarly versatile, rock solid addition (so much so that he, too, may well opt into free agency next week because of it). Buck Farmer and Brent Suter formed a mighty fine 1-2 punch as setup men, and did so shrewdly on the cheap relative to the rest of the relief market of last winter, too.
The general reality of the 2024 Reds is that the free agents, on the whole, panned out well enough to form a mostly net addition to the club. That’s truly what you hope for with that arm of transactions, and the Reds, despite not batting 1.000 on their additions, brought in enough to augment a well-performing core and make a push towards being ‘buyers’ at the trade deadline at the end of July.
The general reality of the 2024 Reds was also that the young position player core, who looked oh-so-promising in their surprise 2023 push towards being in 1st place at the trade deadline, took a collective step back even with Elly and Hunter breaking out. Steer, Friedl, Benson, Marte, McLain, and CES combined for -2.2 bWAR during the 2024 season after combining for 13.6 bWAR in 2023, and not even bounce-back seasons from Jonathan India and Tyler Stephenson could help bridge that gap.
There’s still ample promise with that group, especially when you factor in the crop of young pitchers (that aren’t already out for 2025 with injuries). Candelario, in reality, simply cannot be a whole lot worse than he was this year, and odds are he’ll be slightly better with the bat even if he shouldn’t ever have a glove on again. There’s space in the payroll even for the most frugal of clubs, and the Reds will have a chance to plug holes on the offense in ways that are significantly more impactful than buy-low lottery tickets on Ty France, Mike Ford, Amed Rosario, or Dom Smith.
The tightrope the Reds must once again walk is adding someone of enough significance to catalyze what’s already there without having to commit so much money to said player(s) that they’re stuck with them long past their usefulness. That’s not because that kind of maneuvering is impossible to navigate, it’s just largely impossible to navigate when the owners of the team say it is, and that’s how these Reds operate.
Said tightrope will also need to be walked regarding the glut of infielders once again. If everyone’s back and healthy, they’ll once again have Elly, McLain, CES, India, Marte, and Candelario somewhere in the infield mix, with Santiago Espinal – who actually hit better than a lot of people realize for the second half of the year – potentially still around in said mix, too. That’s a lot of mouths to feed on a roster that has glaring holes elsewhere, and the number of players on that list that actually have plus gloves is shockingly low. A pretty major trade therefore should not at all be out of the question, and should probably be viewed as almost inevitable.
The Reds, then, are in a pretty similar spot to where they were one year ago, even if the vibes they rode to get here are far different than they were last time. The same core is around, for the most part, and even with one more year on their ledger they’re all still young and cheap. Candelario aside, there’s not a lot of money committed, so the front office should have the chance to make some serious investment, should they choose.
That’s the rub, I suppose. Does the front office finally see enough in this group to make spending well enough to augment them plausible? Or, will they simply wait and see for one more winter until more than just Elly and Hunter take major steps forward? It’s only one more year, who’ll really miss that in the long run?
Well, 2024 will go down as one of those one more years. Do you think you’ll miss this one more than the countless others we’ve lived through the last three decades, or nah?