The Reds went into the year with plenty of optimism. Their young core had surprisingly threatened for a playoff berth and finished above .500 in 2023. The front office followed up by committing more than $100MM -- including nearly $62MM in 2024 salaries alone -- on the free agent market. Cincinnati was a trendy choice to take what looked like a wide open NL Central (and would've been my pick to win the division before a couple key Spring Training injuries).
While it's too soon to write them off entirely, the Reds haven't come close to the heightened expectations through the season's first two months. They're eight games below .500 and above only the Marlins and Rockies in the National League. A lineup loaded with talented young hitters should drive this team to success. Thanks to a combination of injury and a handful of key players underperforming, they've instead had one of the worst offenses in the majors.
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Ayyyy free article
Tepid is an adjective that means not very warm or strong. For example, you might describe a liquid as tepid if it’s not very warm. You might also describe feelings or actions as tepid if they’re not very strong.
And you might call an offense tepid if it’s not particularly strong. You might call your comment tepid as it’s not particularly strong.
Wow, once again I have been censored…
It feels good to be back again MLBTR
Did you miss me?
Oh sure, post it anyway
Make me feel I need to be hiding behind my computer (which I’m doing right now)
Sigh, Mom, Dad can you pass down the Dunkin Donuts and coffee please? It’s cold in the basement
This was a tepid kerfuffle
De La Cruz has been their most productive player but an offense full of young players is bound to struggle for stretches. Perhaps as the weather gets warmer so will the hitters
This is what happens when you wimp out during the offseason.
Couldn’t have said it better, though I have said something similar many times.
They have a batting coach who hit .188 IN COLLEGE. Never played affiliated minor league baseball. What the hell is he going to teach except how to hit .188? It’s a travesty that he ever got the job in the first place.
You should look at the list of Hitting coaches in MLB. People can know a lot about hitting and be observant of what players are doing wrong without being able to hit themselves.
WOW! Never knew that but looked it up (Joel McKeithan)… and you’re totally right! Fascinating.
It says a lot when your most improved hitter (Elly) didn’t use the organization hotting coaches, but worked with Jusn Soto on improving his approach.
This article mentions the injuries but does not do justice to what they have meant so far. This is simply a case where too many of their top players, in fact, almost all of them have been injured or suspended. Not much to be made of it than that. You can’t just substitute India for McLain or Espinal for Marte and Encarnacion-Strang and Freidl. Plus Lodolo out most of year. Its not complicated or a failure of much of anything. Diaz and Bensen bad and Steer in horrible slump after torid beginning. That;s all there is to it.
Even late last season, the talk was that Reds regression was always going to come into play – the cumulative results were better than the individual metrics. Freidl/McLain were both due to slide a bit but getting zero from them most definitely hurts. And help in the way of trades won’t likely happen as they don’t want to give up young pitching, though they should. At this point it seems the solution is to hope that the underperformees find some magic…
There were plenty of people out there in the offseason to build roster depth to guard against those things that cost nothing in trades, just a bit of money to sign and they failed to do it, just going on a hope and a prayer. That’s not how winning teams are built. The lack of veteran leadership is glaring as well.
I have been following the Reds since 1971. This is the worse Reds offense I remember. I know it’s not entirely David Bell’s fault, but why did they award him with a 3 year extension coming off a 100 loss season?
I wouldn’t come back if I was Votto.
Just dumb move guys this is why I stopped using espn when you had to pay for some of the content.
Sometimes when front office puts a team together it falls on the players to perform and this team has seriously underperformed. Injuries have played a part but this team strikes out too much and just simply hasn’t gotten the job done . Pitching has been especially good especially started pitching . This team needs to adjust and perform no other way around it
Hopefully you are joking… or on crack.
Among all hypothetical scenarios, perhaps the most difficult are what to do with David Bell and Jeimer Candelario. Bell may survive this season at the helms of loosing so many key players, but in the event that front office makes the effort to contend again next year it’ll be very hard for him to hold the position. As for Candelario, it may end with another sunk cost, premature DFA decision.
Bell will be the fall guy for the front office’s ineptitude. The Candelario signing was ridiculous from the start and the performances makes it more ridiculous by the day. Plus they overspent on two relief pitchers that added absolutely nothing.
It will be a miracle if this front office makes a real effort to contend. We haven’t seen them put together a contending roster yet.
All we heard during the off season from Reds’s fans was how Candelario’s doubles were all magically turn into home runs at GABP. Well we are 1/3 through the season and he has a grande total of 5 home runs .
Why would I want to pay for an article that Fangraphs would be better served to write as analysts versed with advanced stats than analysts who write about transactions, and for free???
Stop these attempts at being a stats site, MLBTR.