EDLC is worth the price of admission. He’s a 6’6” Eric Davis that switch hits. The cheapskate Reds will need to figure out how to pay him eventually.( or I’m out).
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I think you are underestimating the effect that injuries and the suspension that Noelvi have had on the Reds.
Almost half of the expected 8 starting field position players have missed significant playing time.
Friedl
McClain
CES
Marte
The McClain injury was particularly harmful as I don’t think it was a coincidence that the Reds started to jell last year when he was called up.
Not easy to win games when you have outfielders named Hurtibise and Mike Ford which were both in the lineup for awhile.
Candelario has been a disappointment.
Hitting is horrible.
I agree that June is a critical month for the Reds.
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You can’t just ignore the key injuries. McLain and Friedl combined for 7.2 fWAR last season (top 2 position players) and are at -0.2 in 2024. The only batters doing better than expected are probably EDLC and Ty Steve. Granted, Benson was due to regress (McLain too). CES was playing with a fractured wrist. Fraley lost 2 weeks to illness and spent 2 more rebuilding his strength. There was NOBODY in the minors ready to help, which falls on the front office, but it’s not every year that you lose that many key pieces during spring training.
I think the core group of “kids” are collectively peeing down their leg based on pressure from the high expectations they had. They’re missing veteran leadership, someone who can calm the nerves of the young guys. Candelario was brought in to help with that and has generally been a disaster (his last few weeks have been somewhat better). Hard for a new guy to lead when he has such a putrid start.
Pitching has been the bright spot, and seems quite solid.
At this point, I don’t care much about June. Get me to the final couple of months and see what a fully healthy lineup can do, even if at that point it’s simply to make a run at a .500 record.
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Candy man has looked much improved of late, like a legit baseball player. Hurtibise is the exact kind of player I want the Reds to have, though I don’t think he is good enough to fill the role of slap hitter/ high average guy. The Arraez (he’s obviously the gold standard) trade to the Padres shows what a huge difference those guys can have on a lineup.
But overall, SPers have looked good. RPers have been okay save for a bad start from Diaz, though he also looks to be rounding into form a bit.
The offense has struggled mightily, EDLC has been getting pitched around more and more, and those guys being absent have left a gaping sized hole in the lineup. Glad Mike Ford is gone, that is addition by subtraction. I think the second half of the year still has some potential with those guys coming back, but either way I will still have high hopes for next year.
A little off topic, but having the number 2 draft pick this year, with there being two players far above the rest of the group, is going to be nice. They are being compared with the top of the draft last year, and two of those four guys from last year who were standouts started the year on the MLB roster. By scouting grades, the top two in this years draft will be top 15 prospects the day after being drafted.
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TheRok was right. Candelario is 9-24 in June with 2b and 2 HR, and over the past month has a > .900 OPS.
There are only 4 teams in the NL who currently have winning records. 6 teams make the playoffs. In the last 10 days or so the Reds have jumped right into the middle of a pack of 7 teams just below .500 with between 30 and 32 wins. Another 10 days like the last 10 and we would be firmly in control of a wildcard spot. Plus the Brewers are suddenly only 6.5 games away.
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India has come to life as well, hitting .421 in June and has raised his BA 36 points and his OPS 109 points since May 23.
Friedl coming back strong has been a big lift for the lineup as well. He’s hitting nearly .300 since his return and giving them solid at bats at the top of the order.
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One big improvement the Reds have made is hitting with two outs. They are getting a lot more key hits and RBI’s now. Also they are doing a better job of advancing baserunners, often with the bunt.
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EDLC has put up stats no one in MLB has done in 100 .
years.
Hits,Stolen bases,and home runs totals at this point in a career.
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After a year and a half or so, Tyler Stevenson has returned from the darkness and found his stroke again. Once again he looks like one of the best hitting catchers in the bigs.
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Depending how much stock you put into Baseball Savant / Statcast defensive metrics, he’s taken a HUGE leap in his framing:
Year / Framing Rating (0-100)
2021 / 38
2022 / 25
2023 / 5
2024 / 81
Probably another (small) reason Reds pitching has been getting good results.
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There has to be a story there for an established player to make such a dramatic jump in that one particular area.
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According to the beat writers Stephenson has worked a lot with JR House over the last year + on his defensive skills as a way of keeping himself in the lineup.
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Also the year prior he had multiple injuries and I’m sure his offseason after 2022 had no capacity for working on things. It is a crazy big improvement.
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In Mark Sheldon’s email newsletter he talked with Chris Spiers about what it’s like going up and down between AAA and MLB. There were a couple of life in baseball things I thought were interesting:
MLB.com: You kept your apartment in Louisville while in the big leagues?
Spiers: That’s right. The Minor League Baseball Players [union] is awesome with how it’s set up. The Reds cover all of our apartments down there unless you’re making a certain amount of money down there, and it’s a little bit different. My apartment, if I ever get sent back down, will be there for me.
MLB.com: What about all of your stuff?
Spiers: We have a ton of stuff. I have a truck, and my truck bed has a cover on it and I can’t tell you how much stuff is in there. Being able to have the apartment makes it a little different.
MLB.com: What does your wife do when you go back and forth?
Spiers: Anytime we’re up here, she travels with me. She wants to take it all in with me. When I’m in Louisville and the Minor League schedule is a six-game series each week, if we go somewhere that is out of driving range, she will just fly home [to Greenville, S.C.] for the week. She works in the real estate world, so it’s good for her to go home. She’s her own boss. She can do some showings. But she likes traveling. There’s no kids, no dogs. It’s just us two. We’re young and we want to experience this together.
MLB.com: Where do you stay in Cincinnati?
Spiers: I’ve been staying in the team hotel the whole time. Every transaction, the Reds are required to pay for seven nights for a player.
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It’s a shame that the Reds are wasting good pitching performances lately. Hunter Greene pitched another gem yesterday but Reynolds took Martinez deep and that was all she wrote! Having Friedl and Candelario both out of the lineup certainly didn’t help matters. Hopefully they will bounce back this weekend, but a tough Bosox team awaits.
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This team makes so many mental errors on the basepaths and in the field. With so many impact bats out of the lineup they are mistakes they cannot afford.
I don’t know what the issue with the medical staff is but add Encarnacion to the list of questionable work on their part. Instead of having him back for the stretch run he’s out for the year.
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I think they have bad management. If Dusty Baker was the manager we’d be better. A lot better I bet. He got a raw deal and we’ve been pretty shitty ever since.
IMO, Dusty is a great regular season manager, and an awful post season manager. I know he won in '22, so maybe it wouldn’t have mattered in the end, but the year he got outmanaged badly, and then basically said, ‘we lost this series, but the other team has a tired bullpen and will have trouble winning the next series’ solidified the naysayers accusations to me.