3 Things To Improve All 30 Teams — The Cincinnati Reds
The 2021 Cincinnati Reds finished the season with a record of 83–79, good enough for a 3rd place finish in the NL Central. A solid season overall for the Reds, but one in which they missed out on a trip to the playoffs. Bringing most of the squad from last year back will be a plus for the Reds, but there is one key member of last year’s team that they will be sure to miss should he sign elsewhere…
1. Fill The Nick Castellanos Sized Hole In Right Field
30 year old free agent Nick Castellanos is coming off a year with the Reds in which he hit .309/.362/.576 with 34 homeruns, and and OPS+ of 136. He was also voted to his first All Star game, and won his first Silver Slugger award. He did this in the NL as a below average right fielder. This year, he’ll get to be a team’s main DH.
The Reds are a smaller market team than most of the teams currently going after Castellanos so it will be a surprise if they were to offer him the kind of money that he will command. The Reds also already have two prime candidates for their DH role in Eugenio Suarez and aging 1B Joey Votto. Both of those guys would be well suited for that role, improving the team defenisively with Suarez DHing, and giving Joey Votto a day or two a week off the field to keep him in the lineup for more of the season.
Assuming the Reds do not sign Castellanos to a mega deal, there is one name still on the market that would be a good fit for them and a solid replacement for Castellanos. Free agent right fielder Michael Conforto spent the first 7 years of his Major League career as a New York Met. With a career line of .255/.356/.468, he may not have the same pop as Castellanos, but he has better range in right, walks almost twice as much as Castellanos (12.1% career walk rate for Conforto, 6.6% for Castellanos), and is almost exactly a year younger. Signing him in free agency maybe wouldn’t gain them any wins over last year, but it shouldn’t have them lose any more games either.
2. Improve The Bull Pen
Pitching seemed to be the major weakness for the 2021 Cincinnati Reds. Playing in a hitter’s ball park for 81 games of the year, the Reds finished with a team ERA of 4.40. Wait a second, that doen’t look that bad. Of course, if you take a closer look you will see that the 5 guys that started the majority of their games last year combined for an ERA of 3.946 or 3.95. So where does the rest of the 4.40 come from? Their 5 main relievers. It comes from their 5 main relievers who combined for an ERA of 5.435 or 5.44. .01 shy of being a full run and a half more per 9 innings than their starters.
Two of the culprits are free agents, Heath Hembree (6.38 ERA) and Sean Doolittle (4.46 ERA). The Reds still have Amir Garrett (6.04 ERA), Lucas Sims (4.40 ERA), and Ryan Hendrix (5.97 ERA) under team control. Over 5 seasons and 255 innings pitched, it could be time to call the Amir Garrett experiment. Having a 5.10 ERA and 5.13 FIP over that time frame is not a good sign of things improving. Lucas Sims had the best ERA of all 5, and he finished the year with a FIP of 3.00 so his ERA could have been the product of bad luck defensively. 2021 was 26 year old Ryan Hendrix’s rookie season, so there is some hope for improvement but we won’t know unless he gets another shot this year.
Bringing in 2 relievers from free agency should do the trick for the Cincinnati Reds. First, the Reds should spend big and bring in Kenley Jansen. The 34 year old future first ballot Hall of Famer is coming off of a year in which he saved 38 games, struck out 86 batters, and pitched to a 2.22 ERA over 69 innings. And that ERA isn’t a fluke. His career ERA is 2.37. 3 years, $40 million with performance incentives and an opt out after year 1 should be enough.
Their next target should be RHP Dellin Betances. In what will also be his age 34 season, Betances hasn’t pitched much over the last 3 years due to injuries. Over his career, however, he has a 2.53 ERA and 633 strike outs over 394.1 innings. Because of his injury history, he should be available for pretty cheap. A 1 year deal for $5 million should do it. Bringing in these two guys would do wonders to lower their bull pen ERA and should net them 2–3 more wins.
3. Slowly Introduce Hunter Greene And Nick Lodolo
With the second pick of the 2017 MLB Draft the Cincinnati Reds selected RHP Hunter Greene. Hunter Greene is now their top pitching prospect and due to be called up this year. With 179 innings over 42 starts in the minors, Greene has an ERA of 3.97 and 234 strike outs. He has struggled with his command at times in walking 63 batters over that time frame, so he does need to work on that. At age 22, he is still young for The Bigs, so another 75–100 innings in AAA to work on his command before calling him up would be perfect.
With the seventh pick of the 2019 MLB Draft the Cincinnati Reds selected LHP Nick Lodolo. The Reds 2nd ranked prospect, he is also due to be called up this year. With less minors experience than Greene, Lodolo has had more success to this point. With a minors ERA of 2.35 over 21 starts and 69 innings, Lodolo has struck out 108 batters and only walked 11. Seemingly ready, he has only pitched 6 innings in AAA. Giving him another 50 innings should be enough before calling him up to The Show and placing him in the rotation. Power pitchers like these guys would do well in the hitter’s haven that is Great American Ball Park. Expect another 3–4 wins when they’re called up.
With a net gain of 5 more wins, the 2022 Cincinnati Reds would finish the year with a record of 88–74. Going off of last season’s records, that would be enough to land them the new 6th playoff spot and have a chance at some October magic.
This has been the 7th entry in our series going through the league and finding ways to improve each individual team. Previous entries include the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Atlanta Braves, the Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox, and the Chicago Cubs. Next up will be the newly named Cleveland Guardians!
