Oh, the Cincinnati Reds. The Cincinnati Reds!
Right here we’re once more in late August with the newest information concerning the Reds being which high-priced veterans they’ve each a) positioned on waivers and b) had handed over on waivers. Such is life when the staff is as soon as once more mired in final place and going completely nowhere.
I do suppose that information takes the sting off the information of them dropping Hunter Greene to a second Tommy John surgical procedure, one that can possible knock him out for the whole lot of the 2027 season after he successfully missed all of the necessary elements of the 2026 after elbow surgical procedure, too.
The straightforward truth is that it is a roster that noticed the entrance workplace tinker on the margins over the winter when it actually wanted an intensive turbocharge, after which all of us realized no one had even bothered to alter the oil for the final three years. Then got here the accidents — at one level to their ace, their prime three relievers, their superutility piece, and their large offseason signee on the identical time — and there’s simply not practically sufficient depth on this threadbare farm system to soak up that.
The Reds, proper now, are Chase Burns — who’ll be shut down in one other begin or two — paired with Elly De La Cruz, Sal Stewart, and never a lot else. Assume anyone other than the staff’s unmovable entrance workplace believes that’s adequate to win something? They rank lifeless final in staff batting common, on-base proportion, and wRC+. Solely the lowly Savannah Bananas Colorado Rockies have fewer fWAR from their place gamers than the Reds, and even that’s by simply 0.3. Pete Crow-Armstrong (8.6 fWAR) has been value greater than all the non-pitching portion of the Reds (8.3). Heck, he’s been value greater than their complete pitching workers (8.5 fWAR), too!
The one query remaining for the Reds, now, is simply how a lot home cleansing will get carried out between now and 2027. Will Terry Francona wish to stick round for that? Will Nick Krall, whom the house owners adore and let run the draft, get two extra promotions inside the entrance workplace? On condition that the Reds have the hardest remaining schedule of any MLB membership and are already languishing as one of many worst information within the sport, it’s nearly time somebody put the ultimate nail of their coffin, and a weekend sequence in opposition to Cubs staff simply may do it.
I simply may even hope for it, frankly.