2024 Team Review - Cincinnati Reds
A look at the biggest standout players from the 2024 Cincinnati Reds, and some speculation about what they'll be looking to do this offseason.
To read the reviews for other teams, check out the glossary page here.
The Reds had some upside coming into the 2024 season. They had a bunch of exciting, young talent on the roster. It didn’t end up materializing as they took fourth in the division with a 77-85 record. They were hurt badly by injury and saw some of those young guys struggle. There is a lot to talk about here.
Free Agents
Amed Rosario
Luke Maile
Nick Martinez (player option)
Emilio Pagan (player option)
Breakouts
I think Elly De La Cruz fits here. His season was nowhere close to the best we saw this season, but the guy did homer 25 homers and stole a league-leading 67 bases while managing a decent .259 batting average. He was able to make a few key improvements:
2023: 33.7% K%, 8.2% BB%, 55.3% GB%, 8.5% Brl%
2024: 31.3% K%, 9.9% BB%, 47.1% GB%, 12.7% Brl%
I didn’t think he was likely to get the strikeout rate below 30%, but the 2.4-point increase made a big difference, and he was able to lift the ball at a higher rate, resulting in a huge increase in the barrel rate. His barrel per PA rate went from 4.9% to 7.3%. I’m confident he’ll have some seasons where he gets into the 30s in homers, but the expectation for next year is probably still 25-30 rather than 30-35 with the strikeouts and launch angle business.
The next step for him might be improving against left-handed pitching.
vs. RHP: .275/.350/.523, 19 HR, .349 xwOBA
vs. LHP: .224/.304/.354, 6 HR, .291 xwOBA
The strikeout rate is similar against both, but he does not make nearly the same quality of contact when swinging the bat right-handed.
The biggest thing Elly gives us for fantasy is the steals. I thought he would have to regress on his 47% stolen base attempt rate, but he actually brought it up to 51% in 2024.
The bottom line here is that Elly made improvements pretty much across the board, and that is a hugely positive sign for a guy who will be just 23 years old at the beginning of next season.
Hunter Greene could also be considered a breakout. He missed a month or so due to an injury but managed 26 starts and 150 innings with a sick 2.75 ERA and 1.02 WHIP. The key for him was dropping the walk rate slightly and significantly reducing the homers allowed.
The strikeout rate also came down a bit from the heights of 2023-2023, but a 28% mark is still quite good.
There’s a pretty big risk of that HR/9 coming back up well above one next year. He throws a bunch of four-seamers and sliders and posted just a 35% GB%.
It’s pretty surprising such a combination would turn into that 0.7 HR/9, especially while pitching half of your games in Great American Ballpark. There’s risk there. I don’t think Greene is a sub-three ERA guy, but the stuff is great, and there’s still some room for growth with the walk rate.
At just 25 years old, Greene's future is bright, and 2024 was a very encouraging season for him.
The Reds turned Nick Martinez into a very useful starting pitcher in the second half. He threw 142 innings for them, making 16 starts, and posted a strong 3.10 ERA and a 1.03 WHIP. He made a few starts early on, but was in a bullpen role mostly until August. He made 11 starts down in the last two months with a 2.42 ERA, a 0.90 WHIP, a 21.6% K%, and a 3.3% BB%.
The walk rate was the key for him. He took more than five points off his walk rate from past years and also dropped the HR/9 to 0.8.
I would think he’s likely to test the waters in free agency after showing what he could do in a starter’s role, but his age (34) could hurt him on that front.
I’m not very high on the guy, given how old he is and how long he’s been mediocre. The walk rate change is significant, but I think there’s a good amount of luck with that low ERA.
The pitch mix after he entered the rotation in August:
That’s a very low 10.7% SwStr%, and he benefited from a .246 BABIP and a 40.8 PA/HR. The command is good, but I don’t think the raw stuff is enough to make him a useful starting pitcher in the fantasy world next year.
The Reds 2023 first-round pick Rhett Lowder was fast-tracked to the bigs and made six starts in August-September. His 1.17 ERA is sparkling, but there’s not much below it to back it up. His K% was just 17.2%, and he posted a bad 10.9% BB%. That’s a 6.3% K-BB%, and you’ll almost never find an ERA under four with that going on - much less an ERA under two!
It’s too early to judge the kid. He’s just 22 with all of a 26-inning sample. I would say this is a situation where the Stuff+ model is useful, and it’s not very encouraging there (92.6). His fastball averaged under 94mph, and hitters didn’t have much trouble with it (10.3% SwStr%, .410 xwOBA).
He even distributed his four pitches, so there’s some depth there, but it does seem like the fastballs will need to improve for him to turn into a solid MLB starter. He’s going to be a fade for me in drafts next year, but this isn’t a guy I can take a strong stance on.
Tyler Stephenson didn’t have a marvelous season, but he was certainly one of the better-hitting catchers in the league. He slashed a strong .253/.334/.441 with 19 homers in 515 PAs. He brought the K% down to 23% while it had been 26-28% the previous two years, and that did him a lot of good.
He also ended up hitting clean-up for the Reds late in the year. As just a 28-year-old, I think Stephenson sets up as a top-ten catcher to draft for next season.
Busts
Nick Lodolo battled injuries again, and that’s a running theme in his young career. He managed just 115.1 innings and struggled for a lot of it, ending with a 4.76 ERA. I think some of the lesser production was because of the injuries, so we can forgive some of that - but the K% loss is striking.
2022: 29.7% K%, 8.8% BB%
2023: 28.3% K%, 6.0% BB%
2024: 24.7% K%, 7.5 BB%
He was pretty nasty early on, with a 13.5% SwStr% and 26% K% in his first ten starts, but he was worse after a couple of IL stints.
I think there’s plenty of upside here. He’s 6’6’’ and left-handed, so he has that Chris Sale deception in him. His stuff isn’t really in question, but the command is suspect and he has injury issues pretty consistently for his whole professional career. It’s tough to feel confident about the guy for next year, but if he ever does stay healthy for a full season - I imagine he’ll put up some really strong numbers.
Noelvi Marte missed half of the season with the suspension and did not help the club when returning:
242 PA, .205/.244/.297, .541 OPS, 4 HR, 9 SB, 31% K%
The contact rate was really bad at 68%, he hit too many ground balls (46%), and the launch angles were all over the place.
The upshot is that he’s still very young (22), and he has solid tools (73rd-percentile bat speed, 86th-percentile sprint speed). He has just 365 MLB plate appearances, so it’s too early to make any definitive judgments on him. I think the Reds will give him a long look next year to see what they have, but I won’t be reaching for him in fantasy drafts, to say the least.
Nobody else really busted out for the Reds. Some other points on their main guys:
Spencer Steer hit 20 homers and stole 25 bags, but other than that, it was unimpressive, with a .226/.320/.402 slash line. That was a loss of nearly 100 points on his OPS from 2023.
Jeimer Candelario also had a down year with a .255/.279/.429 slash line with 20 homers. His strikeout rate came up to a four-year high at 24.6%, and the walk rate fell way down to 5.8%.
Jonathan India had some really good stretches during the year and proved himself to be a viable Major League player, but he wasn’t very good in the fantasy baseball world, with just 15 homers and 13 steals on a .248 batting average. The best part of his game is the OBP. He rode a career-high 12.6% BB% to a high .357 OBP, but 15 homers and 13 steals aren’t getting it done for us.
You could call it a bust for TJ Friedl. He spent about half the year on the IL but wasn’t very good when healthy with a .223/.308/.378 slash line. He did hit homers at a very good rate with 13 (25.7 PA/HR), and he swiped nine bags to boot. The raw power isn’t there for Friedl, but he’s able to pull a lot of fly balls, and he’s always generated a high HR/Brl rate. He’ll be very cheap next year, but it was mostly a bad season for Friedl.
Christian Encarnacion-Strand lasted only into May before hitting the IL to never return. The early signs were bad, with a 28.5% K% and a .293 SLG, but it’s really hard to judge the guy on just 123 PAs. When you add in what he did in 2023, the slash line is better at .243/.291/.414 with a very strong 24 PA/HR. I think he could be a guy that has his breakout season in 2025.
Matt McLain missed the whole season to injury. He’s healthy now and playing in the Arizona Fall League, so he’ll be back in there at shortstop or third base for them next year.
Andrew Abbott held his own with a 3.72 ERA across 25 starts. However, his strikeout rate fell to 19.5%, and he continued to give up a bunch of homers (1.6 HR/9). He’s a low-whiff, high-fly ball pitcher, so he’s going to struggle for fantasy relevance, but it would appear he has enough command and deception to stick in the rotation next year.
Minor Leagues
The Reds somewhat emptied their farm system in 2023. Much of their current roster is guys that were near the top of their prospect rankings and debuted between 2022 and 2024. They do have a few young arms coming up the ranks in Chase Burns (the second overall pick in the 2024 draft) and Chase Petty (2021 first-round pick).
Burns didn’t pitch professionally last year and probably won’t arrive next year.
Petty hasn’t been all that great in the minors, with just a 23% K% in his 67 career starts. He does have decent sinker velo (95.5 average) and a good slider (25% SwStr% in AAA). I think we’ll see him next year, but I won’t go out of my way to get him in fantasy with that low career strikeout rate.
I’m not the best guy to talk about prospects, and I’m not getting too deep into things here, but it doesn’t look to me like there are significant reinforcements coming from the farm system next year.
Offseason Outlook
The Reds made the first big move of the offseason already, signing Terry Francona as their manager. That signals that they’re in “go for it” mode. I don’t suspect they’ll spend a ton of money in free agency, but it would make a lot of sense that they go after a high profile starting pitcher. They could also elect to spend their money on locking up some of this young talent, and that could send them looking for more affordable SP help. But I think it’s a good bet that they add a starting pitcher or two this winter. A Nick Pivetta or a Luis Severino type makes sense to me. I don’t think they’ll be in on the big names (Fried, Burnes, Flaherty).