2019 ZiPS Projections – Cincinnati Reds

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Cincinnati Reds.

Batters

The team’s offense is solid, with the minor leaguers and the addition of Yasiel Puig, but it’s possible to get a little too excited. Even with career seasons from Scooter Gennett, Eugenio Suarez, and Jose Peraza (so far), the team only finished eight in the National League in runs scored and wRC+ last season.

What’s extremely interesting to me is figuring out which possible permutation of the starting lineup they actually go with in the end, because there are quite a few points of uncertainty, mainly in the outfield. There’s tantalizing upside with a healthy Jesse Winker and Nick Senzel available, the latter of whom has a great deal of positional flexibility.

But there are also some dangers. Matt Kemp may very likely be the least-valuable position player on the 25-man roster this spring, and certainly the worse option in the outfield. While Kemp’s offensive resurgence was helpful to the Dodgers at a time when few other players were either healthy or actually hitting, he was dreadful in the second-half of 2018 and his defense started regressing toward his typical terrible numbers with the glove. This depth chart assumes the Reds mainly use Kemp as a bat off the bench and a designated hitter in AL road games, but that’s not actually a guarantee that Cincinnati will be willing to bench a 2018 All-Star.

It’s a little strange, but the Reds non-tendered Billy Hamilton when they have open the exact spot at which he’d be most useful. Senzel’s been talked about as a center field option and Scott Schebler was surprisingly adequate there, but Hamilton would be a good backup for a team that’s hoping to be a serious wild card contender. If Kemp gets too much playing time in left, having a good defensive centerfielder would be doubly useful, lest the other team hit a lot of doubles into the gap of a Kemp/Schebler outfield.

Pitchers

The team’s rebuild has been hampered by two factors. The first was the timing of their various veteran trades, with the Reds having a knack for refusing to trade veterans at the height of their value and eventually getting less for them later on. This was most notable in the trades of Todd Frazier, Jay Bruce, and Adam Duvall. It remains weird that the Reds got a lot more for Alfredo Simon and Dan Straily than those three put together.

The other factor that has bedeviled Cincinnati’s rebuild is the inability to develop pitching from the fairly impressive group of arms that they acquired in recent years. The Reds had hoped to have at least a few solid, mid-rotation arms from the list of Anthony DeSclafani, Brandon Finnegan, Cody Reed, Keury Mella, Tyler Mahle, Amir Garrett, Sal Romano, and Robert Stephenson by this point. While the book’s not closed on this group, the team still don’t have a single healthy, dependable, mid-rotation-or-better starting pitcher.

With the offense looking like it could support a team with a winning record, it’s understandable that the Reds would feel a bit of impatience. There’s no guarantee Gennett will be in Cincinnati past this season and Votto’s age points to an inevitable decline in the not-too-distant future. If you can acquire three legitimate major league starters without giving up any of the organization’s crown jewels, why not? Senzel and Winker remain Reds as do Taylor Trammell, Hunter Greene, and Jonathan India.

My only question is whether it is enough. Dallas Keuchel would look nice at the top of the rotation; maybe you decide not to hang on to all said crown jewels if you can bring in a Corey Kluber with them. Tucker Barnhart isn’t a bad player, and catcher isn’t a major issue with the team, so if you’re going to give up at least one of the team’s top prospects, I’d rather do it for another pitcher rather than J.T. Realmuto, as terrific as he is.

Bench and Prospects

As noted, the Reds have had more than their fair share of pitching prospects not work out, but the system still has bright spots. Nick Senzel has survived into the high minors, as has Jesse Winker, and ZiPS is confident in both players long-term, even if the Reds haven’t quite figured out exactly where they’re going to play Senzel. I wouldn’t be unduly upset about Taylor Trammell’s 2019 projection; he’s not ready for the majors yet. And ZiPS already likes Tony Santillan better than any of the fringier starting pitchers the Reds currently have immured in the purgatory between Triple-A and the major leagues that they created with their winter pitching additions.

One pedantic note for 2019: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth chart playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here at site.

Disclaimer: ZiPS projections are computer-based projections of performance. Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors — many of the players listed above are unlikely to play in the majors at all in 2019. ZiPS is projecting equivalent production — a .240 ZiPS projection may end up being .280 in AAA or .300 in AA, for example. Whether or not a player will play is one of many non-statistical factors one has to take into account when predicting the future.

Players are listed with their most recent teams, unless I have made a mistake. This is very possible, as a lot of minor-league signings go generally unreported in the offseason.

ZiPS’ projections are based on the American League having a 4.29 ERA and the National League having a 4.15 ERA.

Players who are expected to be out due to injury are still projected. More information is always better than less information, and a computer isn’t the tool that should project the injury status of, for example, a pitcher who has had Tommy John surgery.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.