2023 ZiPS Projections: Cincinnati Reds

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and today’s teams is the Cincinnati Reds.

Batters

The story of the origin of the name of Cincinnati is an interesting one. Many cultures have stories of semi-mythical legend involving historical rulers attaining great feats of martial valor or living absurdly long lives. But the tale of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, counsel for Rome in 460 BC and briefly dictator on two occasions, is a rare one in that it’s a tale surrounding the virtue of civic duty. While the reality was far more complicated, Cincinnatus is not famous so much for vanquishing his foes but for, with the strength of the Republic on his back, voluntarily giving up power and returning to his farm, twice, having done his duty to the Republic. The later Roman Republic was not so lucky; contrast the behavior of Cincinnatus with that of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, known in history as Sulla, who, after victory at the Battle of the Colline Gate over the Marians, seized… what? Oh, right. I’m going to have to talk about this offense, aren’t I?

If owners have any civic duty owed to the cities that pay for their stadiums, not much of that has been displayed by Reds ownership over the last 18 months or so. Coming off an 83–79 season in which Cincinnati was in wild-card contention at the deadline and with most of the core of the roster intact, the team folded its hand extremely quickly, trading most players with significant trade value and slashing the budget by around $50 million, despite playing in a weak division without any truly aggressive teams or profligate spenders. The team shed 13 points of wRC+, dropping from fourth in the NL in runs scored to 11th. To find a season more than a couple points worse than that combined wRC+ of 84, you have to go back to the early 1950s.

There aren’t really any bright spots in the offense, just OK ones. Noelvi Marte gets a very promising projection over the long-term (and how about that top comp!), and both Spencer Steer and Matt McLain get surprisingly optimistic projections that see them as real league-average players. Jonathan India gets sort of a comeback-ish season, and Tyler Stephenson can be a three-win player if he stays healthy and the Reds turn his off-days into DH days. Not a single position player gets 4 WAR at their 90th-percentile projection, though there’s still a good chance that someone does hit that mark because, well, that’s how probability works. The starting outfield basically looks a B-squad spring training roster.

Now, there are some reasons for optimism long term. There’s a solid stable of hitters with long-term upside that probably won’t come close to hitting it in 2022. In a lot of sims, Christian Encarnacion-Strand puts up some huge power numbers, and Elly De La Cruz becomes Alfonso Soriano. And, in something that’s good for fans since the team’s not going to be ambitious in free agency, all the most interesting players are young and cost-controlled for a very long time. It’s a long way from corn kernels to cornbread, and hopefully by the time this team’s ready to compete, fans are blessed with a new owner that’s up to the challenge of maintaining a quality contender in the Queen City. Until then, it’s going to be painful.

I do hope Joey Votto has one last comeback in him. I am no more bullish than ZiPS is.

Pitchers

Well, we got the bad news out of the way first, so let’s move onto the happier part of the roster, and I don’t mean that in the “silver lining” sense. Nick Lodolo and Hunter Greene both project as starters approaching borderline ace status with a bit of fortune in the health and performance department. ZiPS is particularly excited about Greene’s long-term upside; it had him as one of the unluckiest pitchers in baseball in terms of home run rate and, like Andrew Heaney last year and Corbin Burnes before that, sees him slashing that figure to much more palatable levels. Graham Ashcraft doesn’t project as having anywhere near the upside of the first two starters, but ZiPS thinks he’s a fairly safe mid-rotation starter who ought to be a good innings-eater for a long time. Those guys don’t get nine-figure contracts, but they still do quite well.

Since the team’s going to be… not good, I’d like to see the Reds get creative with the back of the rotation. Give Luis Cessa and Tejay Antone every opportunity to stick in the rotation (health permitting). Reiver Sanmartin’s stuff feels more crafty lefty than explosive reliever, so I’d like to see him get an opportunity to be a solid no. 3/4 starter just as Ashcraft did. An injury to Greene or Lodolo could sink this unit very quickly, but for now, this is not the team’s problem.

Neither, really, is the bullpen. ZiPS is still skeptical about Alexis Díaz’s command, but even with a rather meh walk rate, he projects as a perfectly cromulent reliever, if not with an ERA anywhere near his rookie number. There aren’t a lot of high notes in the pen, though I note for amusement that ZiPS thinks the Reds DFA’d one of their best relievers, Art Warren, a few weeks ago. What they have a lot of is boring adequacy, and without a lot of wins to protect, a boring middling bullpen won’t be what keeps them out of contention. The one thing I’d like them to do is pick up any flawed, live arm they can get their hands on and, in a season in which bullpen performance doesn’t matter all that much, see who they can get a pleasant surprise out of. That’s basically what the Orioles did, and it worked out marvelously, netting them Félix Bautista, Cionel Pérez, and the traded Jorge López.

The pitching ought to keep the Reds from losing 100 games, but there’s just not enough short-term upside in this offense that one can squint and make this team a contender. But, hey, if a miracle were likely, it wouldn’t be a miracle, would it?

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2023 due to injury, and players who were released in 2022. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Death Dixieland Bubblegum Ska-Funk band, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.22, above 2022’s level of offense but lower than other years. Pitchers who appear to have a fairly definite change in the majors from start-to-relief or vice-versa from these projections will receive reconfigured updates in the spring.

Hitters are ranked by 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 that appear in the 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.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.