Top of the Order: The Reds’ Inconsistency Belies Their Talent

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

The most encouraging thing about the Reds entering spring training was their depth. Noelvi Marte, Jeimer Candelario, Jonathan India, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Elly De La Cruz, and Matt McLain would shuffle around the four infield spots, and TJ Friedl, Jake Fraley, Spencer Steer, and Will Benson would get the lion’s share of the outfield time. Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo, Frankie Montas, Brandon Williamson, Nick Martinez, and Graham Ashcraft were battling for five rotation spots, and the experienced bullpen would be headlined by 2023 All-Star Alexis Díaz. The most talented of those players would make up the core, with more than enough depth to weather underperformance and injuries. Well, that’s what we thought, anyway.

Instead, Marte was suspended 80 games after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug. McLain underwent shoulder surgery and is expected to miss the vast majority — if not the entirety — of the season. Encarnacion-Strand could meet the same fate after fracturing his wrist after an anemic 37 wRC+ through his first 123 plate appearances. Williamson is on the IL with a strained shoulder that could keep him off the mound for the whole season without throwing a single pitch in the majors. Ashcraft is in Triple-A after posting a 5.05 ERA across 12 starts this season. Bullpen stalwarts Ian Gibaut, Emilio Pagán, and Tejay Antone are all on the IL. All this misfortune has added up to a 35-39 record that has the Reds in the basement of the NL Central.

It hasn’t been all bad, of course. Cincinnati posted a winning record through April, and is 10-7 since the start of June, a stretch that includes a seven-game winning streak from June 2-8. It’s a promising turnaround after the team’s brutal 9-18 May.

If there’s a single player who represents the Reds’ up-and-down year, it’s De La Cruz. He’s on pace for more than 6 WAR this year, but his season hasn’t exactly been smooth. He was one of the best hitters in the majors over the first month (165 wRC+); then was 32% worse than league average in May. His 37 steals lead the majors, but he’s been caught six times and made another seven outs on the bases, tying him with CJ Abrams of the Nationals for the most in the majors. His 11.5% walk rate is above average, but he’s also striking out in 31.0% of his trips to the plate and leading the league in strikeouts with 97. OAA (+5) likes his defense, but DRS (-3) doesn’t, and he’s made more errors (15) than anyone else, having particular difficulty with accurate throws (nine throwing errors). Even the handedness splits for the switch-hitter (124 wRC+ from the left side, 97 from the right side) show a two-faced performance.

For sure, the Reds are and need to be more than their best player if they’re going to make good on all the young talent they’ve gathered during some lean years. But the reality is the contributions from catcher Tyler Stephenson (101 wRC+), Steer (104 wRC+), India (96 wRC+), Fraley (90), Friedl (99), and Benson (89) have been uneven at best. Candelario, who leads the team with a 116 wRC+, had a mark of 82 over the first month of the season.

The pitching has been a rollercoaster as well, though Greene has finally emerged as a bonafide no. 1 starter thanks to his new splitter, which has given him a solid third pitch. Otherwise, Lodolo’s been on the IL twice already, Montas is averaging under five innings per start, and Abbott, while perfectly good, has been aided by a low BABIP that papers over a strikeout rate that’s down eight points. The bullpen is more of the same; Díaz’s ERA is above 5.00, and Fernando Cruz is striking out the world but walking aplenty.

It’s easy for me to sit here and say — as I often do in these columns — that the team just needs to get more consistent and string some wins together to get right back into a hilariously jumbled NL Wild Card race. And the Reds certainly have the talent to do that, with a key reinforcement soon to come when Marte’s suspension ends after just six more games.

Candelario and De La Cruz lead the team with 12 homers, putting them on pace for about 25 each, and Justin Wilson throws the hardest average fastball (95.4 mph) of all the relievers the team has used this year. Those aren’t terrible highs, but the relative lack of thump makes it tougher to score — requiring the offense to string more hits together to plate runs — and prevent scoring, because their pitchers can’t blow fastballs by batters.

Fortunately, if the Reds are hovering around .500 toward the end of July, there should be options for them to upgrade their roster before the deadline. Relievers Tanner Scott and old friend Aroldis Chapman both have major issues with command and control, but they’re difficult to square up and throw harder than anyone in the Cincinnati bullpen. Brent Rooker and Bryan De La Cruz should both be available, have multiple years of club control before free agency, and would currently be leading the Reds in home runs.

There aren’t perfect options out there; there almost never are. But oddly enough, the Reds might find consistency in the inconsistent. They don’t need to add a superstar over the next five-plus weeks. Instead, if they address their inconsistencies by acquiring complementary talent, they could bring out the best in the young core they have and make a postseason run.