What Positions Do The Cincinnati Reds Need To Improve The Most This Off-Season? | Chatterbox Reds

What Positions Do The Cincinnati Reds Need To Improve The Most This Off-Season? | Chatterbox Reds

Nick Kirby is joined by special guest James Fox from BELGIUM! James is a naval intelligence officer who has an EMBA from Cambridge…..but he also just happens to be a Reds fan! James shares his research into the Reds overall performance in 2024, and he discusses with Nick the Reds biggest positions of need this off-season.

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Offseason Outlook: Cincinnati Reds
By Anthony Franco | October 8, 2024 at 4:42pm CDT

The Reds hoped to make the jump from underdogs with an exciting young core to legitimate playoff contenders. It didn’t happen this year. With a splash managerial hire and returns to health from most of the rotation, expectations will again be high going into 2025.

Guaranteed Contracts

Hunter Greene, RHP: $47MM through 2028 (including buyout of ’29 club option)
Jeimer Candelario, 3B: $30MM through 2026 (including buyout of ’27 club option)
Jonathan India, 2B: $7.05MM through 2025 (eligible for arbitration in ’26)
Option Decisions

RHP Nick Martinez holds $12MM player option (no buyout)
RHP Emilio Pagán holds $8MM player option ($250K buyout)
Team, RHP Jakob Junis hold $8MM mutual option; Brewers are responsible for $1MM of the $3MM buyout
Team holds $3.5MM option on LHP Brent Suter ($500K buyout)
Team holds $3.5MM option on C Luke Maile ($500K buyout)
2025 financial commitments (assuming Martinez opt-out and Pagán opts in): $39.05MM
Total future commitments (assuming Martinez opt-out and Pagán opts in): $95.05MM

Arbitration-Eligible Players (projections via Matt Swartz)

Ty France (5.089): $8.6MM
Tejay Antone (5.000): $1.1MM
Santiago Espinal (4.149): 4MM
Jake Fraley (4.097): $3.3MM
Tyler Stephenson (4.056): $5.2MM
Austin Wynns (4.017): $1.4MM
Ian Gibaut (3.077): $800K
Sam Moll (3.075): $1.1MM
Alexis Díaz (3.000): $4.2MM
Nick Lodolo (3.000): $2.2MM
Non-tender candidates: France, Antone, Espinal, Fraley, Wynns, Gibaut

Free Agents

Buck Farmer, Justin Wilson, Amed Rosario, Casey Kelly
The Reds have begun their offseason with a bang. As the season wound down, Cincinnati dismissed sixth-year skipper David Bell. That wasn’t especially surprising with the team en route to a 77-85 finish that represented a five-game drop relative to last season. Bell’s replacement was a stunner. The Reds brought Terry Francona out of what proved to be a one-year retirement. Landing one of the sport’s most respected managers should renew optimism going into 2025.

The goods:
It’s no shocker Elly is unbelievably valuable.
India’s bat is way more valuable than he’s given credit for and that’s even after factoring the 2B fielding run value benchmark starts at 1 rather than 0.
The Reds catching unit did really well even with Maile performing so poorly (-4 FRV on top of his abysmal offense). Stephenson is incredibly valuable.
Team baserunning was tremendously valuable yet the recent narrative was centered around the Reds being a bad baserunning team.
Reds pitching is so good. The relievers were incredibly valuable. The pitching philosophy is clearly to limit hard hits as they were the best in MLB at doing that.
The Reds were on the truly unlucky side of BABIP and expect some positive regression next year, especially with faster players usually posting historically better than average BABIP.