Eugenio Suárez came back to Cincinnati this winter with the kind of buzz that usually follows a reunion built to work. He was a familiar face, a player fans already loved, and a right-handed power bat landing in Great American Ball Park, one of the best places for that sort of damage. The hope was obvious: Suárez would give the Reds a jolt, and maybe even help push Elly De La Cruz toward the MVP-level ceiling his talent hints at.
Instead, the return has mostly stalled out.
Suárez reached the All-Star break hitting .208/.285/.388 with 11 homers, and that line comes after a left oblique strain cost him 25 games earlier this season. His struggles didn’t begin there, either. He also faded badly down the stretch last year, when he hit .189/.255/.428 after being traded to the Seattle Mariners for his second stint with the club.
Now the Reds are 43-52 and sitting in last place in the NL Central, which makes the bigger picture pretty clear: Cincinnati should be selling at least its veteran free-agents-to-be before the August 3 deadline. Suárez does have a mutual option for 2027, but for all practical purposes he’s headed back to the market this winter. He also doesn’t really fit the same trade-deadline bucket as the rest of the Reds’ rental pieces.
Even so, moving him looks like a long shot. His defense has slipped, his offense has been uneven, and the 35-year-old has cost the Reds 0.7 fWAR so far. At best, a deal would probably require Cincinnati to attach a low-level prospect just to clear the money.
That’s why there’s a real argument for simply letting him play.
Suárez chose to return to the Queen City, and if this is indeed his final season in a Reds uniform, he’s earned the chance to finish it on the field. He’s still a player Terry Francona believes in, too. On July 9, Francona said, "I still think he’s a guy that when he gets hot, he’ll carry us for a while; we just got to get him there.”
And maybe there’s at least a flicker of life there. Right after Francona made those comments, Suárez went 3-for-7 over the final two games before the break on July 11 and July 12, and he homered in both.
That doesn’t mean he’s suddenly fixed, or that a turnaround is the smart bet once play resumes after the festivities in Philadelphia. But it does leave open the possibility that Francona was right, and that Suárez can still catch fire for a stretch. If that happens, maybe he gives the Reds a run and keeps them in the race longer than expected before the deadline.
If not, the larger point still stands. Cincinnati is stuck in neutral, and no amount of second-guessing changes that.
If the Reds are out of it, they have nothing to gain by parking Suárez on the bench and using him only in spots that favor a platoon edge against lefties. He deserves better than that.
In Other News...
Reds Just Sent A Concerning Message With Their Post Break Rotation
The Reds are heading into the second half with a rotation setup that says plenty about where they are right now. Cincinnati opens a three-game series against the Rockies, and the club has lined up Brady Singer for the first game, Rhett Lowder for the second and Hunter Greene for the finale, a sequence that also brings Lowder back into the mix after Nick Lodolo went on the injured list.
It is the kind of arrangement that invites a closer look, especially with Greene still being managed carefully after skipping the All-Star Game because of a tight hamstring and working under an innings limit. The Reds want at least two wins in Colorado to get the break off on the right foot, and with Ke'Bryan Hayes back in the lineup and talking up his offensive progress, the first series out of the gate already feels like an early test of how much stability this roster really has. [Read more 🡒]
Astros And Brewers May Have Just Forced The Reds Hand
The Astros decision to send Lance McCullers Jr. and Colton Gordon to the Brewers may have done more than reshape two rotations. It could also be the kind of move that nudges the rest of the market into motion, especially with the trade deadline approaching and teams around the league trying to read the same tea leaves. For Cincinnati, that matters because the Reds are in a spot where front offices have to decide whether to keep pushing or start listening on players who might bring back help for the future.
Brady Singer is one name that could get pulled into that conversation if the deadline starts to accelerate, though nothing is settled and any link remains speculative for now. The Reds have spent too much of the summer buried in the NL Central and well below .500 to ignore the possibility of selling, and a move by Houston and Milwaukee might be the kind of deal that forces Cincinnati to clarify its direction sooner rather than later. [Read more 🡒]
Reds Learn Local Draft Picks Final Decision And Fans Wont Like It
The Reds draft class got a little more complicated when it came to one of the local names on the board. Matt Ponatoski, the Moeller High School graduate and Kentucky football-baseball commit who was taken in the 18th round, is expected to head to the University of Kentucky instead of beginning his pro career, leaving Cincinnati to move on without a player it had some interest in developing on the mound.
There was better news elsewhere in the system, where Carter Graham kept forcing his way into the conversation with a big June. Graham was named both the Midwest League Player of the Month and the Reds Minor League Player of the Month after a strong run in High-A and a brief look at Double-A, a stretch that has only added to the sense that his bat is trending in the right direction. [Read more 🡒]