The Reds’ offense has reached the point where the complaints have started to sound repetitive because the numbers keep saying the same thing.
Cincinnati sits 24th in slugging percentage, 26th in OPS, 27th in runs scored, and last in both batting average and on-base percentage. The club also has the second-most strikeouts in Major League Baseball. That’s the backdrop for the growing pressure around Chris Valaika, the team’s Director of Hitting and hitting coach, who is widely expected to be gone by the end of the season, if not sooner.
But changing the name on the office door would only be the first move, not the fix.
The larger issue is the way the Reds have chosen to hit in the first place, and that’s something manager Terry Francona has pushed back against. If the argument is that the hitting coach drives the whole approach, Francona still has plenty of influence over that vision and can shut down ideas he doesn’t want.
So this isn’t just about one coach. It’s about a system.
That said, Valaika isn’t blameless. The Reds did improve in one important area under his watch: barrel rate.
Last season, Cincinnati was near the bottom of the league at 7.3%. This season, the club is sitting just behind the New York Yankees at 9.3%.
The increase in barrel rate and exit velocity should have translated into more damage. It hasn’t.
Instead, the Reds’ expected batting average is still only .235, which leaves them near the bottom of the league. The reasons are pretty plain: strikeouts and launch angle. Too often, Cincinnati is either missing entirely or lifting a ball into harmless territory.
No team in baseball strikes out more than the Reds, whose rate sits at 25.4%. The list of regulars doing the most whiffing includes Eugenio Suárez at 34.8%, Elly De La Cruz at 27.5%, Matt McLain at 27.4%, Tyler Stephenson at 27.2%, and Noelvi Marte at 25.9%.
The fly-ball issue is part of the same problem. League average for a power profile is generally in the 35-45% range, but Cincinnati has several players living above that line.
JJ Bleday, Matt McLain and TJ Friedl all have fly-ball rates above 45%. Ke’Bryan Hayes is at 43.1%, Tyler Stephenson at 42.9%, and Suárez at 42.2%.
Outside of De La Cruz, Sal Stewart and Bleday, the roster doesn’t have a lot of obvious slug.
That leaves the Reds with two separate problems: a broken approach and a roster that doesn’t fully fit what the organization seems to want from its hitters. Valaika can be replaced, and that should happen. But the bigger concern is the front office, starting with Nick Krall.
So if the call is for Valaika to go, that part makes sense. But if anyone thinks the cleanup stops there, they’re kidding themselves. The Reds may need a much broader reset, and a new regime could wind up making painful choices on players not named De La Cruz, Stewart, Andrew Abbott, or Chase Burns.
If the offseason doesn’t bring those kinds of changes, Cincinnati could be staring at the same offensive mess again next September.
In Other News...
Kirk Herbstreit Said What Many Reds Fans Have Been Feeling
Kirk Herbstreit has never been shy about his Cincinnati roots, and on ESPNs Pat McAfee Show he sounded like plenty of Reds fans who have watched the same frustrating cycle play out for years. The longtime broadcaster, who calls himself a diehard Reds fan, pointed to a lack of competitiveness and the shrinking energy around the ballpark as signs of an organization that has too often fallen short of its own expectations.
Herbstreit described the Reds as underachieving for 13 years and said the sense of pride that once surrounded the team has faded. He also drew a sharp contrast between the passion Cincinnati fans bring to NFL Sundays and the more complicated experience of backing the Reds, a reminder that for all the citys loyalty, the baseball product has been making that loyalty harder to sustain. [Read more 🡒]
Reds Top Catching Prospect Looks Too Good To Ignore Again
Alfredo Duno was back in the lineup for Double-A Chattanooga after a right hamstring strain, and he looked every bit like one of the Reds most intriguing young bats. In a 3-2 win over Columbus, the top catching prospect doubled twice and added a single, a reminder that his long season has already been loaded with production as hes moved between High-A Dayton and Chattanooga.
Dunos overall line sits at .272/.395/.519, and his 19-game stretch since the promotion has come with a .958 OPS. He has also already cleared his previous career high with 19 home runs, which helps explain why he keeps forcing his way back into the conversation as the organizations third-ranked catching prospect. [Read more 🡒]
Reds Just Put Eugenio Surez At The Center Of A Playoff Twist
The Reds have put Eugenio Surez on waivers, a notable move for a veteran slugger who still carries some appeal even after a quieter season than the one that made him such a dangerous middle-order presence. For Cincinnati, it is the sort of late-season roster decision that can signal a lot at once, from payroll maneuvering to a willingness to let another club take on the risk if the bat still fits somewhere else.
Philadelphia is among the clubs reportedly weighing a claim, which adds a familiar September wrinkle for a player with real right-handed power and enough offensive value to matter to a contender. For the Reds, it leaves Surez in a strange spot, with his immediate future tied to whether another team sees enough in the profile to make a run at him before the waiver process plays out. [Read more 🡒]