This time every single year, as we celebrate Opening Day and the onset of a new baseball season, I always reflect on how Spring isn’t just a season in Cincinnati—it’s an annual celebration of contradictions. Stubborn optimism piled upon decades of disappointment. Parades filled with smiling faces who almost certainly are dreading the inevitable heartbreak associated with Reds baseball.
And, above all, Spring conjures up the act of defying logic and believing that this year (no, really, this time!) we’ve finally turned a corner. Reds fans have perfected this delicate balance of hope and heartache. Here we go again!
Last year, the Reds limped to a dispiriting 77-85 record, finishing fourth in a division that didn’t exactly distinguish itself around the baseball world. But the season wasn’t just about bad baseball; it was unlucky baseball. Injuries sabotaged the 2024 Reds, ravaging the roster. (But, yes, it was also bad baseball, with embarrassing defense and horrific baserunning compounding the injury problems.)
Yet injuries alone don’t absolve a front office that treats roster depth the way your uncle treats exercise: as a noble concept best admired from afar. Teams prepared for October and the endless grind of a 162-game gauntlet build contingencies. Good front offices stockpile talent.
I’m self-aware enough to know that this is my Spring Fever talking, but things just feel a little different this year. I think?
Consider the arrival of Terry Francona, a baseball lifer hired to point this ship back in the right direction, and perhaps (finally) teach Reds baserunners that you don’t, in fact, get bonus points for being thrown out at third base. Yes, I know that this isn’t a sabermetric/Moneyball analysis, but my hope as a baseball romantic is that Francona is the kind of manager who doesn’t just fill out lineup cards—he creates cultures.
I want to believe that Francona is a manager who molds young players into stars, because right here right now young talent isn’t the problem; consistency, discipline, and health are. Perhaps he’s exactly the voice needed in a clubhouse desperate for direction. It certainly can’t hurt that he’s been in actual World Series parades instead of just Opening Day parades. Maybe, just maybe, he’s the gravitational force that pulls this wandering franchise back into orbit.
What about the players on the field, you ask? Well, as we discussed last week, the roster has actually improved, though we can argue about how much. Brady Singer brings a reassuring sense of calm to the rotation. Alongside Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo (assuming his body cooperates this time), the Reds’ rotation might finally be something more than a collection of wishful thinking. The bullpen has been bolstered by Taylor Rogers and Scott Barlow, who should offset Alexis Diaz’s sudden hamstring injury. The current crop of relievers isn’t quite the second coming of Rob Dibble, Norm Charlton, and Randy Myers, but just having someone reliable take the mound late in games is reason enough to celebrate.
Catcher Jose Trevino, fresh off World Series duty with the Yankees, is just a backup, but his Gold Glove-caliber defense and leadership seemingly improve this club. Gavin Lux and Austin Hays are two guys who’ve seen their careers swing between brilliance and frustration, but I’m optimistic about both. Lux, once a top Dodgers prospect, arrives in Cincinnati lugging his rebuilt ACL and a World Series ring as reminders of baseball’s extremes. He’s looking for redemption and a chance to get his career back on track. And Hays, if he can avoid another medical misadventure, still has the tools to anchor the lineup and offer stability in the outfield.
This roster (Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, Greene, et al) feels genuinely exciting. It does. Yet the cynic inside me whispers, “Sure, improvements, but isn’t the roster still flawed?” And the cynic would be correct. The Reds improved their depth, but they still lack that signature impact bat they needed. They’re gambling on everything going right: Lodolo’s health, Tyler Stephenson’s oblique, Hays’ kidneys, Lux’s surgically repaired knee, Spencer Steer’s injured shoulder, Diaz’s hamstring. The outfield remains an exercise in cautious optimism at best, a wing and a prayer at worst.
But, but, Elly is a walking highlight reel! McLain is back and healthy, eager to recapture the dazzling form he showed before last year’s injury-riddled lost season. Greene, armed with an arsenal of gas and grit, is blossoming into the true ace the Reds dreamed he’d become. Those are legitimate reasons to hope.
And here comes the buzzkill brigade: the computer nerds. The cold-eyed, soulless number-crunching geniuses at FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus have again predicted doom. FanGraphs projects Cincinnati to finish dead last in the NL Central at 78 wins. Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA spits out an even gloomier 74-88 projection, pegging the Reds’ playoff odds somewhere between “slim” and “maybe next year.” Even Vegas bookies, who famously know a thing or two, have pegged the Reds at around 79 or 80 wins.
Which brings us to the central tension of Cincinnati baseball in 2025: Who’s correct, the romantic optimists (like me) in Redleg Nation, our hearts fueled by nostalgia and daydreams of October glory, or the data scientists locked in basements coldly tabulating realities? On one side you’ve got data—cold, unemotional, unfeeling numbers churned out by algorithms that scoff at sentimentality—and on the other you have Reds fans, whose hearts have been broken so many times we’ve stopped counting. We’re convinced Francona’s mere presence is worth, I dunno, 10 extra wins. We envision glorious playoff runs. We watch spring training clips of Greene throwing triple-digit heat and De La Cruz hitting baseballs halfway to Dayton, and we think, “Why not?”
Honestly, you can make compelling arguments either way. But one of the things I love about baseball is that it’s gloriously unpredictable; witness the Arizona Diamondbacks sprinting into the World Series two years ago from a wild card slot after narrowly edging out our Redlegs for a playoff berth. Computer projections are sensible, but sports results often laugh at the data.
So, who’s right, the cold calculation of PECOTA or the stubborn, sentimental Reds faithful? Who do you trust, the number-crunchers with their sophisticated algorithms or the folks who keep a battered 1990 World Series VHS tape under their pillow? The answer—annoying and always beautifully uncertain—lies somewhere between spreadsheets and the dirt-stained jerseys, between computer screens and Opening Day excitement.
Maybe the smart bet is with the projections. But Spring isn’t about being smart. Spring in Cincinnati is about daring to dream, no matter how irrational. It’s about believing that this year might finally be the one, despite decades of evidence to the contrary. Hope, after all, is undefeated in March.
Chad Dotson helms Reds coverage at Cincinnati Magazine and is co-author of “The Big 50: The Men and Moments That Made the Cincinnati Reds,” revised, updated, and available in bookstores now. His newsletter about Cincinnati sports can be found at chaddotson.com.
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