The long, demanding grind of a baseball season is winding its way to a conclusion as we speak. Only six weeks and 37 games remain on the schedule before the final epitaph of the 2024 Redlegs can be written. Baseball Fever: Catch It!
The weekend series against the Royals sure seemed like the beginning of the end. Following the excitement of last week’s sweep of St. Louis, Cincinnati was blown out on their home field, outscored and outclassed by a 28-3 margin at the hands of a Kansas City team that looks a lot like they’re heading in a different direction than our favorite club.
Despite that, the ol’ Reds are still technically in the playoff race! The record is 61-64, 11.5 games behind first-place Milwaukee and 5.5 games back in the Wild Card race. According to FanGraphs’ playoff odds, the good guys have a robust 1.9 percent chance to qualify for the post-season. Sure, those are pretty slim odds, but it’s a reason to watch the rest of the way, right?
OK, maybe not. But even if the Reds don’t play their way into October, there are still plenty of reasons to keep an eye on the final six weeks and many questions lingering about this franchise. The Reds will need to come up with some good answers before next year’s Opening Day. Perhaps the closing stretch of this season can begin to give us some clues.
Who is Noelvi Marté?
Marté entered the season with sky-high expectations for a potential Rookie-of-the-Year campaign. Instead it’s been nothing short of a disaster, with an 80-game PED suspension on the front end and an embarrassing .181/.217/.292 slash line after finally returning to the lineup. There have been suggestions that recently-acquired Amed Rosario could take some of his at-bats down the stretch, and with the way Marté has played that’s not unreasonable.
On the other hand, he’s just 22 and has been a consensus top 25 prospect in all of baseball in recent seasons. Marté needs to live up to advance billing in 2025. Perhaps we’ll begin to see some glimmers in the final weeks of the season.
How scared should we be about Hunter Greene’s health?
Greene turned into a certified ace this year, but he just went on the injured list with elbow soreness. I’m afraid to say anything more. Literally terrified. The Reds desperately need Greene and Elly De La Cruz to continue developing and cementing themselves as the faces of the franchise in the coming seasons.
Maybe Hunter will return better than ever after 15 days on the IL. Please?
Whither Matt McLain?
McLain was last year’s breakout star and was expected to be a centerpiece of the Reds’ attack this season. Unfortunately, he had offseason surgery on his left shoulder and then, when he got close to returning earlier this month, sustained a stress reaction in his rib cage.
McLain is now participating in baseball drills once again. We don’t actually know whether he’ll return before the end of the season, but if so it’ll be good to see him in uniform. And hopefully we’ll get a glimpse of a player who will be a star next year.
Is Nick Lodolo the No. 2 starter on this team, or is he trade bait?
When healthy, lefty Lodolo has been as good or better than Hunter Greene since each debuted on the big league scene. Unfortunately, Lodolo has rarely been healthy. Over the weekend, he allowed eight runs in 2 ⅓ innings, and his ERA ballooned to 4.55.
Lodolo was 8-3 with a 2.96 ERA when a blister issue popped up during his June 18 outing vs. the Pirates and landed him on the IL. He’s had just two quality starts since that time. Should the Reds commit to Lodolo long-term? He’s still immensely talented; perhaps he could provide more value as a trade asset?
Is there anyone on the farm who can help this team next year?
Forget it. I’m not taking the bait. The 2024 season is the perfect example for why you never rely on kids to develop as part of your strategy to field a competitive team.
And the biggest question of them all: Will there ever be any sense of urgency in Cincinnati?
This weekend, Reds manager David Bell said, “We do believe in our guys. We know we have to continue to find ways to adjust to the league, adjust to the opponent and in some cases learn ourselves as hitters. There’s no reason it can’t happen now. There have been signs.”
I want to pull my hair out when I hear that. We’ve seen more than 120 games this year; how much longer do we have to continue to wait for these phantom adjustments Bell tells us are coming?
Much of this is manager-speak, of course, and you can’t really blame Bell. But it’s symptomatic of something we’ve seen far too often in Cincinnati in recent seasons: a complete and utter lack of urgency to put a competitive team on the field. No action at the last two trade deadlines, combined with a refusal to improve the team last winter, another lost season … what more needs to be said?
The country’s best sportswriter, Joe Posnanski, recently wrote about what’s happening in Kansas City. The short version is this: When they were negotiating a long-term deal with their young superstar Bobby Witt Jr., the shortstop asked if they were willing to make the commitment to win. Their legendary catcher Salvador Perez asked a similar question the previous season.
Royals GM J.J. Picollo said yes, they were going to try to win. Witt signed an 11-year contract and K.C. proceeded to, you know, go for it. What a novel concept! You can quibble with the decisions they’ve made, but wouldn’t you prefer to be watching a team that was actually trying to do something? Anything? Instead of whatever we’re seeing with the Castellini-era Reds?
“We got some pretty good feedback from a good (Royals) team about where we stood in terms of executing what we need to do,” catcher Luke Maile said after the blowout losses to K.C. “We’re going to have to take that information the Royals just gave us and do something about it. If we don’t, we’ll keep on just spinning our wheels.”
Are the Castellinis and Nick Krall tired of spinning their wheels? I hope to have an answer to that question in the next six weeks, or six months.
Chad Dotson helms Reds coverage at Cincinnati Magazine and hosts a long-running Reds podcast, The Riverfront. His newsletter about Cincinnati sports can be found at chaddotson.com. He’s @dotsonc on Twitter.
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