When They Want It, The Cincinnati Reds Have A Whole New Infield In Waiting

27 games into the 2023 MLB season, and the Cincinnati Reds have already shown that, while they are still several evolutions away from contention, they are surely going to be better than last year.

At this same stage last season, the Reds were fully bottoming out with a 4-23 record, having just lost 20 of 21 games in a historically bad start and already 15 games back in the division. They could neither hit nor throw, and were being rolled over nightly by a cobbled-together hodgepodge of pitchers (38 in total on the season, albeit including three position players) who were getting shellacked nightly.

Moreover, those players used to paper over the cracks were, by and large, veterans and retreads, not the kind of young arms that could provide some glimmer of hope to offset all the losing. The losses were often not productive losses, but mere filler, as the team hoped to run out the clock on the season.

Thus far this year, though, the Reds are an improved 12-15, with some obvious bright spots. It is not a night-and-day comparison, and another postseason-free year will inevitably follow, yet some pieces for the medium term are starting to come together. Most notably, the top of both the rotation and the line-up are filled with players young enough to be considered pieces of the future, who are also producing in the present.

In the starting rotation, Hunter Greene’s stuff has remained as electric as ever, and incremental improvements in his deployment of it has seen him get out to a strong start, one which will get better once an anomalous .394 batting average on balls in play mark reverts to the mean. Greene has also been tied into a six-year, $53 million extension, a welcome opening of the coffers to one of the game’s best pitching prospects, and a clear move to the future.

Alongside him, Graham Ashcraft has had an even better season. In his five starts so far, Ashcraft has pitched to a 2.10 ERA and 1.17 WHIP, with an arsenal including a 100 miles-per-hour cutter and a sharp sinker that he has flanked this season with a much-improved (and more regular) slider, all combining to elicit a lot of weak contact. As measured by Fangraph’s Stuff+ metric, Greene and Ashcraft have the fourth- and fifth-best pitching arsenals in the whole of baseball, behind only Jacob DeGrom, Shohei Ohtani and Spencer Strider. Elite company indeed.

The third quality starter, Nick Lodolo, has a high ERA thus far tarnished by a leaky home run rate, and the back end of the rotation has taken a towelling, but a better-than-expected bullpen has seen the Reds improve to a 4.90 team ERA so far in 2023. There is a long way to go, to be sure, but there are pieces in place, and at the top of the line-up, the returns to health of second baseman Jonathan India (.392 on base percentage) and Tyler Stephenson (.377) has meant two 26-year-old infielders who are plus major league hitters.

The infield around India and Stephenson has been much drier at the plate. But there is help on the way, soon. Specifically, down with the Triple-A Louisville Bats, three infield prospects are showing out.

Cincinnati’s 2021 first-round pick, 23-year-old shortstop Matt McLain, has been the pick of the bunch, putting in a 1.063 OPS with seven stolen bases across short and second so far this year. He has 106 walks, 27 home runs, 35 doubles and 44 stolen bases in only 566 minor league plate appearances, and while he is still relatively inexperienced, he also looks Major-League ready as a hitter.

Alongside him at third base, power prospect Christian Encarnacion-Strand – acquired alongside Spencer Steer, who sits ahead of him on the big league roster, in exchange for Tyler Mahle – has fired off 13 hits in his mere 28 at-bats this season. While he is somewhat of a free swinger at the plate, he is also a consistent barreller of the ball, hitting 40 home runs and 35 doubles in his 150 games of minor league action, and if this quick adaption to the AAA level continues, he is surely on the cusp of a big league call-up at some point later this season.

A third AAA infielder, Elly De La Cruz, is behind the curve of those two but also has two years on them, as well as several inches. In recording a .945 OPS across High-A and Double-A play last season, the 21-year-old 6’5 shortstop hit 28 homers and stole 44 bags, a true power-hitting middle infield prospect with tantalising potential. De La Cruz needs further seasoning at the plate to fully utilise and optimise all his tools, but he has all of them that a hitting prospect could want. Especially a middle infielder.

Indeed, where the infield is currently a position of need at the Major League level, it will soon become a position of excess. In addition to the above trio, Cincinnati’s best prospects include further infielders in Noelvi Marte, Edwin Arroyo, Cam Collier and Tyler Callihan – of the top ten players on MLB.com Pipeline’s list of the Reds’ best prospects, seven are infielders. And that top ten does not include Steer (off to a solid start in his major league career), as well as former top prospect shortstop Jose Barrero (who still often looks overwhelmed at the plate, but who is making better contact and slowly trending the right way).

Because of this depth, the Reds have done little to block the path to the big league team. Last year’s short-term rentals at third and short, Brandon Drury and Kyle Farmer, have already gone, and veterans Kevin Newman, Jason Vosler, Matt Reynolds and Will Myers are not meant to be here for long.

Both Stephenson and India are 26 years old, and are therefore operating on a different timeline to the prized prospects behind them. After all their sell-off trades of veterans over the past couple of seasons, the Reds established a timeframe of rebuilding that by and large involves particularly young prospects, several years removed from regular big league work. Nevertheless, in having talented infielders available today, tomorrow and down the road, the Reds now find one part of their future to be replete with options, and the days of the Voslers and Newmans hitting below the Mendoza line will not last much longer.