For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Cincinnati Reds.

Batters

When I look at Cincinnati’s offense, I’m incredibly confused. By “confused” I don’t mean that the offense is lousy, just that its construction is utterly bizarre in a lot of areas. For example, even if you write Matt McLain and Elly De La Cruz in permanent marker at second base and shortstop, respectively, you still have a team that’s overflowing with plausible third base candidates: Jonathan India, Noelvi Marte, Spencer Steer, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand to start. Given this hot corner glut, the Reds signed… one of the best third basemen available, in the form of Jeimer Candelario, but not, mind you, to be the starting third baseman. And while he’ll see time there, it’s extremely likely he’s going to get a ton of time at first base and designated hitter. One of the main reasons to like Candelario is that he hits like he does while playing a very competent third base. The more time he sees at 1B/DH, the more it’s the equivalent of buying a sports car to use as a step ladder to change the light bulb in your garage.

What’s more, many of the players who’ll be shifting down the defensive spectrum doesn’t really have much in the way of synergy. Candelario, Steer, and Encarnacion-Strand are all essentially right-handed hitters in profile (Candelario has the splits of a right-handed batter), so it’s not like one of those sneaky Gabe Kapler platoons.

Given how much ownership has cried poor, I don’t want to discourage the Reds from spending, but if they’re going to grow payroll, why not spend to address actual team weaknesses? Spending more money and getting bang for your buck are not mutually exclusive propositions. When I expressed confusion on Twitter about the Reds earlier this offseason, I was assured by fans of the team that the roster would make more sense after all the trades they were certainly going to make. Well, those moves haven’t come.

But who knows? The Reds do have a lot of talent on the roster, even if their players are deployed in a rather odd way. McLain is terrific, and I think De La Cruz’s late-season drop-off removed the over-exuberance that he was going to be Fernando Tatis Jr.; he’s now about properly rated for what he is. Tyler Stephenson ought to have a better season than he did in 2023, and ZiPS projects the outfield to be adequate if healthy, though the computer can hardly be described as enthusiastic. ZiPS is kind of interested in Blake Dunn as someone who could eventually push Stuart Fairchild off the roster. As we’ve seen with them before, the Reds likely missed the window to get a good return for India, but he’s still probably a roughly league-average player and isn’t going to get any more valuable as a role player.

I’ll be generous and give the team the benefit of the doubt that there’s a plan to trade off some of the surplus talent here before it’s frittered away by time and attrition. But they’re running out of time to do it before the start of spring training.

Pitchers

ZiPS likes a lot of Cincinnati’s hitters, but it’s less enthusiastic about the pitching. That’s not so much a rotation problem, though several of the starters have worse projections than last year. It’s really odd that the Reds made a playoff run and it turned out that it have very little to do with breakouts from Hunter Greene, Graham Ashcraft, or Nick Lodolo, all three of whom were some combination of mediocre and injured in 2023. ZiPS is a believer in Andrew Abbott in the sense that he’s a deserving part of the rotation, but its expectations are tempered a bit. Green, Ashcraft, and Lodolo all have worse outlooks than they did at this time last year, though that can hardly be a surprise.

Unlike some of the other Cincy signings, I really like the Frankie Montas pickup. There’s a good chance that he doesn’t contribute anything at all in Cincinnati, but the upside, given his history, is really quite interesting. I wish the team signed players like this more often, ones who represent a real jackpot for the team if they hit, say, their 70th percentile projections and stay healthy. The computer likes Nick Martinez as a useful swingman.

ZiPS absolutely hates the bullpen, though in the end, it has the group projected for the same 2.3 WAR that Steamer does. ZiPS likes Alexis Díaz, Fernando Cruz, and Martinez when he’s used in relief, but is lukewarm everywhere else.

I think the Emilio Pagán signing was the worst bullpen addition any team has made in free agency so far this winter, but I was surprised that ZiPS likes Pagán even less. I see this as a good example of a team thinking that the season before is the same thing as a projection, and ignoring the red flags. Pagán was basically successful because he suddenly went from being a terrible home run pitcher to a great one. Home runs allowed is a terrible stat, so terrible in fact that it makes xFIP useful, when it really should not be. Pagán has a long history of allowing a lot of homers in pitcher-friendly environments and actually had the worst average exit velocity allowed in his career in 2023. He remained a fly ball pitcher, and now he goes to one of the worst environments in baseball for a pitcher who allows a lot of flies. This is like the anti-Dodgers signing. That’s not a guarantee that Pagán will be lousy — relievers are quite volatile — but I really don’t like the odds.

So what does this all add up to? If the projections are to believed, about a .500 team, just where the Reds finished last year. Given the team’s young talent, I wish this franchise was taking a more practical approach to actually improving the roster.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time.

Here are how the ZiPS percentiles worked out in 2023 for pitchers and hitters in in 2023.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2024 due to injury, and players who were released in 2023. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Belgian Death Metal Skiffle Band that only plays songs by Franz Schubert, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.33.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.

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