Red Reposter - All quiet on the trade front (and the signings front)
Thursday links!
A new year has dawned on the Cincinnati Reds, yet so many of the same foibles within them are still shining bright.
Dan Szymborski of FanGraphs teased his ZiPS projections for the current 2025 Reds last night, and let’s just say they aren’t super rosy:
A sneak peek at the ZiPS x @FanGraphs Depth Chart for the next ZiPS team, the Cincinnati #Reds. #ZiPS25 pic.twitter.com/1QnjQbxGin
— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) January 2, 2025
The good news here is that, up the middle, the Reds look like they’ve found something good, especially if TJ Friedl shows his legs are healthy enough again to run like he did in 2023.
The bad news here is that their corner production (and bullpen) looks completely gross, the kind of devastating supporting cast that leads you to a mid-70s win total.
(The full ZiPS projections for the Reds dropped shortly after I originally published this reposter, and you can read up more about what the supercomputer thinks about this upcoming season here.)
It’s safe to say that Nick Krall has some serious work left to do. MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon caught up with him about such issues at the end of last week, and Krall’s statement wasn’t terribly inspiring:
“We’ve had a lot of conversations over the last few weeks to bolster our position player group, but right now, we haven’t gotten anything. We haven’t made a ton of progress at this point.”
We’ve noticed, Nick.
There are still 43 days until the first pitchers/catchers workout at team camp in Goodyear, Arizona, and that’s more than enough time to make some significant splashes. It was on January 2nd of last year when they signed Opening Day starter Frankie Montas, after all. Still, it’s hard not to notice that things haven’t exactly gone according to Plan A for the Reds front office so far this winter, and that means we’re left trusting their alternate plans ending up good enough.
In other news, it appears the Cincinnati Reds expressed interest in free agent infielder Gleyber Torres before he ultimately landed with the Detroit Tigers. According to Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press, the Reds were among a handful of potential suitors who came up short, though it seems that Torres preferred to stick at 2B on a pillow contract - something that didn’t seem to fit with what the Reds already have in-house.
Finally, here are some Kahn’s Franks, the official hot dogs of the Cincinnati Reds. They’re just about the only true Reds links out there at the moment.