The Cincinnati Reds need to find a 3B this offseason
Despite a glut of infielders, the hot corner remains a concern.
If you’d said in April to anyone who’d seen the Cincinnati Reds play baseball in 2023 that on any given late-summer night they’d have Jeimer Candelario, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Matt McLain, and Noelvi Marte as their starting infield, you probably wouldn’t have had too much pushback.
That’s an infield devoid of Elly De La Cruz, of course, but given the way he struggled down the stretch last year, it would’ve at least been somewhat plausible to see a scenario where he wasn’t one of the four best options, I suppose. Anyway, the reality of a Candelario/CES/McLain/Marte infield right now draws a deep sigh and some inner reflection on why we do this to ourselves every summer of every year. Injuries, suspension, and underperformance are rife with that foursome, and none now seems a guaranteed lock for regular time on the 2025 Reds infield.
Santiago Espinal, acquired from Toronto when the spate of disaster popped up in spring, has hit a roasty-toasty .381/.427/.571 across his last 39 games. Ty France, owner of a combined 127 OPS+ with Seattle betwen 2021-2022, has mashed to the tune of a 131 OPS+ in 35 games since joining the club at the deadline. Elly is a bona fide superstar in the making, and Jonathan India’s June-fueled 104 OPS+ features a ~.350 OBP and a walk-rate that’s top 10 in all of baseball atop the lineup.
None of that 8-some plays the outfield, I should add. And on a 26-man roster that requires there to be 13 position players (with at least a pair of catchers), the Reds aren’t going to carry 8 infield-only guys - even if every single one of those guys has team control for 2025.
In Candelario, you’ve got the team’s big free-agent acquisition from last winter who posted a disappointing 92 OPS+ and poor corner infield defense prior to the injury that stopped his season short. He’s due $16 million in ‘25 (and a minimum $32 million guaranteed on the life of his deal), at at almost 31 years of age that’s a player who has zero trade value.
France, who turned 30 this summer, struggled mightily with the Mariners across 2023-2024 after his previously solid form, the kind of career-arc that screams ‘he was going to be non-tendered this winter.’ He’s earning $6.8 million in his penultimate year of arb-eligibility this year, and the question will be whether he’s done enough in his limited time in Cincinnati for the Reds to tender him a contract and give him the requisite raise on that for 2025, his final year before free agency.
Espinal, meanwhile, has team control through the end of the 2026 season, and his hot streak paired with positional versatility across the infield (and solid defense) means he’s likely got the inside track for a utility role on this club next year. He’ll warrant a raise in arbitration off his $2.73 million salary this year, but as a team’s 5th infielder that’s far from outlandish, especially when you consider how defensively limited the likes of Candelario, France, and India truly are.
India, I should point out, has once again been a) a 2B-only player and b) a well below-average graded defender there again. He signed a multi-year guarantee last winter so we know he’ll make $5 million in 2025 (with 2026 also a year of team control where he’ll again enter the arbitration process, barring change). He’s the former NL Rookie of the Year and has face of the franchise embedded within the brains of many fans in Cincinnati, with the question whether that resonates with the team’s front office as much as those fans.
I lead with quick profiles of those four players because they’re the ones making the money in 2025. As it always is with the Cincinnati Reds, defining how much they’re willing to pay for levels of expectation is a vital consideration in any projection, and with Elly, McLain, CES, and Marte all slated to make league-minimum in 2025 (with ‘the future’ for them beyond), it’s hard not to wonder if they’ll simply try to shed as much other salary as they can to run out an infield of ample potential that’s equally as cheap.
The biggest question mark that we won’t know a firm answer to is whether McLain, who has missed all of 2024 with various shoulder and oblique injuries after an oblique ended his 2023 campaign, can return to anything close to the form he possessed in a breakout 2023. Many noted at the time that he’d changed his swing and approach and was hitting for more power than ever that year after being known more as a ‘contact’ guy, but the oblique and shoulder injuries that have plagued him since may well be the byproduct of said swing change. If getting back to consistent health means he’s nowhere near offensive player he was in 2023 is a storyline I don’t yet want to visit, but if him consistently getting hurt in pursuit of the power continues that’s a parallel storyline that’s inevitable.
CES faces something of a similar ‘prove us wrong’ 2025, as he’s got a chicken/egg injury issue to move past as well. Was his awful performance in 2024 due to the wrist issue that eventually required surgery and ended his year? Or, was he just awful before a serious injury also popped up?
The Reds will also have the benefit of using options, should they choose. That seems like the obvious route for Marte, who is honestly only still on the big league roster right now because of all the other carnage in front of him. Hopefully a less distracting offseason can help him get back to what he was before this disaster of a season, though the PED cloud will chase him until he proves otherwise. Figuring that out with AAA Louisville to begin 2025 seems the obvious choice for him, with how effective CES hits in winter ball (should he play) and the spring helping determine whether he’s across the diamond from Noelvi there next April, too.
The option situation means the Reds don’t have to jettison anyone. However, how much they’re willing to pay for imperfect, unflexible infield depth to keep everyone around as they enter an offseason where they need a serious corner outfield upgrade (and some more proven pitching) remains to be seen. Will they really commit to paying each of Candelario, France, Espinal, and India even if they think the best infield they can put out there is a much cheaper option? Or, will they take the route of shopping India, or Espinal, or maybe even non-tendering France outright before they’re on the hook for whatever he’s deemed to earn later?
Money talks with these Reds. We’ve seen that time and time again, not only with the personnel decisions they’ve made over the year but in the precision timing to ensure they don’t owe anyone anymore than they absolutely have to - even if that gives them time and the ability to shop them via trade down the road. Wade Miley comes to mind there, for instance.
With that the primary driver, I find it impossible to believe all 8 of the guys profiled here are still in the mix when spring training rolls around again. There will be money-driven decisions that override the desire for depth, with France/India the likeliest to depart (in whichever level of administrative transaction suits). Banking on improvement and hoping - hoping - for better luck on the health front leaves me with the idea that the Reds will head into 2025 with an infield mix of Jeimer/CES as options at 1B, McLain at 2B, Elly at SS, Espinal as the utility option, and 3B a position where they need to do some serious soul-searching.
After all, only the dismal Chicago White Sox have received fewer fWAR from their collective 3B options than the Reds this year. That’s a positively dismal development given how much overlap they were once thought to have there.
Can they really still turn to Jeimer there? Will they consider moving Spencer Steer, who I’ve not mentioned here since they spent all last winter doing everything they could to make him a full-time OF, back into that discussion? Will they simply roll Noelvi Marte out there from day one and hope like hell he’s just, like, better?
Or, is it a reality that they’re going to once again have to dig deep to address a position they thought they’d addressed, but actually failed miserably to address?