As the MLB hot stove heats up, the Reds have already had a relatively busy offseason: 

• Swiss army knife Nick Martinez is staying put after accepting the Reds’ qualifying offer of $21.05 million.
• Two prospects who shined during the Arizona Fall League, Luis Mey and Tyler Callihan, were added to the 40-man roster in order to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft.
• Fan favorite Jonathan India – who has had the trade rumor cloud hanging over him for a couple of years now – was finally moved (along with AAA outfielder Joey Wiemer) to the Royals for starter Brady Singer.

This all happened by Thanksgiving. So, by bringing back Martinez and adding Singer, the Reds have already checked one major item off their to-do list – stabilizing the rotation – before the winter meetings even start. Cy Young Award vote-getter Hunter Greene figures to be joined by Singer, Nick Lodolo, Andrew Abbott and either Martinez* or prospect Rhett Lowder. 

* Because of the one-year price tag and the way he pitched as a starter to end the 2024 season, a lot of fans online seem to assume Martinez is ticketed for the rotation, but I don’t buy that. POBO Nick Krall didn’t even guarantee that when asked about Martinez during a recent radio appearance – and that was before the India-Singer trade. If Lowder pitches well in Spring Training and the first four guys I named are healthy, my bet is that Martinez starts the season in the bullpen where he can fill a multi-inning or high-leverage role until he is inevitably needed to slide to the rotation when the injury bug bites. That’s a big part of his value.

OK, that was a lot of words to describe one to-do list item. And Krall, General Manager Brad Meador and their staff have more work to do. In no particular order of importance (more on this in a moment), they must:

• Add at least one bat to a lineup that ranked 16th in runs scored last season. (When you play half your games in Great American Ball Park, that isn’t exactly going to cut it.)
• Improve a team defense that, no matter which advanced defensive stat is your favorite, ranked near the bottom of the whole stinkin’ league in 2024.
• Shore up a bullpen that needs innings filled following the departures of Buck Farmer and Justin Wilson.
• Sign or trade for a backup catcher to replace Luke Maile.

As promised, let’s talk about priority. If you ask 10 Reds fans which need is the most important one to address this offseason, I bet you nine of them would pick the offense. And I’m not exactly going to zig here when others zag. We simply need to add a middle-of-the-order bat to this lineup to take some pressure off our younger hitters. Getting back a healthy Matt McLain, Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Jeimer Candelario should help. 

There needs to be some emphasis on should there, though. We don’t know if the McLain we saw as a rookie in 2023 is the real guy, and he’s coming off major shoulder surgery. CES hit well (around an .800 OPS) in a cup of coffee in 2023 after tearing up the minor leagues over the course of several seasons, but he batted under the Mendoza line last year before a wrist fracture knocked him out for the rest of 2024. He has always had an over-aggressive approach with a below-average hit tool given to him by scouts, and while I think his power is legit, I’m not THAT bullish on him. And regarding the Candy Man, his strong 2023 season – after which the Reds signed him to a three-year, $45 million free agent deal – could have been a bit of a mirage. His Baseball Savant page for that year shows a lot of shades of blue (which means below average and that he was perhaps due for a regression), and beyond hitting a respectable 20 homers in about 400 at-bats last year, he was awful on both sides of the ball. To be fair, he has had good seasons in his career before 2023, but he also hasn’t been consistent.

All these caveats aside, the Reds do have the foundation of a good lineup, even without India. TJ Friedl, superstar Elly De La Cruz and McLain should form a good 1-2-3 top of the order with an impressive combination of speed, on-base ability and power. Guys like Tyler Stephenson, Spencer Steer, Candelario and CES can add length to the lineup, but in a perfect world, they should hit lower in the order. What the team needs is someone to hit cleanup and knock their high-OBP hitters across home plate. 

Here’s the problem: Hitting costs money, and just how much will the front office have available to spend on said hitting? It’s a beautiful mystery.

FanGraphs’ RosterResource page has the Reds’ estimated 2025 team payroll at about $101 million. That’s already a hair above their 2024 payroll. The good news is the team’s CFO, Doug Healy, recently told MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon that despite the revenue losses that will come with the Reds moving from FanDuel Sports Network to MLB for broadcast partnership starting in 2025, the front office will “maintain payroll levels at or above 2024.” Now, the key follow-up there should be: Is it at? Or above? If it’s the former, then unless the Reds move some of their larger contracts belonging to, for example, Candelario or reliever Emilio Pagán for salary relief (unlikely), then there’s no room left to add. But thankfully, Krall told the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Gordon Wittenmyer following the Singer acquisition that he has “a little bit of payroll flexibility left.” 

How much is a little bit? I have no idea, but I have some hope that it’ll be enough to make some needle-moving additions, especially after the team lured managerial legend Terry Francona out of a brief retirement to take the helm. While the Reds’ ownership gets a lot of (mostly deserved) criticism for being cheap, they have increased team payroll in meaningful ways during some recent competitive windows. From 2012 to 2013, for instance, payroll jumped by almost $20 million, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. From 2018 to 2019 – near the tail-end of a rebuild – payroll went up by $25 million.

Sorry, that was a very long preamble to the main point of this post – how the team can improve offensively. So let’s be conservative and predict that the Reds increase payroll to about $120 million for the 2025 season. If we just focus on them using a chunk of that new money toward a middle-of-the-lineup bat, should they do it via trade or free agency? Below are a few possibilities for each route. I’ll order them from least to most realistic.

Free Agency

Sign Teoscar Hernández

The outfielder bet on himself last winter, signing a one-year contract in Los Angeles. That bet paid off: Hernández hit 33 homers, had an OPS of .840 and helped the Dodgers win a World Series. Beyond a rough year in Seattle in 2023, he’s been remarkably consistent, sporting a wRC+ (which measures a player’s offensive value while adjusting for factors like ballpark environment, with 100 being league average, according to Fangraphs) of at least 130 in four of the last five seasons. He would also bring a reportedly positive, energetic veteran presence to a young clubhouse. 

Hernández does have a few downsides. He strikes out a lot (which is something the Reds are apparently trying to get away from), he’s a butcher in the outfield (with a Statcast fielding run value of -11 in 2024) and he’s going to command a multi-year deal above $20 million in average annual value. If you do some math based on my payroll notes above, that would sap up all of the team’s leftover financial flexibility and likely relegate the necessary bullpen and backup catching additions to minor league signings. Hernández also has said that he loved playing for the Dodgers and wants to return. He would be an exciting acquisition for the Reds, regardless of the downsides, but I don’t see it happening – especially considering the fact that Hernández has the qualifying offer attached to him. With the organizational focus on drafting and developing in mind, it’s hard to imagine the Reds parting with a draft pick to sign a free agent that isn’t quite the perfect fit.

Sign Michael Conforto

Conforto was quietly one of the better hitters in baseball for the Mets in the mid-to-late 2010s. But shoulder issues kept him off the field for the entire 2022 season, and his two-year stint in San Francisco after that was largely a disappointment. There were some encouraging signs from Conforto in 2024, however: He said recently that he feels completely healthy for the first time in a while, his 2024 Statcast page was full of red (above-average) and he ran an OPS of .850 on the road (away from the Giants’ pitcher-friendly ballpark). He also hit lefties much better than righties in 2024, and while that appears to be an outlier for his career, it nonetheless indicates that he might not have to be platooned. Like Hernández, Conforto isn’t great defensively, but he isn’t quite as bad in the outfield. If he would sign a one- or two-year deal in the $10-$15 million AAV range – which several prognosticating sites have projected – Conforto seems like a good option.

Sign Austin Hays

Hays was a really solid outfielder for the Orioles before being moved to Philadelphia at the trade deadline in 2024. From there, it was a nightmare for him, as he battled a kidney infection, missed a lot of time and had a wRC+ of under 100 for the first time since the COVID-shortened 2020 season. The Phillies non-tendered him earlier this month. Hays wouldn’t be the most exciting signing and Statcast didn’t love him even during his strong 2022 and 2023 seasons, but with his ability to mash lefties and play solid-enough defense, he could form a sneakily strong platoon battery with Jake Fraley in one of the corner outfield spots. Hays is healthy and certainly sounds motivated to bounce back.

Trade Market

Trade prospects Sal Stewart, Ricardo Cabrera, Hector Rodriguez and Luke Hayden to the White Sox for center fielder Luis Robert Jr.

The White Sox are rebuilding. The Reds need an outfielder that ideally can both provide power and play good defense. Seems like a perfect match, right? Well, not exactly. Robert is coming off a down year (84 wRC+) that was marred by injuries, and I seriously doubt Chicago is going to sell low on him, especially considering they likely have a big prospect return on the way for pitcher Garrett Crochet any day now. Regardless, the Reds tend to be pretty risk-averse, and it’s hard to see them selling off a bundle of prospects for an oft-injured player – no matter how good he is when he’s healthy. 

But if a trade were to happen, this is a pretty fair offer for where Robert’s value is now. It might seem light for a player of his caliber, but it’s actually an overpay if you plug the trade into the BaseballTradeValues website. The White Sox have said that they are focusing on position player prospects in trade talks this offseason, and in this deal they’d get three in Stewart (Reds #4, MLB #76, per MLB.com), Cabrera (Reds #10) and Rodriguez (Reds #12). Hayden is a sweetener as a recently drafted pitcher that barely cracks the team’s top 30 list. The Reds would be getting a great, still-young center fielder with thump in his bat (38 homers in 2023), allowing them to slide Friedl over to left field where he’s probably better suited. Having an up-the-middle core of Stephenson, De La Cruz, McClain and Robert is salivating.

Trade Nick Lodolo to the Red Sox for right fielder Wilyer Abreu

At first glance, the Reds might seem to be pitching-rich. One good starter is going to have to either start the season in AAA or in the bullpen. Similar to the Singer trade where the team moved a superfluous player to fill a need elsewhere, perhaps they end up trading a starter to get an outfielder. That would allow them to hold onto their prospects.

If this is the plan, then Boston is a good match. They need pitching and have reportedly been in talks with the White Sox for Crochet. The team is deep in outfielders – with more highly rated players on the way in the minor leagues – and Abreu is one guy I could see them moving. He’s only 25, not yet arbitration-eligible and he hits the ball hard as a left-handed bat. He also just won a Gold Glove as a right fielder. The challenges with him are that he strikes out a lot and might not be able to hit competitively against lefties. (Although the Red Sox haven’t really given him many opportunities to improve there in game action.) An Abreu-for-Lodolo swap is about an even match per BTV, and Lodolo would give them a young, cheap left-handed starter with shades of former Red Sox Chris Sale in his repertoire. But I figure Boston would prefer to use Abreu in a package to get Crochet, and Lodolo’s extensive injury history might give their front office pause. On the Reds end, I don’t see them actually moving one of their better starters for a bat because they really value pitching – as evidenced by them moving India for Singer when Martinez had already re-signed. With guys like Brandon Wiliamson and Julian Aguiar on the shelf for all of 2025 due to Tommy John surgery, they’re going to need all the depth they can get. And if they do target an outfield bat in a trade, I think they’d prefer a veteran.

Trade Graham Ashcraft and Will Benson to the Angels for corner outfielder Taylor Ward

The India-Singer trade officially put a nail in the coffin of my favorite India trade idea for this offseason: Moving him to Anaheim for Ward. But perhaps the Dayton, Ohio, native is still gettable with a different package. Projected (by MLB Trade Rumors) to make $9.2 million in arbitration later this offseason, the Angels might be willing to move him to create more payroll flexibility and fill other needs. Mike Trout will likely need to spend less time in center field next season to protect himself from more injuries, and the Angels just traded for Jorge Soler, who will likely be their everyday DH. If Trout plays more left field, where does that leave Ward? It could simply be right field, but he hasn’t played out there since 2022.

Beyond his Ohio roots (which Reds fans know that ownership loves), Ward would be a great fit. He mashes lefties, has impressive under-the-hood numbers on Statcast, plays good defense in left field and comes with two more years of control. Ward is respectable enough against righties that he can play every day, but can also platoon with Fraley if necessary. While the Angels just spent big free agent dollars on a starter in Yusei Kikuchi, they could still use more pitching. Ashcraft has been inconsistent with the Reds, but has nasty stuff, induces a lot of ground balls and has four years of control left. Benson is coming off a terrible season after an impressive 2023 campaign, but he could at least form a cheap platoon with Jo Adell in right field for the Halos. The team reportedly had a very high asking price for Ward at the 2024 trade deadline, so perhaps they’d prefer a couple of top prospects instead. (I’d be less interested in a package like that because Ward is good, but not really a difference-maker.) But for the record, BTV has Ashcraft/Benson for Ward as a slight overpay by the Reds.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. For all I know, after having written well over 2,000 words about how the Reds can add a bat to their lineup, tomorrow the team will go in a completely different direction that I could not have predicted. Part of me would love to be a fly on the wall in Krall and Meador’s war room, but then how could I have fun speculating like this?