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Reds third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes won his second Gold Glove award for fielding excellence on Nov. 2.The acquisition of Ke’Bryan Hayes allowed the Reds to move Noelvi Marte to right field, where he played well for never having been at the position.
Few MLB teams had a better trade deadline in 2025 than the Cincinnati Reds, who acquired three important players who helped the team’s drive to the playoffs.
In fact, that trade deadline looked even better a month after the Reds played their final game when one of those key acquisitions, third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, earned his second career Gold Glove for his work this year for the Pittsburgh Pirates and then the Reds.
Hayes was one of two finalists for the premier fielding awards that have been relatively rare for the Reds since their Big Red Machine dynasty seasons five decades ago.
Versatile first baseman Spencer Steer fell just short of winning the award, as a finalist in his first season at primarily first base. Atlanta’s Matt Olson beat out Steer with a third career Gold Glove.
Hayes is the Reds’ first Gold Glove winner since catcher Tucker Barnhart during the 2020 pandemic-shortened season, and first full-season winner since Barnhart in 2017. He’s one of only two third basemen to win it for the Reds (Scott Rolen, 2010).
He and Steer give the Reds a head start on an important part of their offseason priority – fixing a fielding deficit after a recently concluded postseason underscored how valuable fielding is to winning.
The American League-champion Toronto Blue Jays were the top-fielding team in the majors, according to fangraphs.com, with the Reds ranked 21st. Only one team worse than the Reds made the playoffs: The Seattle Mariners (26th).
The team with the best record in the majors, the Milwaukee Brewers, ranked sixth in overall defense — one of three of the Reds NL Central rivals who ranked among MLB’s top nine teams defensively.
It’s a priority of the offseason for a Reds team that expects to make noise in October next season, which makes the acquisition of Hayes and the emergence of Steer two good places to start.
Even as team president Nick Krall responded to a question about offseason hitting needs, he brought up the fielding.
“We’ve got to improve both aspects of our position players,” he said. “We were towards the bottom of the league in defense. We did a good job with defensive efficiency. But our defensive range could be better across the board.”
Hayes is under contract for four more seasons at $30 million, plus a $12 million club option for 2023 that includes a $6 million buyout clause.
“We just laid everything out there, all the possibilities,” team president Nick Krall said of the approach in the context of resources and available players. “We tried to get third base first, because that was something we really wanted to figure out how to get, and then push Noelvi (Marte) out to the outfield, where he was taking some balls and was ready to go.”
Steer is under club control for three more years.
The addition of Hayes meant Marte was able to move to right field, where he looked much more comfortable defensively than he did at third base — including making a homer-robbing, season-saving catch in the ninth inning against the Pirates on Sept. 25.
Barnhart’s pair of awards were the Reds’ only Gold Gloves since 2013, when second baseman Brandon Phillips won one.
Since the Big Red Machine teams in the 1970s, the Reds have had more than one Gold Glove winner in a season just twice, in 2010 (Phillips, pitcher Bronson Arroyo, Rolen) and 2011 (Phillips, first baseman Joey Votto).