CINCINNATI (WXIX) – Back on March 14, 2022, the first day that all of the Reds players were back at the spring training facility following the lockout, the Reds had scheduled a team meeting to set the tone for the season. Then, suddenly, Eugenio Suárez and Jesse Winker were hugging teammates goodbye. They’d been traded to the Mariners. The move effectively was Nick Krall announcing that the Reds were going to rebuild and it ended the Reds’ 2022 season before it even started.
Eugenio Suárez eventually made it to the media room for a goodbye interview that day, and he could barely put a sentence together between the tears. Jim Day asked the first question. Day and Suárez are close. Suárez looked at him and got the words out, “I’m sorry Jim Day.” Meanwhile, Joey Votto and Jonathan India were stunned and expressed frustration as they gave interviews in the Reds’ clubhouse.
It was the most devastating scene that I’ve witnessed covering the team.
Eugenio Suárez said, “Good vibes only. Don’t you forget that.”
He continued, “I saw my (whole) career in Cincinnati, but I understand… I’m grateful.”
“Maybe I‘ll finish (my career) here.”
Four years later, Suárez is back. On Sunday, the Reds agreed to terms with the best hitter remaining on the market, a player who hit 52 homers including the regular season and the playoffs last year.
He’s joining a Reds’ organization that hit rock bottom in 2022 and built itself back up into a playoff team in 2025. Now, he’s the piece that the Reds are counting on pushing the team to the next level in their efforts to become a real contender.
The story here is Suárez’s homecoming, but we all knew that he’d love to come back to Cincinnati. What we didn’t know was that the Reds would be willing and able to spend above the level we were told payroll would be at for 2026.
By my projections, the Reds had $3 million to spend before they hit what Nick Krall had said would be their payroll ceiling. Suárez will reportedly make $15 million, and there’s no deferred money in this deal.
According to sources, the Reds do not have to shed any payroll to make this move work. They’re doing something fans have been asking for since 2022, the year the Reds traded Suárez — pushing payroll up a notch, investing in the team and spending more aggressively to build a winner.
Suárez isn’t a perfect player, and there are reasons why his market was quieter than initially expected at the start of the offseason. He’s not a good third base defender anymore — the Reds will have him work at first base in addition to third, and he’ll spend a lot of time at DH. His strikeout rate was alarming in 2025, and he only posted a .298 on-base percentage. He’s a one dimensional player at this stage of his career.
But that dimension is the one that the Reds have been so desperately lacking. Finally, after years of discussing it, the Reds have added a player with a track record as a real power hitter.
The flaws in Suárez’s profile are offset by the fact that this is a one-year deal. Bigger market teams often use the line that there’s no such thing as a bad one-year deal because it can’t hamstring you in the future.
Signing Suárez signals that the Reds believe that they can take a legitimate step in 2026. He’s also a long-time fan favorite and clubhouse favorite. Joey Votto once called Suárez one of his favorite teammates.
Suárez told me in July, “Cincinnati, they gave a lot to me and my family. I still have a part of my heart in Cincinnati. They were the team to give me the opportunity to stay in the big leagues and the contract and be who I am right now.”
Back in 2018, the Reds signed Suárez to a long-term contract extension. That extension just wrapped up this winter, and he didn’t sign a deal anywhere between then and now.
Suárez has essentially had one bad year since he signed that deal — the 2021 season in Cincinnati. He was coming off of a significant shoulder injury, had to play shortstop and wasn’t himself. Including him in the trade with the Mariners in 2022 felt like a salary dump, and Winker felt like the prize in the deal at the time.
Winker went on to have a bad year in Seattle, and Suárez went on to be a beloved impact player with the Mariners. Suárez posted his career high in WAR in 2022. He has been an above-average hitter every year since then, and he was an All-Star in 2025 as he posted an .824 OPS.
Suárez was flipped from Seattle to Arizona before the 2025 season and then flipped back to Seattle at the 2025 deadline. Suárez wasn’t nearly as good during the second half of the season, posting a subpar .682 OPS in Seattle with a bad 35.9% strikeout rate. But even when he’s struggling, he’s still an intimidating presence as a guy who can swing a game with a big home run at any moment.
Clearly, the Reds didn’t see enough during the second half of the 2025 season to take away from their confidence in Suárez.
The Reds have been in touch with Suárez all offseason, and talks really picked up over the last week. All winter, the Reds have been focused on trying to find an impact bat.
Even with his flaws, signing Suárez makes this a promising offseason for the Reds. They’ve rebuilt their bullpen, added outfield depth and gained a real cleanup hitter. Teams can’t pitch around Elly De La Cruz because they’re complacent with pitching to the guy behind him in the order.
The Reds’ best lineup will have Suárez at DH, Sal Stewart at first and Spencer Steer in left with JJ Bleday and Will Benson on the bench. They can mix and match those guys along with Ke’Bryan Hayes to get everyone at-bats with different styles of lineups (some more offense oriented, some more defense oriented).
An outfield of Steer, TJ Friedl and Noelvi Marte looks pretty good. Still, there are still unproven players in prominent roles, and the Reds will need a lot of internal improvement to become a real contender.
Having Suárez’s power in the lineup should make everyone’s job easier. Even if he doesn’t get as hot as he did during the first half of last season, he gives the Reds the power threat that they lacked.
The move also has an intangible effect, highlighting an aggressiveness in the free agent market that the fan base was pining for.
The Reds will still need a lot to go right to chase down the Cubs and Brewers. But right now, the Reds’ vibes feel good.
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