Behind the dish the Cincinnati Reds boast both Tyler Stephenson and Jose Trevino for the 2026 season, a quality combination of experience, defense, and even some timely offense sprinkled in. The starting rotation that will chuck baseballs their way is also mostly set, the only unknown precisely how the depth at its back-end gets shuffled through to manage the 162 game season.

Across the infield, the club has both depth and certainty, too. Ke’Bryan Hayes was brought in specifically for one thing – to play incredible defense at the hot corner more often than not – while star Elly De La Cruz will flank him to the left at short. Matt McLain, his breakout 2023 now a distant memory, has the trust of both the front office and manager Terry Francona, his glovework a certainty while his offense hopefully leaks back into the picture after two years being MIA. At 1B, there’s a plethora of legitimate options, Sal Stewart ready to stake his claim while Spencer Steer plays all over, and Eugenio Suarez could even mix in when not serving as the regular DH.

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The LF situation that the Reds refuse to actually solve got depth, too, with Steer now slated for more time there with Suarez in the fold and former top pick JJ Bleday around to compete with Will Benson for PA from the left side. Dane Myers and his own excellent glovework were acquired from the Marlins to provide right-handed balance to that mix while also being fully capable of spelling TJ Friedl in CF to keep the latter more fresh for the season’s stretch run.

Even the bullpen got a healthy overhaul, with Caleb Ferguson, Brock Burke, and Pierce Johnson brought in to bolster what remained after Scott Barlow and Brent Suter hit free agency at the end of 2025.

That’s almost a full roster of knowns, with McLain’s bat perhaps the only real question mark. Still, his defense and position mean he’s not a bat on which the Reds truly need to lean either way. Yet despite the budding ‘certainty’ on this roster that was young and unproven so recently in memory, there’s still one spot on the field (and presumably in the everyday lineup) that’s penciled-in despite us really having no real clue how the situation will pan out in 2026.

That’s in RF, and that lies with Noelvi Marte.

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Still just 24 years old, Marte was obviously one of the big gets from Seattle in the deal that sent Luis Castillo westward almost four years ago. In the trio of big league seasons since, Marte has morphed from a top shortstop prospect over to 2B, then to 3B where he settled in to more regular time despite a PED suspension that cost him half a season. As recently as the Reds’ 108th game of the 2025 season, he was the clubs regular at the hot corner, only to immediately be tasked with playing RF for the first time in his career after the targeted (and long-term, not short-term) addition of Hayes for 3B.

From that point forward, he hit .254/.280/.415 across 51 games to finish the year. For his career across parts of three seasons, he’s hit .254/.294/.400 in 725 games. That’s a career mark of 86 OPS+ (an 86 wRC+), and that comes on the heels of him still being incredibly fresh off a move to a position he’d never played before at any level.

Yet still, we sit here on the cusp of pitchers and catchers reporting for 2026 spring training in Goodyear as if he’s a failsafe option out there, a known quantity to be an everyday regular in one of the positions historically patrolled by the best two-way players in the sport.

This isn’t meant to be an indictment of Marte’s potential, as it still seems as if he’s got loads left to unlock. It’s merely an attempt to highlight just how much the Reds have put on his plate heading into 2026, and how much they’re banking on a still very much unproven player in a year in which they’re clearing aiming for even more success than their playoff appearance in 2025.

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You don’t go spend $15 million on Suarez for a lone year without thinking this year is pretty vital with expectations. You don’t retain Brady Singer for $12 million in his final year of club control (with all that starting pitching depth behind him) without clearly having your sights set on a return to the playoffs in mind. Yet despite building depth at basically every single position out there, it seems as if getting Marte 550+ PA (and having them be pretty damn good) is something the Reds have already chalked up in their projections as if it’s something he’s done for them for years already, and it’s hard not to overlook that at the dawn of a huge year for the Reds.

It’s not that he hasn’t flashed that ability in spurts before, as he has. It’s just that it’s literally something he’s never once sustained for anything close to a full-season before, and simply sliding Bleday or Benson over doesn’t bake in the kind of upside depth that, say, letting Suarez play more at 3B should Hayes continue to not hit or letting Steer play 1B regularly if Stewart stumbles does.

Marte’s kind of on an island over there in the outfield corner, for now. He’s on an island of big expectations, and with that comes a bit more pressure on him than he’s ever had in his big league career.

The hope, for the Reds sake, is that he’s the kind of player at this juncture that will thrive on that opportunity, for that opportunity is very, very much here.