GOODYEAR, Ariz. — It’s the middle of July of 2025, and the Cincinnati Reds’ front office and coaching staff are evaluating their options leading up to the trade deadline. They’re deciding what type of team that they want the Reds to be going forward.
There was a pretty clear priority.
“How can we improve our defense?” president of baseball operations Nick Krall said.
For all of the talk at the time about the Reds needing more punch in their lineup, the Reds went in a different direction. First, they moved Noelvi Marte from third base to right field. Then, they traded a top-10 prospect in the organization, Sammy Stafura, to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Gold Glove winning third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes.
“We’ve talked about it from Day 1,” Krall said. “We want to be a pitching and defense team. We play in a hitter-friendly ballpark. If you maximize getting outs, it’ll help the pitching staff. We want to be a good pitching team. That’s something we’ve talked about for the last few years.”
Hayes was better offensively with the Reds than he was with the Pirates. Still, Hayes had the second-worst OPS (.596) in all of MLB last season among qualified hitters. Since the start of the 2024 season, Hayes is the only player in MLB with at least 900 total plate appearances and an OPS below .600.
“We know the type of defender he is,” Terry Francona said. “It’s our responsibility to get a lineup where whatever he hits, we can live with it because the defense is so good.”
Hayes might have the best glove in baseball. The Reds traded for him and picked up his guaranteed $30 million between now and 2029 because of Hayes’ elite ability to play third base. He’s getting paid $7 million in each of the next two seasons, $8 million in 2028 and 2029 and has a team option for $12 million in 2030.
Because of how good he is defensively, if Hayes is simply an above league-average hitter, he becomes one of the better players in the game. He was exactly league average at the plate in 2023, and because of his defensive prowess, he finished the season ranking in the top-50 in all of MLB in position player WAR.
“With the way our team is here, if I can be above league-average, run the bases well and play good defense, that’ll definitely help us as a team,” Hayes said. “Whatever I can get above that would be a bonus. Our lineup is really good. We have guys who can hit homers. Eugenio Suárez is definitely big. I can’t wait to see a full year of Sal Stewart. I make pretty good contact. Being able to get the leverage to get the ball in the air will help me a lot.”
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Over the last two years, Hayes has learned that the LG5 disk in his back is “the most important one.” Hayes has a chronic back issue — a degenerative disk — that he’s constantly managing.
“With the alignment issues that I have, stuff feels different day-to-day,” Hayes said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m standing a certain way but it’s completely different. I battle with that a lot.
When I slide or take a swing that’s super out front, it does some stuff. This year, getting stronger with the Pilates has helped me a good bit. There will still be days here and there.”
Hayes was pretty solid offensively with the Reds in August. Then in September, his back was giving him some trouble. During a stretch of must-win games at the tail end of the season, Hayes went through an 0-for-25 slump. During his final 13 games of the regular season, Hayes was 3-for-34.
When asked about the big picture of where he’s at offensively and what has led to two down years, Hayes’ answer starts with his back issues.
“I’m figuring out if I feel this way on a day, what do I need to figure out to do to give myself the best chance to help the team,” Hayes said.
There was one positive. Between 2022 and 2024, he went on the IL five total times due to back issues. In 2025, Hayes was active all season.
“I’m continuing to work on my body to make sure that I’m available every day,” Hayes said. “That’s first for me, unfortunately, dealing with the chronic back stuff that I deal with.”
The Reds have found ways to help. The organization puts a unique emphasis on Pilates, which Hayes says have helped him keep his back alignment “more permanent.” He feels stronger entering this season, and he has more confidence in his plan to stay on the field all year after that plan worked in 2025.
The Reds are counting on Hayes’ strength as this coaching staff works on adjustments with him to drive the ball more.
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Ke’Bryan Hayes started the 2020 season at the Pittsburgh Pirates’ minor league “alt site.” With the minor league season canceled due to the pandemic, he got his work in with a group of prospects and Pirates minor league coaches. In particular, Hayes benefited from the coaching of former Red Jon Nunnally, who worked in Pirates player development at the time.
Nunnally knew Hayes’ dad, longtime big leaguer Charlie Hayes. Charlie told Ke’Bryan, “If you ever hear him talking, listen.”
Nunnally is an old school coach with specific drills that you don’t see a ton of anymore around baseball. “Some of the stuff he had me doing felt bizarre,” Hayes said. They did a lot of high tee work — things like placing a tee on top of a table — to help Hayes work on not crashing down at the ball. Hayes also had an arsenal of drills that got Hayes moving his front hip in a way that helped him hit for more power.
“He was really good at individualizing an approach and a routine for you specifically based on how you move and how you think,” Hayes said. “That was really good.”
Hayes looked good, and the Pirates called him up to the big league roster on Sept. 1. During that month, he hit .376 with a 1.124 OPS and five homers. He says now that this month was the best that he has ever hit.
He had a great spring entering 2021, and then Hayes homered on Opening Day. In Game 2, he suffered a wrist injury that put him on the 60-day IL. He returned in June, but he then went back on IL in late September with wrist soreness.
“I feel like I’ve spent one month in the big leagues injury free,” Hayes said.
His injury situation was about to get worse as the back injury popped up during the offseason heading into 2022. The chronic injury became something that was tough for him to manage between 2022 and 2024.
“There were back spasms,” Hayes said. “Sciatica. It was very early on. I didn’t have any plan. I wasn’t sleeping at night. I was waking up every hour. It was miserable.”
In 2021, Hayes posted a below average .689 OPS. In 2022, he posted a .659 OPS. In the first half of the 2023 season, he posted a .683 OPS.
Hayes then worked privately with Nunnally, who was the Pirates’ Double-A hitting coach at the time.
Nunnally didn’t get to work much with Hayes in spring training.
“In 2023, there were some front office people that wanted him back in (spring training) kind of to work with me and some other guys,” Hayes said. “Really, he was there for everybody. Whenever we came into camp, they were saying, ‘We don’t want you to feel like it’s just a you and him thing. He’s here for everyone.’”
“I was like, ‘Yeah, I think that’s good.’”“It seemed like it was just a me and him thing. A lot of guys were afraid to work with him based off who was there, the (big league) hitting coach at the time and stuff like that. It was a gray area type of thing. I don’t know really exactly.”
When Hayes was slumping during the summer, it made sense to reconnect with Nunnally. Then in the second half of the season, Hayes was terrific at the plate, posting a very strong .874 OPS. After homering five times in the first half of the 2023 season, he homered 10 times in the second half.
Hayes working with Nunnally apparently didn’t go over well with the organization, and Nunnally lost his job at the end of the season.
“He was never trying to take anyone’s job,” Hayes said. “He wanted to help us win. Some of the philosophy of how he taught wasn’t really lining up with the new age of how they express it with the vertical bat angle and stuff like that. That’s where it ran into the clashing. If he didn’t feel like something was right, he was going to speak up. But it wasn’t anything crazy. I don’t see why it turned out how it did. It is what it is. I’ve moved on. I’m happy to be over here.”
Hayes’ 2024 season was the worst of his career. His back hurt, and he was still figuring out how to manage his injury. He wasn’t getting results at the plate, and then he started chasing adjustments and changes that he could make.
“In 2024, I don’t know. I try not to think about it,” Hayes said. “I’ve moved on from that situation over there. It wasn’t anything in particular. I started to struggle. Then we started to change some stuff. It wasn’t working. I went on the IL again. I came off. Still struggling. I don’t even remember 2024. It was my worst year. I was trying anything and everything. A bunch of stances. Nothing was working.”
He dealt with similar circumstances in 2025. He used approaches like pulling the ball more, or selling out for more contact and prioritizing putting the ball in play. The Pirates’ ideas weren’t working. Hayes needed a fresh start and a change of scenery.
“There are no hard feelings on my side,” Hayes said. “That type of stuff happens all the time. Baseball is a business. You’ve got to move on. I just want to be the best player I can and help the Reds win a World Series. I’ve put all of that behind me and just want to get better as a player.”
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“(Hayes) is a guy that we’ve always liked,” Krall said. The Reds saw Hayes plenty during his peaks in 2020 and 2023. When he was struggling in 2024 and 2025, Krall saw good traits that were still present, and the Reds had an idea of what could help Hayes get back into a rhythm.
Specific underlying metrics painted a more positive picture of the hitter that Hayes could be. Krall said that Hayes was above-average in the rate of swings that turned into exit velocities in the 90th-percentile or better. Krall saw Hayes as a guy who was still hitting the ball hard. He also saw a hitter with an above average chase rate and walk rate.
“When you look at those numbers, you see a guy who has a chance to be a good offensive player,” Krall said.
Since Hayes was under a long-term contract in Pittsburgh and was presumably a part of that team’s future, Krall didn’t know that Hayes would truly be available until about a week before the deadline. The Reds were looking for a third baseman, and Krall was putting an emphasis on defense.
Krall also believes in Hayes at the plate.
“A lot of underlying metrics showed he can do it,” Krall said. “It’s just getting him to hit the ball more out in front and get more line drives. Then he’ll be able to spray the outfield and use the gaps. He hit the ball on the ground a lot (in Pittsburgh). So we figured if we could get him to hit more line drives in our ballpark, he has a chance to get back to the impact hitter he was in 2023.”
Even in a poor statistical season at the plate in 2025, Hayes was pretty solid in “squared up percentage” (he was squaring up pitches), chase rate and whiff rate. He needed to stop burying ground balls into the dirt with an approach that was prioritizing contact.
Hayes focused on that during the winter.
“He makes contact really well,” Francona said. “Just maybe not selling out early (for contact). Take a pitch and try to drive the ball. That’s what (hitting coach Chris Valaika) is trying to get him to do.:
The thing to look for with Hayes is where he makes contact with the ball. You always see him working on the load and the first move forward with his swing, repeating his mechanics to develop a consistent swing path that allows him to use his muscle when he makes contact.
“He had a really productive offseason,” hitting coach Chris Valaika said. “He’s elevating the ball. He’s doing a good job of impacting the ball. We’ve seen that in the past with him. There’s a high contact bat. We know that. He doesn’t strike out. There’s definitely more power potential in there. He has shown flashes of that. There’s definitely more in the tank.”
Krall said that the analytics showed that Hayes was making real progress after joining the Reds’ organization. Hayes took a step forward as he started working with the Reds’ coaches, and now a full spring training gives the Reds the runway to really lock those adjustments into place.
He also likes the drills that he’s doing, specifically work against pitches from specific angles as a way to train his ability to hit more line drives and doubles.
‘I know my position calls for driving the ball more and home runs and stuff like that,” Hayes said. “I still can get to the point, especially in our ballpark, where I can hit some home runs and definitely drive the ball some more to hit doubles. I can run the bases well and steal bases. If I can get some more doubles, that will be big for me getting gap to gap, getting the ball in the air.”
If he can catch the ball a bit more out in front of him — much different than his old approach of seeing the ball for longer and letting it travel further as a way to make more contact — he believes his power numbers will go up.
After Hayes’ spring training game on Wednesday, Valaika asked Hayes what he thought his favorite swing was from that game. Hayes responded, “the last one that I just missed,” referencing a fly out to deep center field.
Valaika had a different perspective, which Hayes appreciated.
On the first pitch that Hayes saw in the game, he swung really hard. It looked like he was trying to homer. Valaika loved that swing.
“I swung and missed, but I was getting an aggressive swing off instead of just putting a weak ball in play for the sake of making contact,” Hayes said.
Hayes’ back and his bat are two of the biggest questions on the roster. He’s still figuring out how to put it all together offensively, but the Reds traded for him because they believe he’ll do enough.
He likes the coaching that he’s getting here. He likes playing for a team in playoff contention. He likes being a Red.
“Right away, I could tell each and every night that guys are more worried about winning and getting to the playoffs,” Hayes said. “How do we win? Everyone is doing the little things. It seems more like a unit. Everyone is trying to help each other. We’re all on the same page getting to that one goal.”
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