ATLANTA — This Cincinnati Reds’ season started with the mantra of “It’s time,” and the club saw a roster talented enough to take the next step in 2026. Instead, this season turned into the organization’s lowest point since the 100 loss season of 2022.
The Reds entered Wednesday night with a 73-84 record with five games left in the season. The Reds’ playoff hopes have effectively been extinguished since the All-Star break.
“Hopefully, I don’t have to experience this much more often,” Sal Stewart said. “I want to be in the playoffs. I was able to taste that last year. That feeling was unlike any other. It didn’t go the way the team wanted it to (this year). I hope we don’t get too comfortable like this. I want to be winning games.”
This was supposed to be the year. Now, with Hunter Greene out with a long-term elbow injury, five veterans set to hit free agency, core players like TJ Friedl (DFAd), Nick Lodolo and Ke’Bryan Hayes taking major steps backward and with Spencer Steer and Tony Santillan set to undergo surgery, it takes significantly rose-colored glasses to see a 2027 roster that’s more exciting than what the Reds believed that they had in 2026.
Still, there are young pieces to build with like Elly De La Cruz, Sal Stewart, Chase Burns.
“The young core, we have a lot of young guys like Sal and Elly who want to go to work and want to win,” Burns said. “We’re hungry. We want to win. We want to bring something to Cincinnati. We love Cincinnati. I love Cincinnati. Signing an extension, I’m going to be here for a while. Why not win?”
The 2026 season started out great as the Reds opened the year with a 20-11 record. After that, the season spiraled incredibly quickly. The Reds’ biggest weakness was a pitching staff that was supposed to be the strength of the team. Poor command, lacking development and limited swing and miss led to career-worst seasons from Andrew Abbott, Brady Singer, Nick Lodolo and Rhett Lowder.
Injuries in the bullpen piled up, and the team started a freefall.
“We let some things topple over, whether it was the starting pitching struggling one day or the defense struggling one day,” Andrew Abbott said. “Those things rose up and reared an ugly head. Last year, we had a lot of guys step up, myself included. Bases loaded, we’re getting out of it.”
This year, the Reds didn’t get out of it.
When asked about what he feels like needs to be different in 2027, Abbott looked internally.
“Some days, even myself, we come out flat,” Abbott said. “We come out and we’re semi-defeated against a team that might be a tad bit better than us, or worse than us. I’m not saying I haven’t done that myself.”
How that played out during the 2026 season underscores one of the team’s biggest needs entering 2027.
“The age of the team, the core we have, the guys we know are coming back, the continuity on the staff, the familiarity allows for those tough conversations,” Abbott said. “You can have those awkward conversations about how we can get better. No one wants to say that we sucked this year. But that’s what we need. We need the guys in leadership roles to sit back and be like, ‘I’ve played a lot of ball, we could have been a lot better and this is what we should do and focus on.’”
Burns made a similar point about leadership.
“Maybe adding more leaders on the team that can push the younger guys,” Burns said. “We have a young team. Some guys do a great job of that already. It doesn’t hurt to have more leaders who can push us.”
The Reds’ pitching staff stabilized some in July, but then the bats got cold. The Reds’ had an incredibly top-heavy offense that counted on De La Cruz and Stewart to carry the entire unit.
As a comparison point for reference, Will Benson posted a .643 OPS in the big leagues this year, was DFAd and went unclaimed on waivers. This season, the Reds 1,916 plate appearances — 33% of the team’s plate appearances for the season — to players with an OPS of .643 or lower. Several of those players (Noelvi Marte at .550, Edwin Arroyo at .529, Friedl at .510, Ke’Bryan Hayes at .432) had OPS’ much worse than .643.
“There were guys playing through things that people don’t even know about, but they were out there,” Jose Trevino said. “We’re not losers. I wouldn’t call us losers. We just lost, man. We played some good baseball. It wasn’t enough for us to get to where we wanted to go. It doesn’t mean we weren’t learning from it or we won’t be better for it. I expect that from our team.”
The first step forward for the group, Trevino says, is “accountability for every single one of us.”
“The first thing is accountability for every single one of us,” Trevino said. “Look in the mirror. Ask ourselves what can we do better as individuals to help the team achieve what we want. It’s everybody. You could talk up and down this whole organization from Arizona (Rookie Ball) to here. We all need to look at ourselves and figure out how we can be better as an organization and as a team.Nobody likes to be slapped in the face. We play the game to win. I fully understand that there are a lot of guys who will take it very personally how this season went.”
Stewart was asked what gives him optimism about the trajectory of the team. He cited the relationships he has in the clubhouse. He also brought up the expected continuity between the front office and manager Terry Francona.
“We know who’s at the helm,” Stewart said. “We know who’s steering the wheel.”
Stewart, a rookie, added that he’s focused on the remaining games in the season and didn’t delve too much in the big picture.
“I try to focus on making sure I’m ready to go,” Stewart said. “I’ll trust the guys that handle that. I want to go out there and take care of my stuff.”
The clock is officially ticking loudly for the Reds to win with De La Cruz, who will be a free agent at the end of the 2029 season. If they don’t win with him soon, they’ll have missed their chance.
De La Cruz said about the Reds’ 2026 season, “It didn’t go the way we wanted to. That’s ok, though. We’re going to have good seasons and bad seasons. We need to get it together for next year.”
He liked how the group “stayed together this year.”
When asked about the steps he’d like to see taken, De La Cruz said, “I’m not the guy who speaks for all. I don’t like to speak a lot. I just watch, listen and learn from the bad things and the good things.”
Overall, he spoke positively about his view of the Reds’ organization. He said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen next year, but I feel good.”
While the front office and manager are expected back, a lot still can change with the organization during the offseason. Early in the offseason, they should be resolution to the pitching coach situation (Derek Johnson has been on a leave of absence since June that the Reds have said nothing publicly about yet). There are investments to be made in player development for the Reds to bring up better players through their system. The Reds need a better process for coaching up young players who are just coming up to the big league level (guys like Arroyo, Héctor Rodríguez, Carlos Jorge, etc.).
The 2027 Reds will need a catcher, multiple outfield pieces and an overall roster with more platoon matchup ability, more speed and better team defense. And pitching might be the biggest need of them all. The fact that there could be a work stoppage, a significantly altered CBA and a different playing field when the potential work stoppage ends may stall action this winter.
There will be plenty of work to do after a wasted 2026 season.
“We’re talented,” Abbott said. “We know that. It hasn’t been what we’ve wanted. We can only look at ourselves for that. For what we’ve put out there and the effort we give, we know we should have been better.”