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 Su\u00e1rez and Jesse Winker were hugging teammates goodbye. They\u2019d been traded to the Mariners. The move effectively was Nick Krall announcing that the Reds were going to rebuild and it ended the Reds\u2019 2022 season before it even started. <\/p>\n
Eugenio Su\u00e1rez 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 Su\u00e1rez are close. Su\u00e1rez looked at him and got the words out, \u201cI\u2019m sorry Jim Day.\u201d Meanwhile, Joey Votto and Jonathan India were stunned and expressed frustration as they gave interviews in the Reds\u2019 clubhouse. <\/p>\n
It was the most devastating scene that I\u2019ve witnessed covering the team. <\/p>\n
Eugenio Su\u00e1rez said, \u201cGood vibes only. Don\u2019t you forget that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued, \u201cI saw my (whole) career in Cincinnati, but I understand\u2026 I\u2019m grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe I\u2018ll finish (my career) here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four years later, Su\u00e1rez 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. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s joining a Reds\u2019 organization that hit rock bottom in 2022 and built itself back up into a playoff team in 2025. Now, he\u2019s the piece that the Reds are counting on pushing the team to the next level in their efforts to become a real contender. <\/p>\n
The story here is Su\u00e1rez\u2019s homecoming, but we all knew that he\u2019d love to come back to Cincinnati. What we didn\u2019t know was that the Reds would be willing and able to spend above the level we were told payroll would be at for 2026. <\/p>\n
By my projections, the Reds had $3 million to spend before they hit what Nick Krall had said would be their payroll ceiling. Su\u00e1rez will reportedly make $15 million, and there\u2019s no deferred money in this deal. <\/p>\n
According to sources, the Reds do not have to shed any payroll to make this move work. They\u2019re doing something fans have been asking for since 2022, the year the Reds traded Su\u00e1rez \u2014 pushing payroll up a notch, investing in the team and spending more aggressively to build a winner. <\/p>\n
Su\u00e1rez isn\u2019t a perfect player, and there are reasons why his market was quieter than initially expected at the start of the offseason. He\u2019s not a good third base defender anymore \u2014 the Reds will have him work at first base in addition to third, and he\u2019ll spend a lot of time at DH. His strikeout rate was alarming in 2025, and he only posted a .298 on-base percentage. He\u2019s a one dimensional player at this stage of his career. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
The flaws in Su\u00e1rez\u2019s profile are offset by the fact that this is a one-year deal. Bigger market teams often use the line that there\u2019s no such thing as a bad one-year deal because it can\u2019t hamstring you in the future.<\/p>\n
Signing Su\u00e1rez signals that the Reds believe that they can take a legitimate step in 2026. He\u2019s also a long-time fan favorite and clubhouse favorite. Joey Votto once called Su\u00e1rez one of his favorite teammates. <\/p>\n
Su\u00e1rez told me in July, \u201cCincinnati, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back in 2018, the Reds signed Su\u00e1rez to a long-term contract extension. That extension just wrapped up this winter, and he didn\u2019t sign a deal anywhere between then and now. <\/p>\n
Su\u00e1rez has essentially had one bad year since he signed that deal \u2014 the 2021 season in Cincinnati. He was coming off of a significant shoulder injury, had to play shortstop and wasn\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n
Winker went on to have a bad year in Seattle, and Su\u00e1rez went on to be a beloved impact player with the Mariners. Su\u00e1rez 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. <\/p>\n
Su\u00e1rez was flipped from Seattle to Arizona before the 2025 season and then flipped back to Seattle at the 2025 deadline. Su\u00e1rez wasn\u2019t 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\u2019s struggling, he\u2019s still an intimidating presence as a guy who can swing a game with a big home run at any moment. <\/p>\n
Clearly, the Reds didn\u2019t see enough during the second half of the 2025 season to take away from their confidence in Su\u00e1rez. <\/p>\n
The Reds have been in touch with Su\u00e1rez 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. <\/p>\n
Even with his flaws, signing Su\u00e1rez makes this a promising offseason for the Reds. They\u2019ve rebuilt their bullpen, added outfield depth and gained a real cleanup hitter. Teams can\u2019t pitch around Elly De La Cruz because they\u2019re complacent with pitching to the guy behind him in the order. <\/p>\n
The Reds\u2019 best lineup will have Su\u00e1rez 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\u2019Bryan Hayes to get everyone at-bats with different styles of lineups (some more offense oriented, some more defense oriented). <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Having Su\u00e1rez\u2019s power in the lineup should make everyone\u2019s job easier. Even if he doesn\u2019t get as hot as he did during the first half of last season, he gives the Reds the power threat that they lacked. <\/p>\n
The move also has an intangible effect, highlighting an aggressiveness in the free agent market that the fan base was pining for.<\/p>\n
The Reds will still need a lot to go right to chase down the Cubs and Brewers. But right now, the Reds\u2019 vibes feel good. <\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WXIX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI (WXIX) – Back on March 14, 2022, the first day that all of the Reds players were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[12691,5,620,4,619,65,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-550322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-azfamily","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-mariners","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-seattle","13":"tag-seattle-mariners","14":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116001107066460145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}