Cincinnati Reds: Nathaniel Lowe set to join camp on a minor league deal<\/a><\/p>\nWhile the Reds had a feel-good 2023 season, they only won 83 games. Also, a lot of players had down years. Tyler Stephenson took a step back offensively, Spencer Steer was banged up, Elly De La Cruz had a bad second half, Matt McLain wasn\u2019t himself and Noelvi Marte and Will Benson opened the year in Triple-A. <\/p>\n
Even with all of that, the Reds made the playoffs. They\u2019ve also seen all of those players show that they can make a significant impact. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s time means that we\u2019ve grown up,\u201d All-Star Andrew Abbott said. \u201cThe younger guys, we know what to expect and what we have to do. Now, we have to go apply it. There\u2019s no excuse now. Let\u2019s do it right now with no questions asked.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Reds added to the mix with an aggressive offseason, going over budget to sign Eugenio Su\u00e1rez while also bolstering the middle relief core with Pierce Johnson, Caleb Ferguson and Brock Burke. <\/p>\n
\u201cNick (Krall) and Brad (Meador) did a great job this offseason putting us in position to take that step,\u201d starting pitcher Nick Lodolo said. \u201cWhen everyone is bought in and pulling on the same side of that rope, it\u2019ll make it a lot easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Reds focused a lot on the details during the first full-squad workout of the spring. They trained their bunt plays, doing game like reps at this fundamental part of the game. Players also worked on base running reads where they stood at first base and picked the ball off the bat. <\/p>\n
In 2026, the Reds have to play a much cleaner brand of baseball than they did last year. They need to be better situational hitters, more consistent defenders and more heads-up base runners. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fast, for the most part,\u201d Francona said. \u201cI know we weren\u2019t as aggressive last year as before, but we\u2019re still one of the more aggressive teams. When guys are sliding into second and the ball is in the outfield because they don\u2019t know where it is, we\u2019ve got to do better at knowing where the ball is. We\u2019ll work on that a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a good energy in camp so far. The players showed up in shape, and they arrived early in Goodyear, Arizona. Every day, they make it to the ballpark early for extra work. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a focused group looking to prove that it can fight with the big teams in the National League. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no learning curve,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cWe know basically everybody in here. We added some good pieces to the mix. We\u2019ve got depth in places I think we haven\u2019t had depth in years. I\u2019m fired up to be here in general. It\u2019s great to hear your manager is behind you. We want to take it to the next level and build off what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis could be fun,\u201d Reds manager Terry Francona said. \u201cLet\u2019s go. That\u2019s part of the messaging. We might…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,535,50,4259,9718,4,536],"class_list":{"0":"post-582646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-reds","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cincinnati","10":"tag-cincinnati-reds","11":"tag-cincinnatireds","12":"tag-great-american-ball-park","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-reds"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116102317093494596","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582646","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=582646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}