{"id":674789,"date":"2026-04-13T14:04:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T14:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/674789\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T14:04:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T14:04:32","slug":"cincinnatis-reworked-outfield-isnt-working","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/674789\/","title":{"rendered":"Cincinnati\u2019s reworked outfield isn\u2019t working"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">It is not as if the Cincinnati Reds didn\u2019t realize their outfield needed an overhaul. Take, for instance, what they tried using on July 29th, 2025 on the eve of last season\u2019s trade deadline.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Gavin Lux got the start in LF while hitting leadoff against his former club, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Usual RF Austin Hays was in the lineup, albeit at DH for the day. Jake Fraley started in RF, and Connor Joe later got some time in that corner, too.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">None of those guys are still with the Reds. By the evening of July 31st, the Reds had gone out and acquired 3B Ke\u2019Bryan Hayes from the Pittsburgh Pirates, and that pushed Noelvi Marte into regular RF duties as the first domino to fall in their outfield revolution. We\u2019ve since seen Fraley waived, Lux dealt to Tampa, Spencer Steer moved largely to OF duties as Sal Stewart and Eugenio Suarez were brought into the infield mix, Dane Myers acquired from Miami, and JJ Bleday signed in free agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">That\u2019s the effort of a front office that clearly knew they had work to do. The problem is, though, that so far it hasn\u2019t worked out one iota.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">As of the morning of April 13th \u2013 after the Reds just lost a home series to the Los Angeles Angels in frustrating fashion \u2013 the Reds collective outfield has been valued at -1.1 fWAR. That\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/leaders\/major-league?lg=all&amp;qual=0&amp;season=2026&amp;season1=2026&amp;ind=0&amp;team=0%2Cts&amp;rost=&amp;filter=&amp;players=0&amp;type=8&amp;month=43&amp;sortcol=21&amp;sortdir=default&amp;pagenum=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:second last;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;second last&quot;}\" class=\"link \">second last<\/a> in the game, worsted only by the San Francisco Giants (-1.3). Reds outfielders have posted just a .236 wOBA (2nd worst), 40 wRC+ (2nd worst), and .065 ISO (worst, despite playing their home games in GABP and this not being a park-adjusted number). They\u2019ve had just 2 homers hit by their outfield so far (no team has hit fewer), and if batting average is still your thing you\u2019ll be happy to know Cincinnati\u2019s .171 mark from their outfielders is the worst among all 30 MLB clubs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Even their defense (-3.3 DEF collectively) has been bad \u2013 23rd out of the 30 clubs.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">TJ Friedl\u2019s struggles have been tough to stomach as he has still stayed in the leadoff spot through most all of this. He\u2019s also been tasked with playing a new position in LF a good bit \u2013 somewhere he\u2019s never played before \u2013 while Marte tries RF for the first full-season in his life after having never played there before July\u2019s trade deadline last season. Even Steer, who\u2019s played at least a little LF, is mostly trying a new routine after being a Gold Glove finalist at 1B just last fall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The Reds clearly tried pulling a bunch of levers to mix up an outfield that needed work, yet so far none of those myriad levers has really paid off at all. Meanwhile, they parked Bleday and Rece Hinds down at AAA to make room for the current crew, and both of those two are off to fabulous starts for the Louisville Bats. So if their entire plan was to just throw a half-dozen low-cost outfielders at the wall and hope at least one or two sticks as a \u2018lightning in a bottle\u2019 kind of player, they\u2019ve even missed out on hot streaks from two of them while the options they rolled with have stumbled in just about every way possible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It\u2019s still early, sure. Some of these guys just simply have to be better than they\u2019ve been, and there\u2019s still time to begin to prove that\u2019s true. Still, the season is already 10% over, and that\u2019s 10% of a season where the reworked Reds outfield has been just about as bad as physically possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is not as if the Cincinnati Reds didn\u2019t realize their outfield needed an overhaul. Take, for instance,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[124,5,535,50,4259,52,1537,1951,92,730,1180,1952,56,57,778,4,542,1944,177,64,5849,536,6513,66,6288,8167],"class_list":{"0":"post-674789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-reds","8":"tag-austin-hays","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-cincinnati","11":"tag-cincinnati-reds","12":"tag-cincinnatireds","13":"tag-colorado-rockies","14":"tag-connor-joe","15":"tag-dane-myers","16":"tag-eugenio-suarez","17":"tag-gavin-lux","18":"tag-jake-fraley","19":"tag-jj-bleday","20":"tag-los-angeles-angels","21":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","22":"tag-miami","23":"tag-mlb","24":"tag-noelvi-marte","25":"tag-ohio","26":"tag-outfield","27":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","28":"tag-rece-hinds","29":"tag-reds","30":"tag-sal-stewart","31":"tag-san-francisco-giants","32":"tag-spencer-steer","33":"tag-tj-friedl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116397779367386810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674789","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=674789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}