Jeff Passan published an article at ESPN this morning with his season preview for every team in Major League Baseball. When it came to the Cincinnati Reds he had plenty of good things to say, focusing on players Sal Stewart and Chase Burns being keys to the season for the club. But he also had a bold final paragraph about the 2026 season for the team.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if … the Reds, spurred by Greene’s return, not only make the postseason but win a series. Imagine facing Greene, Burns and Andrew Abbott in a short series. Not fun. And with Stewart in the middle of the lineup, Elly De La Cruz potentially taking a leap, Matt McLain looking like he’s fully back and Eugenio Suárez peppering Great American Ball Park with home runs again, the Reds have the talent to be one of the better teams in the NL.”
Cincinnati certainly has a deeper lineup today than they did a year ago. The addition of Eugenio Suarez was big, but so is the addition of Sal Stewart. One guy provides much needed plus power to the middle of the lineup and the other looks like he could provide a stabilizing all-around good hitter to wherever he winds up in the lineup.
One would hope that Elly De La Cruz falling off in the second half was injury related and that he can look a lot more like the first half version he showed in 2025 over the full course of the season this year. And with Matt McLain now another year out from shoulder surgery the hope has been that he’ll get back closer to where he was as a rookie rather than what he showed up and looked like in 2025. This spring he’s been the best hitter in baseball. We also know that spring numbers don’t mean much of anything, too. But if you want to just compare what he did last year to this year in the spring he’s making far better swing choices (in 2025 ST he had 17 strikeouts and two walks, while this spring he has five walks and just three strikeouts in 36 plate appearances). On top of that, he’s absolutely crushing the ball.
Losing Hunter Greene for the first half is tough. For as much as some people want to talk about how he’s never pitched a full season – and they are correct about that part – when he’s on the mound he’s been dominant over the last two seasons. For as good as the rest of the pitching staff is, they are not replacing Hunter Greene. Even if that spot is filled by a guy like Chase Burns or Rhett Lowder – it’s almost assuredly going to be a step back (or more) from what was expected from Greene. Fortunately for the Reds they do have the likes of Burns, Lowder, and Brandon Williamson to help absorb that, where as other teams may be looking at filling that spot with a guy who should be in Triple-A rather than someone who has had big league success and is also a highly touted young player.
Depth is an area that it seems the Reds have improved quite a bit on. that holds true for the rotation and for the position player group. There are still plenty of questions about the position player group – Matt McLain has to go out and show it in the regular season, Noelvi Marte has some improvements we’d all like to see at the plate and in the field, Ke’Bryan Hayes is an elite fielder but he’s also one of the worst hitters that sees real amounts of playing time in the game. The questions are there, but even someone like Jeff Passan who doesn’t follow the Reds as closely as someone covering the team full time does can see that there’s plenty of talent in Cincinnati if things can come together.