When things aren’t going well, for a team or even for a player, sometimes a shakeup needs to occur. We’ve already seen it a few things this year as the Reds have made moves to try and figure out something with their outfield. Cincinnati has given limited opportunities to Noelvi Marte, Rece Hinds, and now JJ Bleday after the first two struggled to hit half of their body weight over two week stretches.
For two players on the 2026 Reds their struggles at the plate have been far longer than two weeks. Both Ke’Bryan Hayes and Matt McLain are good defensive players. Hayes is arguably one of the best defensive players in the game.
But there’s more to the game than just defense. Ke’Bryan Hayes is currently hitting .134/.192/.227. In both 2024 and 2025 his OPS was under .600. Matt McLain is hitting .207/.311/.314 this season. That’s better than Hayes, but it’s still terrible. Last season he was coming off of shoulder surgery and hit .220/.300/.343. In 2025 he got some benefit of the doubt because of the injury, but he’s hitting even worse this season than last year.
The Reds are giving both of those guys a much longer leash to work with than they did guys like Marte or Hinds. But down in Triple-A Edwin Arroyo is doing all he can to not only kick down the door but kick it so far it lands at Great American Ball Park.
Arroyo went 4-5 with two doubles last night for Louisville. That extended his hitting streak to 11 games and his on-base streak to 24 games for the Bats. Like McLain, Arroyo missed the 2024 season after suffering a shoulder injury that required surgery. And like McLain, he didn’t hit for much power in 2025 when he returned from the injury – though he did hit .284 in 120 games with Double-A Chattanooga.
But unlike McLain, Arroyo’s power seems to be back. The switch-hitting infielder has hit .346/.415/.588 for Louisville through 37 games. After hitting just three home runs for Chattanooga in 2025 he’s already slugged seven home runs this year. And that’s to go along with eight doubles and four triples. Arroyo has the highest walk rate of his career – though it’s still just about an average overall walk rate – and he has the lowest strikeout rate of his career (15.8%).
Most of his time in the field has been spent at shortstop, but he’s had experience in both the past and this season playing second base. After having some very limited experience playing third base in winter league baseball in Puerto Rico in 2021 and 2022 at third base (22 total innings), Cincinnati has had him start two games at third for Louisville this month. It’s the first time he’s ever played there in the minor leagues.
The question remains, as it has for a while now: How much longer can Hayes and McLain just flat out not produce at the plate before a move is made? And how much longer can that happen when one of your top prospects is in Triple-A hitting nearly .350 with power before you decide to see if he can be an upgrade to at least one guy who hasn’t been able to hit for multiple years running?