Cincinnati Reds Abrupt Fall from Postseason Contention

The day is August 15th, 2025, and the Cincinnati Reds are just 0.5 games back of a Wild Card spot, right in the rear view of the faltering New York Mets. Now, just two weeks later, they have fallen all the way back to 4.0 games back, with a near-impossible mountain to climb in search of their first postseason appearance since 2020.

What happened?

Cincinnati Reds Abrupt Fall from Postseason Contention

Trade Deadline: Offense

Frustratingly, the Cincinnati Reds didn’t make a significant move to upgrade their crippling offense, as they traded for MLB’s worst statistical hitter in Ke’Bryan Hayes and a decent bat in Miguel Andujar.

In Hayes’ defense, he is a Platinum Glove-level defender at third base, and in his short stint in Cincinnati, he has already flashed the leather on multiple occasions. Offensively, Hayes has actually been much better compared to his past few seasons in Pittsburgh.

In 25 games in a Reds uniform, Hayes is slashing .238/.307/.400 for a .707 OPS and 90 OPS+. If Hayes can maintain this level of production (while it is still below league average), the Reds will happily take this production seeing as his defense elite (18 OAA — 99th percentile).

As for Miguel Andujar, he has already racked up 0.5 bWAR in just 19 games in Cincinnati. The former rookie of the year runner up is slashing .339/.413/.589 for a 1.002 OPS and 168 OPS+, surpassing his 109 OPS+ mark in 60 games for the Athletics prior to the trade.

Despite Andujar’s performance, Cincinnati is still struggling to put up runs on the board.

Reds’ Offensive Struggles

Cincinnati is coming off of their first series sweep of the season, getting dealt handedly by the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers. In the three game sweep, the Reds scored just four runs total.

Since their 0.5 games back day of August 15th, here are the Reds runs scored in every game that has followed.

8, 5, 3, 4, 6, 1, 5, 1, 6, 0, 3, 1

The offense has simply not been able to produce runs, as post All-Star break, they are 21st in the league in runs scored.

Sal Stewart

For an offense that has struggled so badly as of late, a clear move to make is to call up prospect Sal Stewart. Stewart has been destroying the ball in Triple-A, as in 36 games at the level, he is slashing .313/.397/.642 for a 1.039 OPS. He has already hit 10 home runs.

Cincinnati is a team severely lacking in power as they’re 24th in the league in home runs on the season, and at a putrid 30th in the league for home runs hit post All-Star Break. Every single team in Major League Baseball has hit more home runs than them in the past month or so, and the organization seemingly doesn’t want to call up a clear MLB ready power hitting prospect.

Even more confusing, he has continued to slot in at third base in Triple-A, despite third baseman Ke‘Bryan Hayes being signed for the next four seasons. Stewart is capable of both second base and first base, which are currently occupied by one of MLB’s worst hitters in Matt McLain and sub .700 OPS Spencer Steer. The fact that he is continuing to get reps at a position that is clearly clogged at the big league level shows that the team has zero plans on giving him the call to the big leagues.

Organizational Confusion

This goes directly into some frustrating and confusing organizational decision that have been made all season, but especially as of late. For a team who constantly preaches the “small ball” and “singles” approach, they are not running the bases well (17th in MLB for SB) and not hitting for average (18th in MLB for AVG). 

Weirdly, it seems as if someone in the organization has put the stop sign on speedster Elly De La Cruz, as he has just 32 stolen bases on the season, compared to 67 last season. There have been numerous opportunities where a stolen base can easily put him in scoring position and make the offense’s job easier, but he continues to stay put, eventually leading to a double play. 

Once again, the organization is making some puzzling decisions in terms of the offense, as they refuse to play Will Benson, despite his power potential. A  quick look at his .673 OPS on the season may seem like he is no better than the rest of the team, but his metrics have shown that he is getting severely unlucky on the season.

Here are Benson’s metrics on the season:

.362 xwOBA

.274 xBA

.520 xSLG

92.9 Avg Exit Velocity

14.2 Barrel%

55.2 Hard-Hit%

Every single one of these metrics are well above league average, and clearly paints the picture that he has been hitting the ball extremely well. 

Confusingly, -1.2 bWAR Santiago Espinal is doubling Benson’s playing time. He is essentially an automatic out at the plate, and has even been put in the outfield despite being a career infielder. The decision to trot out .579 OPS Espinal into the outfield when natural outfielder Benson (who has above average defense) is mind boggling.

Recent Confusing Moves

In this Dodgers series sweep, the team made some unbelievable decisions.

Noelvi Marte was put in centerfield, the first ever centerfield experience of his career. He has been great on offense, and made the switch to right field after the acquisition of Ke’Bryan Hayes took the third base spot from him. Marte has been good at right field in his limited action, but there is no reason to suddenly stick him in centerfield in the middle of the most important stretch of games against the defending champions on the road. 

All in all, the Reds are a mess, and it is no surprise that they have fallen from the Wild Card race. They made minimal moves, preach a play style that the team is not suited for, and refuse to capitalize on their excellent pitching staff, who have carried the team all season.