Reds option Noelvi Marte to AAA

The Reds announced Monday that they’ve optioned struggling outfielder Noelvi Marte to Triple-A Louisville. A corresponding move wasn’t announced, but FOX 19’s Charlie Goldsmith reports that Cincinnati is expected to recall outfielder Rece Hinds from Louisville in Marte’s place.

The 24-year-old Marte’s run with the Reds has been filled with peaks and valleys. The former top prospect came to Cincinnati as part of the blockbuster trade sending Luis Castillo to Seattle and burst onto the MLB scene with a .316/.366/.456 batting line in his first 123 plate appearances in 2023 — his age-21 season. He was popped for an 80-game PED ban the following spring and looked lost in his return to the majors later in the season, slashing just .210/.248/.301 in 242 turns at the plate.

Marte’s stock hit a low point after that 2024 campaign, and in 2025 he was moved from third base to right field to accommodate deadline pickup Ke’Bryan Hayes. Marte’s stock was trending down, but he took to right field nicely, posting solid defensive grades while rebounding at the plate. He appeared in 90 games — 56 of them in the outfield — and batted .263/.300/.448 with 14 homers and 10 steals. Defensive Runs Saved credited him as a strong defender on the grass (+4), while Statcast’s Outs Above Average (-2) was more bearish. Still, even a slightly negative mark for an infielder who learned the outfield on the fly — midseason, no less — suggested he had the potential to develop into a solid defender there.

Obscured a bit by that solid rebound effort in 2025, however, was a poor finish to the season. Marte floundered down the stretch with a .184/.214/.276 showing in his final 103 plate appearances of the season. He punched out 33 times (32%) against just four walks (3.9%).

Marte belted four homers in 56 plate appearances this spring, but he also continued on that worrisome K-BB trajectory from the end of the ’25 season. He walked just once this spring while fanning 16 times (28.6%). So far, his regular season output sits at just .138/.194/.138 with 10 strikeouts (32.3%) and two walks (6.5%) in 31 plate appearances. Marte has lacked any semblance of pitch recognition, chasing a staggering 47.4% of pitches he’s seen outside the strike zone this year. That’s sixth-worst among the 290 MLB hitters who’ve stepped into the batter’s box at least 30 times this year. His 71.5 mph average bat speed is down nearly two miles per hour from last year’s 73.3 mph.

If there’s a silver lining to Marte’s struggles, it’s that he won’t turn 25 until after the season ends and is still in the second of his three minor league option years. There’s ample time for him to right the ship and get back on track. Even combining his end-of-season slump, his rocky spring and his woeful start to 2026, we’re looking at a sample of fewer than 200 plate appearances. He made tons of hard contact during Cactus League play, and he’s still sporting a contact rate north of 90% on pitches within the strike zone. It stands to reason that if Marte can scale back his chase rate closer to the 33.7% he averaged from 2023-25, he could yet re-emerge as a quality hitter. That’d still be north of this year’s 29.5% league average, but not by an especially alarming measure.

From a service time vantage point, the demotion isn’t likely to impact Marte’s potential path to free agency. He entered the season needing only 33 days on the big league roster/injured list to reach two years of service. He’s already more than halfway there. He’ll very likely be back up this season, which would keep him on pace to hit the open market following the 2030 season (assuming he gets back on track and plays well enough to merit accruing six years of service, of course). It could cost him in arbitration, however. Marte was on a clear path to Super Two status, which would make him arbitration-eligible four times rather than the standard three, but if he spends a notable portion of time in the minors, he won’t reach Super Two designation after all.

In place of Marte, the Reds will apparently turn to the 25-year-old Hinds. He’s a career .191/.245/.506 hitter in 95 big league plate appearances. He’s been even more strikeout-prone in the majors (38.9%) than Marte has during his slump, but Hinds has enormous raw power and has gotten out to a big start in Louisville. He’s slashing .354/.475/.771 with five round-trippers in his first 61 cracks at the plate. More encouragingly, he’s walked a dozen times (19.7%) with a manageable 15 strikeouts (24.6%). Hinds chased more than 37% of pitches off the plate in Triple-A last year and nearly 40% in the majors. This year, he’s sitting on an improved 31.3% chase rate in Louisville.

Hinds wrecked Triple-A pitching last year, too (.302/.359/.563) and flashed potential 30-30 upside with 24 big flies and 21 steals in only 107 games. It seems unlikely that he’ll make enough contact to reach that ceiling, but his power is readily apparent and Statcast credited him with 98th percentile sprint speed in 2025. The power-speed combination is understandably alluring, and he’ll get another opportunity to show he can stick in the majors while Marte looks to get back on track down in Louisville.