AAAA Affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds
The Cincinnati Reds announced their 2026 Hall of Fame class on Tuesday, and it’s a doozy. Headlining it will be former manager Lou Piniella – he of the 1990 World Series Reds – as well as the likes of Brandon Phillips, Aaron Harang, and the perenially overlooked Reggie Sanders (who should have been in years […]
about 2 months ago | 4 reads
The eye-test through the 2025 season revealed to anyone who paid attention that the Cincinnati Reds simply weren’t the slugging Reds of yore. The roster assembled by the front office had been deliberately put together to hit ‘line drives,’ a club designed to, in theory, produce more contact gap to gap even at the very […]
about 2 months ago | 4 reads
There’s a presumption that this offseason is far from finished for the Cincinnati Reds. Though they were rendered second fiddle (at best) in their pusuit of slugger Kyle Schwarber and have so far not managed to land any other impact bats via trade, their seemingly genuine efforts to acquire some legitimate bats shows they know […]
about 2 months ago | 2 reads
There’s a presumption that the Cincinnati Reds are intent upon improving their offensive performance heading into the 2026 season. After all, they made a very public pursuit of Kyle Schwarber before the Ohio native signed with the Philadelphia Phillies, and it’s kind of difficult to backtrack from acknowledging how much of an impact he’d have […]
about 2 months ago | 3 reads
The Baltimore Orioles have already impacted the offseason of the Cincinnati Reds in immeasurable ways. As the bidding became fierce over Kyle Schwarber, rumor has it the Orioles were the club who pushed the bidding all the way to $150 million, effectively pricing out the Reds and leaving only the Philadelphia Phillies – to whom […]
2 months ago | 2 reads
After striking out in somewhat embarrassing fashion yesterday in their pursuit of slugger Kyle Schwaber, who signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for 5-years and $150 million, it appears the Cincinnati Reds haven’t completely given up their attempt at improving their sub-par offense. According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the Reds haven’t jumped back into […]
2 months ago | 4 reads
It has been a hot minute, but you may recall the failed 2017 pursuit of Shohei Ohtani by the Cincinnati Reds and then GM Dick Williams. It was public. There were presentations. When, in early December of that year, the Reds found out they hadn’t made the final cut for the superstar from Japan, Williams […]
2 months ago | 4 reads
The flirtation between the Cincinnati Reds and free agent slugger Kyle Schwarber appears to have been just that – a flirtation. News broke on Tuesday morning that Schwarber will be re-signing with the Philadelphia Phillies for a reported $150 million over five years, with Mark Feinsand of MLB.com doing the reporting. It’s a crushing blow […]
2 months ago | 1 read
Charlie Goldsmith, former Enquirer reporter (and current purveyor of Charlie’s Chalkboard on Substack), caught up with Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona at MLB’s Winter Meetings in Orlando, picking the future Hall of Famer’s mind on a number of topics ranging from Kyle Schwarber to managing the overall roster of the club through the grind of […]
2 months ago | 4 reads
While all the focus and spotlights of this particular Cincinnati Reds offseason are pointed firmly at Middletown slugger Kyle Schwarber, it’s still a pertinent exercise to dig through the nuts and bolts of the rest of the roster in search of ways this team’s offense can find improvement in 2026. That digging, for me, keeps […]
2 months ago | 3 reads
Executives from all Major League Baseball franchises will begin to descend upon Orlando, Florida today for the annual Winter Meetings, with the next few days paramount in the advancement of all offseason transactions. Agents for available players will be on hand, deals will be hashed out into the wee hours of the morning, and by […]
2 months ago | 1 read
As the Cincinnati Reds continue their epic quest to somehow land free agent slugger Kyle Schwarber in free agency, it’s hard not to get wrapped up in the Disney-ness of the storyline. He’s from the area, he’s the perfect lineup fit, he’s what will put the Reds over the top for the first time in […]
2 months ago | 2 reads
The Cincinnati Reds reunited with closer Emilio Pagán on Wednesday, inking the righty to a deal worth up to $20 million over two years. It includes a player option for the 2027 season at an equal $10 million salary to the one he’ll earn in 2026, and brings back the guy who took the closer’s […]
2 months ago | 3 reads
The Cincinnati Reds made their first splash of the Hot Stove season on Wednesday night, reportedly agreeing to bring back closer Emilio Pagán on a two-year, $20 million contract that includes an opt-out clause after the 2026 season. MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon and Mark Feinsand relayed the news. The Reds were in clear need of a […]
2 months ago | 1 read
You can take as many grains of salt as you see fit before considering a possible signing of slugger Kyle Schwarber by the Cincinnati Reds, of all clubs. If you’re here, you know the obvious connection – yes, he’s from just up the road from Cincinnati in Middletown, and still calls that part of the […]
2 months ago | 4 reads
The Cincinnati Reds play in one of the smaller markets in all of Major League Baseball, something COO Phil Castellini will effectively tell you whilst introducing himself. Considering that for most of the last three decades the team itself has been terrible on the field, they’re also one perennially one of the lower-attended teams during […]
2 months ago | 4 reads
On the back of a 2025 season that saw him hit 56 homers, lead all Major League Baseball with 132 RBI, post a career-best 4.7 bWAR, and walk over 100 times, Kyle Schwarber entered free agency this winter as one of the prizes of the class. By all accounts, his patience at the plate and […]
2 months ago | 2 reads
The Cincinnati Reds need to hit more dingers, and there’s a hulking dinger-honker in free agency who grew up just down the road from Cincinnati in Middletown. So, when you head to Google, type in ‘Kyle Schwarber Middletown Reds,’ and scroll past the dozens of AI suggested answers and sponsored posts, you’ll come across dozens […]
2 months ago | 3 reads
Thanksgiving is in the rear-view mirror, and that launches us firmly into the Hot Stove season across Major League Baseball with the Winter Meetings set to take place December 7th through 10th down in Orlando, Florida. It’s a time of little concrete activity, but the next week and a half will feature teams doing their […]
2 months ago | 2 reads
It became pretty clear prior towards the end of the 2024 season that the St. Louis Cardinals were destined to begin a pretty epic rebuild. Bloated contracts for aging stars that simply weren’t good enough to drag them to contender status led longtime GM slash president of baseball operations John Mozeliak to announce in September […]
3 months ago | 2 reads
One of the pre-agreed upon additions to the compensation structure of Major League Baseball during the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement was the addition of an annual $50 million pre-arbitration bonus pool. In essence, it’s a way to compensate newer players who haven’t logged enough service time to reach their arbitration (read: bigger earning) years […]
3 months ago | 1 read
Carson Spiers has appaeared in 29 games for the Cincinnati Reds across the last three seasons, pitching to a 5.69 ERA (79 ERA+) and 5.28 FIP across 117.0 IP. He’s been versatile – 14 of his outings have been starts, and he’s managed to finish 6 games in that time – and that’s been valuable […]
3 months ago | 6 reads
Major League Baseball’s offseason is still in its infancy, yet the New York Mets and Texas Rangers shook its pillars late on Sunday evening. The two sides came to an agreement on a deal that sent second baseman Marcus Semien to Queens and outfielder Brandon Nimmo to Arlington, an extremely rare one-for-one swap of nine-figure […]
3 months ago | 3 reads
As Friday’s deadline to tender contracts to all arbitration-eligible and pre-arb players neared, questions arose about which of the litany of players in that category would still be on the roster of the Cincinnati Reds by day’s end. Some 14 players who finished the 2025 season on Cincinnati’s roster were originally destined to go through […]
3 months ago | 6 reads
The deadline to tender contracts to all players in their pre-arbitration and arbitration years is this Friday evening, and it gives a perennial glimpse into how teams operate their budgets at the margins. Almost by definition, pre-arb and arb players aren’t truly ‘expensive’ just yet. They are either gaining enough service time to finally get […]
3 months ago | 4 reads