Cincinnati Reds are an attention-grabbing MLB commerce deadline case examine

The National League Central was generally what we expected. Three of the five teams are flirting with .500, the Pittsburgh Pirates are badass, and only the Milwaukee Brewers were able to break up thanks to an absolutely hot run in June and into July.

For the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs, the remainder of 2021 could very well be a moot point. The Cardinals have too many pitching staff injuries to recover from the first three months of the year, during the Cubs’ year start clearly a mirage on the way not only to lose the championship lead, but also to fall clearly into third place.

It is possible that the Brewers are the division’s class. You have a trio of frontline starters, a deep bullpen, and enough attack to keep them going while these guns do the majority of the work. But perhaps the most interesting club within the division are the Cincinnati Reds. As we get started quickly towards the end of July, the Reds are among the more intriguing teams to watch during the rumor frenzy ahead.

Because the Reds aren’t bad. They are a little further from their role as offseason favorites between 2019 and 2020, but they have enough potency on their plate to hang around in both the division and wildcard races. At the moment there are six games from the Central, but only four and a half games from one of the two wildcard spots. In terms of division, that six-game lead seems more difficult to overcome. However, you start a four-game set with the Brewers this weekend and immediately face them for three more straight from the All-Star hiatus. They’ll get three more later in the year.

So in the end, this track could very well be an indication of what the Reds are going to do. If they are able to make up for ground against Milwaukee – a potentially easier feat since the teams they pursue in the wildcard race are the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres – they could fall on the “buy” side before we do Get too close at the end of the month.

But the question of what the Reds should do raises a very different kind of question.

As an offense, Cincinnati actually represents the division’s class. Her 103 wRC + is fourth in the NL and leads Milwaukee by a fairly large margin (90). Only Los Angeles has run more runs than the Reds’ 423 while being the only team to beat Cincy’s 0.330 team on base percentage. They also occupy fifth place in ISO (.170).

It certainly helps to have a pair of all-star starters to give the offense a boost in Nick Castellanos (3.4 fWAR) and Jesse Winker (2.5). Castellanos ranks sixth among all qualifying hitters (159) in wRC +, while Winker ranks 11th (152). Jonathan India, Tyler Stephenson and, less surprisingly, Joey Votto all have wRC + scores of at least 120, so they have top notch performances and some high quality results from some of their secondary hitters. That strong offensive performance even comes with Eugenio Suárez, who is in a terrible 2021 and both Mike Moustakas and Nick Senzel have long-term health problems. While hope may be lost for Suárez in his worst offensive season since 2016, one can imagine that Moustakas and Senzel’s respective returns could potentially be a boon to a highly functional offensive.

The Reds very likely have a crime that can withstand anyone in the NL. Especially when they are healthy. If you just look at this side of the ball in a vacuum, you may be talking about a serious senior circuit contender. And from a standpoint of trying to determine what to do at the close of trade, it becomes much more difficult to determine direction when you know you can keep up with your peers across the National League.

But of course the various phases of a management team do not compete in a vacuum. And it’s the pitching that really stopped every opportunity for sustained success for the Reds in 2021. The only teams with a Personnel ERA higher than the Reds 4.49 mark are Arizona, Colorado, and Pittsburgh. Not the ideal company for everything. Her walking rate (is the second highest, just behind St. Louis, while her hard-hit rate is fifth highest in the NL (32.1). If you only focus on the first responders, those three numbers jump to 5.19 (second Worst behind Colorado), 4.88 percent (still second worst), and 36.3 percent (also second worst). Ultimately, the only team with a potentially worse bullpen sits in Coors Field of the first things you need to get there to get.

One interesting aspect of pitching is that their starting staff have largely been able to maintain some semblance of consistency. Luis Castillo has quietly recovered from an April when his ERA was over eight years old. Sonny Gray was his characteristically solid self. Even the starters they had to cobble together after so many injuries – mostly Vladimir Gutierrez and Jeff Hoffman – did enough to stabilize them out of goal and allow the offense to keep them in play. Until the bullpen is activated.

That’s a very general overview of where the Reds are. Great on the offensive, with the potential to get better once they’re a bit healthier, and a capable starting rotation that has managed to survive even with their own health issues. The bullpen on this team remains the only legitimate concern on paper. This can be fixed as most of the time talking about the trading deadline you will likely be scrolling through discharge jugs that may be available ad nauseam.

From a simple standpoint, the Reds might just be on some sort of hold at the marquee positions and prop the bullpen in the hopes that you can catch up with Milwaukee. But it’s not necessarily a black and white situation like the Chicago Cubs, for example. At their division rivals, you’ll see a number of players entering the free agent market and an owner desperate to save every penny possible on the product’s expense on the field. While the latter comment can describe the majority of Major League Baseball’s ownership group, the Reds differs from the Cubs in the knowledge that their contracts are moving forward.

Unlike the Cubs who saw Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Javier Báez, Joc Pederson, Zach Davies, and a handful of currently on-list aides walking at the end of the year, Cincinnati’s roster situation actually messes up for them.

Votto, Moustakas and Castellanos all have a three-year guarantee stick to their contracts after 2021. Suárez has four. Gray has one. Castillo, Winker and Tyler Mahle have a pair of arbitrations years after this season. Types like Senzel or Stephenson or India are locked up much longer. There’s a lot of certainty with this line-up that actually puts them in the gray area as far as the deadline goes, much more so than some of the other teams who find themselves in that weird middle ground. And that makes them fascinating.

FanGraphs gives the red a 17.5 percent chance of making the postseason, including a 10.1 shot at the division. Depending on the results of the weekend (and next week) against Milwaukee, this has a chance of becoming a more inspiring number. Or it could be very different. But at a time of year when we like to find black or white and want to classify teams as pure buyers or pure sellers, the reds could very well be a bit of both and operate entirely in shades of gray.

Randy Holt is a contributing writer for Beyond the Box Score. You can follow him on Twitter @ RandyHolt42.