Stock Watch: Three Cincinnati Reds Performances to Sell Ahead of the 2024 Season

The Cincinnati Reds saw their fair share of rookie debuts in 2023 and many of those were for small amounts of time. A term people use when evaluating statistical performances is “small sample size” and the Reds had lots of them.

Whose performances are aberrations, who is pulling the wool over our eyes? Let’s look at a few players who’s small sample size performance we are selling ahead of the 2024 season:

Elly De La Cruz

I cannot believe there is a narrative that the most electric player on the team, the man with the most talent and upside, could begin the season in the minors. It is a narrative pushed only by a few, but it exists nonetheless. I am selling that so much. I’m also selling his performance from last year.

De La Cruz started off too hot. Think Icarus. So when he came back down to earth, it was as much a meteoric crash as he had a meteoric rise. Due to that, people are comparing him to Aristides Aquino. Those people are forgetting how he worked while making his way through the Reds minor league system.

Each time he’d be promoted, De La Cruz would impress for a minute and then hit an adjustment period. The period of time increased as his level increased, but he always hit a point where everything clicked. I believe he was starting to find that level toward the end of last season.

For the final two months of the season, De La Cruz cut down on how much he swung the bat. He swung at pitches outside the zone at a league average clip. He was also accumulated swinging strikes at the same rate as the rest of the league. Opposing pitchers threw him less strikes than the average hitter saw. Because of that, it was encouraging to see him increase his walk rate to just over 10%. He's going to take that upgraded plate discipline and find his groove early next season.

And De La Cruz will find that in the big leagues.

Tyler Stephenson

Stephenson is a better hitter than he showed in 2023. There were two extenuating circumstances that held him back.

The position plan really hurt him. Before the 2023 season, David Bell said there was a plan in place that Stephenson would split time between catcher, designated hitter, and first base. Before that season, Stephenson had played 24 total games at first base. So he was still pretty green at that position, in MLB terms. So on top of the fact he was coming off a broken collarbone, he was now learning a mostly new position.

Did I mention health? It was evident Stephenson was still working through how to be a productive major leaguer while learning to trust his healing collarbone. His swing produced more weak contact and less hits in the sweet spot than any season in his short career.

One year removed from his injury and a season where he is solely focused on catching, Stephenson is primed for a bounce back.

TJ Friedl

Friedl is a joy to watch. Whether he is smashing a homer, laying down a bunt single, or making a nice catch in center field, he came out of nowhere for most people. He was not on any top prospect list and yet he has become the unquestioned every day center fielder for the Reds. For all those reasons, I hope I am wrong.

What we saw from him in 2023 feels like his ceiling. Having a ceiling of 20 homers and 20 steals, if healthy all year, is an impressive one. I don’t buy that he will always be the most valuable player on the team, though.

Friedl’s penchant for chaos ball is so much fun to watch. His performance reminds me of David Eckstein for the Cardinals in the mid-2000’s. I don’t believe that he will improve on the power numbers he put up, though. In fact, I could see those coming down. Now, he could supplement that with a higher batting average and settle in to the leadoff spot. I just don’t see his numbers in a season being much better than they were in 2023.

Again, I hope I’m wrong about that. Friedl is so much fun to watch.

If you missed the small sample size performances I am buying, check it out here.

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