Another Quiet Free Agency Is Fueling a Familiar Reds Narrative

The Reds could try to sell us on Christian Encarnacion-Strand.

New Cincinnat Reds manager Terry Francona holds his new jersey on stage with (left to right) team owner Bob Castellini, President of Baseball Operation, Nick Krall, and General Manager Brad Meador, during an event to introduce the new manager of the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park in downtown Cincinnati on Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. | Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Cincinnati Reds have tripped over their own shoelaces to begin the offseason. Upgrades are (hopefully) still on the way, but a thought occurred to me today: I know exactly how they will spin it if they do not make a meaningful addition to the lineup.

Christian Encarnacion-Strand will finally break out.

Now, don’t get it twisted, I am not saying I AGREE with this narrative. I can see where they would sell it, though. Maybe take this as a cautionary tale or an unfortunate premonition.

Encarnacion-Strand played his last MLB game on July 8, 2025. At that point he had a .208 batting average and a .234 on-base percentage. Numbers that clearly warranted less playing time. So long as we’re talking numbers, though, I have a few you could argue.

Encarnacion-Strand had 137 plate appearances but just a .223 batting average on balls in play. That number shows that he was getting very unlucky as the league average BABIP was about 70 points higher. He also had DECREASED his strikeout rate from 28% in 2024 to 23% in 2025. So there was a little bit of progress in his era of weakness AND luck factoring against him.

He also had good bat speed at 73.6 MPH (league average 71.7 MPH) and a nice hard-hit rate of 44%.

The crux of it all was he was hitting a home run at a rate of one for every six games played. Had he played all 162, that would amount to 27 dingers.

Of course you’re saying “Jeff, he wasn’t playing every day at the point he was sent down, so why expect that?” It's a fair point. So let’s look at the games he did play and try to give an “on pace” number for his homers had he not been sent down.

The Reds played their 92nd game on July 8th but that was Encarnacion-Strand’s 36th appearance. If we take that rate of play and expand it to 162, that means he would have played 63 games. 

Even at the pace that he was on, he would still have hit 10 homers for the season. That is assuming no increase in production from the meager state it was in.

Ten homers would have put him ninth on the team, so it’s not as if that’s a monumental jump, but that’s also assuming he would not have broken out of his slump at all.

While I do not subscribe to the theory that he will break out and cure the Reds of their cleanup ailment, I could see the team trying to convince of us that after failing to sign Kyle Schwarber in free agency.