Matt McLain Stock Watch: What His Monster Spring Means for the Reds

Matt McLain entered Spring Training with all eyes on him. The Cincinnati Reds are counting on a breakout year from him that is much more like his 2023 campaign and much less like last year. The funny thing is, he may have tipped most fans’ opinion of him from one extreme to the other.

As baseball fans are known to do, people came to very rash conclusions about McLain after he struggled in 2025. Some believed that he didn’t deserve another shot. Terry Francona and Reds leadership were never among that group.

Now McLain’s spring has flipped fans opinion of him so thoroughly that his hype may be too high. He is hitting .529 and among the leaders in all MLB this Spring Training in just about every category. There’s much of this performance that he will not replicate in the regular season, though.

Right now McLain’s batting average on balls in play, or BABIP, is .526. Meaning if the ball leaves his bat in play, more often than not it is falling for a hit. This is a crazy anomaly. Forget for a moment that league average BABIP last year was .289, you just know in your bones that .526 is WAY too lucky.

Mar 12, 2026; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Cincinnati Reds second baseman Matt McLain against the Los Angeles Dodgers during a spring training game at Camelback Ranch-Glendale. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

He also hasn’t even gotten to 60 plate appearances yet. While his success has been a ton of fun to see, McLain should get somewhere in the ballpark 650-700 plate appearances this year which means what we have seen doesn’t even stack up to 10% of that workload.

The other thing to keep an eye on is the location of the pitches he is facing. According to stat cast, 34% of the pitches he has seen this Spring have been in the heart of the plate. You know, the area that every baseball player who has ever touched a bat wishes the pitch would be. In his two year career he’s used to seeing only 27% of pitches in the heart of the zone.

Now, to his credit, McLain has taken every advantage he’s been given and he’s also not gotten himself into trouble. He is swinging at an awesomely low rate of pitches outside the strike zone. Just 17.7% of the time is he chasing pitches. That is a marked decrease from his career chase rate of 25.9% and the MLB average of 28.4%.

In short, McLain is seeing the ball well.

That is something to believe in. Pair that with his newfound ability to hit that low-and-away breaking ball and we all feel good about what we see from McLain. Now it's time for him to perform in games that matter.