The average daily player in Major League Baseball is a WAR player of around 2.0 for a full season. Your typical All-Star is in that 4.0 WAR range. While your MVP/Cy Young candidate is 6+ WAR. The BAT projections look at the Reds position players and have only one guy above 1.8 WAR: Elly De La Cruz. They project him to put up 3.8 WAR and be an All-Star caliber player. The next most valuable everyday player in their projections? Matt McLain during 1.8 WAR.
Aside from De La Cruz, only Sal Stewart is expected to be an above-average hitter, although four others are at least within shouting distance of league average. There are a few things worth noting when looking at total value (WAR) for some players. WAR is a metric in the sense that the more you play, the more you can collect (or lose). New outfielder JJ Bleday is only expected to play in 70 games for Cincinnati in these projections, so his WAR of 0.5 should be understood in that context.
However, the most important thing for me when I looked at the numbers involved Ke’Bryan Hayes. The projection for his hitting is horrible. Not known for his bat. It’s fair to say no one probably thinks he’s a reliable hitter. But if you shift your gaze to the defensive value column, you may find yourself reaching for your glasses. While he is projected to be an above-average defender, his defensive rating of 2.2 is lower than that of Jose Trevino (who gets a lot of extra value as a catcher, but also plays in 73 fewer games in these projections), Elly De La Cruz, Tyler Stephenson and Matt McLain.
To put into perspective what a 2.2 defensive rating would mean for Ke’Bryan Hayes, let’s not say he would have had a plus-3.2 rating in 24 games in 2020. The only other time he wasn’t in double figures in his career was in 2024, when he was at +6.5. Last year he posted a career best +19.2.
Cincinnati is projected to score 19 more points than it will in the 2025 season. Technically, that would be an improvement. But it’s a minimal improvement at best from an offense that ranked 26th in OPS+ last year.
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