The Cincinnati Reds have been adding to their bullpen this offseason. They’ve added a few position players, too, but with what they lost and the offense having already been an enormous question mark, it’s been clear to just about everyone that they needed to keep on adding. One of the players they lost from last season was Miguel Andujar. He joined the Reds at the trade deadline and hit well for the club when he was able to get on the field. In his 34 games with Cincinnati he hit .359/.400/.544 with 11 extra-base hits. Following the year he hit free agency and he’s still out there today. A report from Jon Heyman of the New York Post says that the Reds are showing some interest in bringing him back.
While the report notes that “many” teams are interested, Cincinnati could certainly use another quality hitter in the lineup. In his time between the Reds and Athletics, Andujar hit .318/.352/.470 in his 94 games. That represents the most games he’s played in a season, by a lot, since 2018 when he played in 149 as a rookie with the New York Yankees. That year was his best as he hit 47 doubles and 27 home runs while posting an .855 OPS. Over the following five seasons he played in 144 total games and put up an OPS of .616 as a big leaguer. In 2024 he joined Oakland and hit .285/.320/.377 in 75 games, posting an OPS+ of 103 (slightly above league average) as he showed something with his bat for the first time since that 2018 season.
In 2025 things went a lot better. His BABIP was a career high at .348. But he also made a ton of contact, striking out just 14.4% of the time he came to the plate, and he began to show some power again. If he could repeat those numbers it would certainly help out a Cincinnati offense that has a lot of question marks as it gets ready to head off to Goodyear for spring training.
With that said, there are some question marks with Andujar, too. He’s going to be 31-years-old this spring, outperformed his career BABIP by a significant margin in 2025, and then there’s the fact that according to Sports Info Solution’s data he was the 2nd luckiest hitter in baseball in 2025 and his expected OPS compared to his actual OPS was a 123 point difference – meaning that his “expected” OPS was just .699. To note – the “expected” numbers they use are not the ones you see from Statcast and on Baseball Savant. If he were to perform to that level of expectation it would not at all be helpful to the Reds offense.
There’s also a question of where would he play? Andujar has historically played left field and third base. He has very minimal time at first and in right field in his career – just 21 total starts between the two positions as a big leaguer. At third base you would imagine he’s probably at least third on the depth chart behind starter Ke’Bryan Hayes and then Sal Stewart, who is likely to serve as the designated hitter most days if everyone is healthy. In left field he’s a below-average defender who would have to battle for playing time with the likes of JJ Bleday, Will Benson, Spencer Steer (at times), and then a slew of “what if things go right” guys in Tyler Callihan, Blake Dunn, Rece Hinds, or Hector Rodriguez. With Sal Stewart as the likely designated hitter there doesn’t seem to be a clear path to much playing time there.
As most things go, the price of acquisition matters here. But if you are Andujar and you are looking at similar offers from other teams you might be able to see a clearer path to playing time than with the Reds. And if you are the Cincinnati front office you are probably looking at the roster and wondering exactly how you could find him a decent amount of playing time given what the team looks like, which also means you aren’t likely going to be offering too much money.
