Did the Reds win or lose at the trade deadline? That depends…

The trade deadline has come and gone. The Cincinnati Reds made several moves in the final 48 hours, bringing in two position players and one starting pitcher. They also traded away multiple minor leaguers and one big league relief pitcher. Let’s take a quick look at all of the players moved:

Acquired

Ke’Bryan Hayes – Third Baseman
Miguel Andujar – Third Baseman and Outfielder
Zack Littell – Starting Pitcher

Traded Away

Taylor Rogers – Major League Relief Pitcher
Sammy Stafura – Minor League Shortstop
Adam Serwinowski – Minor League Starting Pitcher
Brian Van Belle – Minor League Starting Pitcher
Kenya Huggins – Minor League Starting Pitcher
Cash (as in money) to the Pirates

With the players listed out, let’s take a look at some of the reactions and notes from the national media landscape about how the Cincinnati Reds did.

The Athletic

There were more than a few articles published by The Athletic about the trade deadline. Let’s start with one that is incredibly blunt at times where the Reds blurb is handled by Stephen J. Nesbitt:

An evaluator texted Wednesday afternoon, “What on earth did the Reds just do?” They had just acquired Gold Glove third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes from the Pirates for shortstop prospect Sammy Stafura and reliever Taylor Rogers. Hayes is one of the best defenders in baseball, but whatever value he brings with the glove is drowned out by the fact he’s also one of the worst hitters in the sport. Starter Zack Littell is a solid add, but the bullpen lost Taylor Rogers and didn’t replace him. But the lingering question is whether the Reds can solve Hayes’ hitting woes before his contract is up in 2030. If he can become an average hitter, they’ll have won this trade. But he’s got a long way to go to be average.

Jim Bowden gave each team a grade in this piece. And he seemed to think the Reds did an ok job, handing them a B for their deadline deals. Of course he also called Miguel Andujar and his six home runs this season a power bat in his write up.

USA Today

Bob Nightengale places the Reds in his winners column at USA Today.

The Reds are on the outside looking in, three games out of the final wild-card berth and a 16.8% chance of reaching the postseason, according to FanGraphs. Yet, here they are, acting like they’re fine-tuning the Big Red Machine. They were in on Eugenio Suarez, but pivoted, deciding they would rather have four years of elite defense with Ke’Bryan Hayes than two months of power hitting. They grabbed Tampa Bay Rays starter Zack Littell. And they acquired outfielder Miguel Anduijar from the A’s. Is it a longshot the Reds make the postseason? Yes. Is it at least possible? Indeed.

ESPN

David Schoenfield was tasked with covering the trade deadline reports at ESPN. He placed the Reds in the losers column. He notes that the moves to bring in both Ke’Bryan Hayes and Zack Littell are “odd fits”.

ZiPS Projections

Dan Szymborski of Fangraphs ran the ZiPS projections for each team before the trades and after the trades to see who improved their playoff odds the most/least. Things don’t look so great for the Reds. ZiPS thinks that the moves made by the Reds, along with the moves made by others around baseball, led to Cincinnati’s playoff odds going down by 3.2%. That was only better than the Twins, Giants, Cardinals, and Guardians – all teams who sold or did nothing.

Improving the offense

Jeff Zimmerman, who contributes at Fangraphs these days, shared a projection of teams runs scored per game based on where every roster stood on Sunday and where every team stands today after the trade deadline. Nick Krall said yesterday that he believes the Reds improved their offense with their trades. I have countered that over on Bluesky by pointing out that the Reds as a team have hit significantly better this season than the combined line of the two players they added to their team this year. Zimmerman’s numbers seem to back that up, too. The Reds are 25th in baseball on the chart in terms of improvements to their run-scoring moving forward and there’s a negative number associated with it.

What about the prospects?

Both ESPN and Baseball America released lists today that ranks all of the minor league prospects who were traded at the deadline.

ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel’s list and rankings can be found here. There were 97 players on the list and none of the Reds prospects made the top 10, but Sammy Stafura just missed as he came in at the #11 spot. Left-handed pitcher Adam Serwinowski was also in the top 25 on his list.

Baseball America’s list is going to require a subscription to read it. But if you have one, here’s the link for you. On this list, JJ Cooper has Sammy Stafura at the #9 spot and Adam Serwinowski inside of the top 20.