It’s trading season and the Cincinnati Reds are sellers. Yippee. Now we all get to engage in the fun speculation that is “how many lottery tickets can they get for players who aren’t very good?”
One of the guys on the trading block is, probably, Tyler Stephenson. But I’m going to make an argument here that maybe he shouldn’t be. Maybe the Reds should try to get him to stay around on some kind of reasonable contract extension.
Let me take you through my reasoning:
The Reds seem to be counting on their top prospect Alfredo Duno as the next big thing, but he’s slated to arrive in 2028 at the absolute earliest, I would think.The Reds have Jose Trevino signed through the end of next season. But he doesn’t hit at all and his defense has been perfectly fine.Catcher is thin around the league in general.Tyler Stephenson is maybe slightly underrated defensively given how good he’s been at challenges.
I’m not suggesting Cincinnati try to pony up four or five years or anything like that. Frankly, Stephenson is unlikely to get that on the open market, and he probably knows it. He’s also been hitting the crap out of the ball all season with good exit velocities and expected stats that were wildly divergent from his results (until recently). Which is to say, he was due for his recent run, and we should expect him to keep being league average or a tick about as long as he’s healthy.
So you’ve got a guy entering his free agent year having likely hit into some bad luck early this season after having injury problems last year on a team that only has a backup catcher signed for next year and man, I dunno. Seems like a good chance to buy low.
Let’s say the Reds sign Stephenson for three more years at whatever is a reasonable price. They have him and Trevino again next year. After that, they (hopefully) have Stephenson and Duno. If Duno is as good as we want him to be, Stephenson becomes the backup and a decent bench bat OR if Stephenson has a good year or so, he becomes more attractive as a trade candidate. If Duno isn’t good, the Stephenson is a nice insurance policy.
If the Reds don’t extend Stephenson, then I don’t know who they are putting at catcher most days in 2027. It’s not like they’re going to pay for anyone who would be an upgrade and they also don’t have anyone ready right now.
I know some folks here don’t love Stephenson, but I am BEGGING you to look at what else is likely to be out there and then tell me the Reds can do better. They just extended Chase Burns, so they aren’t in fire sale mode. If they want to compete next year, they need to start by not getting worse anywhere.
