Matt McLain Is the Kind of High-Upside Player the Reds Need
McLain is ready to get back on the field and prove his success in 2023 was no fluke.

The Cincinnati Reds have one of the most exhilarating players in baseball in Elly De La Cruz. His blend of speed, power, and ability to make plays you’ve never seen before draws fans to the ballpark. But he cannot win games, or divisions, all by himself. He needs a running mate.
Cincinnati struggled throughout the 2024 season to stay healthy and string together enough offense to contend. The list of what went wrong was not unlike a CVS receipt, but at the top of that list was an injury to Matt McLain.
The former top-100 prospect impressed across 89 games during his rookie season in 2023. A .290/.357/.507 slash line, 16 home runs, 14 stolen bases, and 3.1 fWAR in just 89 games led to lofty expectations for his first full season, but we never had to opportunity to see him play the following year.
An injury in spring training took McLain out for the season and left the Reds with a massive hole in their lineup.
Now, after an offseason of recovery, McLain is, by all signs, ready to go and ready to prove that 2023 was not a fluke.
Matt McLain Can Break Out for the Reds
You don’t have to watch Matt McLain for very long before you can see why he’s a fan favorite. He does a little bit of everything, and he does it well: all-out hustle, speed, some power, and he showed upside with the glove, too.
Defensively, McLain split time between second and short in his rookie season and held his own at both positions.
With De La Cruz at short, McLain is going to see the majority of his innings elsewhere, but knowing he can play plus defense at the position is a great insurance policy. Where he’ll play in 2025 is still a bit of a mystery, but more on that later.
What McLain showed offensively in 2023 was remarkable, especially for a rookie. Launching 16 home runs and stealing 14 bags while posting an .864 OPS in only 89 games is an All-Star-worthy pace. Yet, as much as I’d like to extrapolate McLain’s production over 162 games, that might be wishful thinking.
According to Steamer, McLain is projected to slash .259/.341/.460 with 23 home runs, 16 stolen bases, and a 116 wRC+. Sign me up.
However, McLain also has the ability to surpass those projections. What we saw in 2023, both in the majors and minors, was a better player than in 2022, and we have yet to see McLain reach his full potential.
McLain’s quality of contact and impact on the baseball won’t break any records. Still, his 89.3 mph average exit velocity and 109.9 max exit velocity were good enough to do damage at Great American Ball Park. More importantly, his swing path helps lift the ball, which we all know leads to positive results.
McLain ran a 38.7% groundball rate, 24.2% line drive, and 37.1% fly ball rate with the Reds in 2023. Line drives and fly balls were staples for the righty batter throughout the minors, and although he does not produce jumping-off-the-charts exit velocities, he’s found a launch angle that will help more balls find gaps or land in the seats.

As you can see from his spray chart, McLain uses the entire field to find hits. Not only does he have the ability to hit to all fields, but he has power to each part of the ballpark.
While he does not need to become more pull-heavy, he did pull the ball more in the minors, and I wonder if we see those numbers trend in that direction. If McLain does start to pull the ball more, we could see an uptick in his home runs thanks to the dimensions of Great American Ball Park.
In McLain, the Reds have a player who’s a plus defender, will steal over 20 bags, and very likely hits over 20 home runs. That’s a high-floor player who makes the team much better, with a ceiling that could land him on billboards. Though, of course, there are some concerns he’ll have to iron out.
Areas of Concern
With numbers like McLain had in 2023, how much can we really be concerned? Like I said before, I think he has a very high floor. I do not see him falling off a cliff and becoming anything less than average.
However, it is fair to highlight the areas in which he needs to improve as something to monitor going forward.
Let’s start off with his 28.5% strikeout rate. That’s a similar number to what he posted in Double-A before reducing it to a 20.6% rate in Triple-A. If you break down his swing-and-miss in the majors by pitch classification, it would look like this:
- Fastballs: 20.4%
- Breaking pitches: 36.8%
- Off-speed pitches: 43.2%
It’s not exactly surprising to see higher whiff rates on non-fastballs for a rookie. Breaking balls in the majors are much better, and more consistently located around the zone. We could be looking at nothing more than a learning curve. The question becomes: How much can McLain cut down on his whiff rates?
I do think he’ll strike out a decent amount, which is okay. As long as he’s still putting good swings on the pitches he does hit, McLain will be just fine. That said, he’ll have to show he can produce more against non-fastballs or he’ll see less and less velocity, which could affect his production.
Now, let’s talk about where McLain might play in 2025. Trading Jonathan India made a path for him to play second clear, but then the Reds added Gavin Lux, who has primarily played second base. Personally, I’d rather keep McLain at second and move Lux elsewhere. McLain could be a plus defender at second, and I don’t see Lux reaching that level.
At the same time, the idea of McLain filling the hole at third, or even the outfield, is very possible. There is no doubt he has the athletic ability to make the move and enough of an arm that he would not look out of place. But would moving McLain impact his offense?
We’ve seen players move positions and struggle at the plate. Shifting their focus toward adjusting to a different defensive home can take away from time spent working at the plate or allow for mistakes to carry over. While it might feel like a reach, it is at least something to note.
Final Thoughts
The more I dive into McLain, the more I realize how much the Reds missed him last season, not only from a production standpoint but in terms of lineup construction. The quality of hitters we saw bat in the top four of the order was often pretty unpalatable.
Speed was a big part of the Reds offense and how they generated runs last year. We’ll see what philosophies new manager Terry Francona wants to implement, but having a player like McLain to push everyone down in the batting order and provide another speed threat is huge.
Let’s not forget about his defense. He’ll be an upgrade from Jonathan India and pretty much everyone else we saw in the infield outside of Elly De La Cruz, which I’m sure could be debated as well.
Cincinnati needs more players who have a baseline the team can count on with an upside that can change the trajectory of the season. McLain offers just that.