Top Notes From the Reds ZiPS Projections for 2025
What can the ZiPS projections tell us about the Reds and their chances to bounce back from a rough 2024 campaign?
Entering 2025, the Cincinnati Reds are looking to prove that they are postseason contenders.
A fun 2023 led to high hopes in 2024, which turned out to be a season derailed by injuries and eventually led to the firing of manager David Bell.
Everyone knows that the Reds are not going to be big spenders. But, I think it gets pushed to the side just how many possible impact additions have been made to this ball club.
Brady Singer was acquired to be a consistent contributor to this starting rotation, where just about everyone was injured at some point in 2024. Taylor Rogers was acquired to be that veteran high-leverage arm in the bullpen that the Reds desperately needed.
In the lineup, the Reds have added Austin Hays and Gavin Lux. And while both have their flaws, they are certainly upgrades over guys like Will Benson and Noelvi Marte.
The biggest addition of all was the splash hiring of Terry Francona to lead this ball club.
While these player acquisitions aren’t to the earth-shattering level that Reds fans dream of, the front office didn’t sit on their hands and try to rely on the young corps taking a leap and the team being healthier. That is worth being happy about.
The question is will these moves get the Reds to the postseason? Well, it’s still the preseason. We don’t know. But, we can look at projections.
One highly-regarded projection system is ZiPS. As a summary for those who may be unfamiliar with ZiPS, it is a player projection system created by Dan Szymborski of FanGraphs, who has spent the past two decades refining the model. Here is Major League Baseball’s summary of how the system works:
ZiPS uses past performance and aging trends to develop a future projection for players. On FanGraphs, the projections are updated daily and predict each player’s numbers over the course of the remainder of the season… Obviously, no one is claiming that every ZiPS prediction will come true, but it is widely regarded as one of the most accurate predictors in the industry.
“sZymborski Projection System (ZiPS)”, MLB.com
You can read Szymborski’s full write-up of the Reds’ ZiPS projections here, and you can find the most up-to-date projections for the Reds at this link.
The Reds need to stay healthy and for guys to take a leap and/or perform better. Let’s dive into these projections and see if ZiPS believes those types of leaps are incoming.
Reds ZiPS: Position Players
- Elly De La Cruz takes a step back – In 2024 we saw a lot of ups and downs with Elly De La Cruz in his age-22 season. De La Cruz led the league in strikeouts and errors. Yet, he still posted a 6.4 fWAR as he hit 25 home runs and led the league in stolen bases with 67. ZiPS is projecting the now 23-year-old shortstop to post a 5.0 fWAR in 2025. De La Cruz is projected to match his home run total from 2024 but take a bit of a dip in stolen bases as he is projected to swipe “just” 54 bags.
Most of Elly’s projected numbers in 2025 are very close to his 2024 output. The two large differences are the stolen base number and the defense. In 2024, De La Cruz had a 16.7 defensive rating according to Fangraphs. ZiPS is projecting a rating of 8.3 this upcoming season. We will see if Francona can have an impact on De La Cruz and keep the defensive output high and maybe even improve. If so, we could have an MVP candidate in Cincinnati in 2025. - McLain will need time to knock the rust off – Matt McLain getting back to the lineup is a huge boost for this team. In his rookie campaign in 2023, the young middle-infielder had a 127 wRC+ while posting a .290/.357/.507 slash line. While the fWAR is expected to jump from 3.1 in 2023 to 3.6 in 2025, McLain is also expected to play in 122 games as opposed to the 89 he played in 2023. ZiPS projects the slashline to regress to .254/.340/.449. If we see something close to 2023 Matt McLain, the Reds will be in great shape.
- Bounce-backs on the corners – The 2024 season saw Jeimer Candelario and Christian Encarnacion-Strand combine for a -1.1 fWAR across 141 games. ZiPS is projecting Candelario’s 87 wRC+ in 2024 to return to league average (100) and CES to reach a 107 wRC+, which leads to their projected combined fWAR in 2025 to be 2.7.
The health of Candelario and Encarnacion-Strand will be vital to the Reds’ success in 2025. Add in Gavin Lux and his projected 1.6 fWAR, whether he is seeing time at third base or elsewhere, and the corners could be a sneaky bright spot for this club.
- Production in the outfield – As for just about every other spot, 2024 was a down year for the outfield, both in terms of health and production. Spencer Steer put up more than a one-win season and was the only outfielder to do so last year.
In 2025, ZiPS is projecting Steer, TJ Friedl, and Austin Hays to all account for more than one win, with Jake Fraley being projected for a 0.7-win season. While being more than a one-win player isn’t something to celebrate for most fans, it really is for this Reds team. Getting some consistency from these four players offensively would pay dividends for the Reds in 2025.
- Catcher could be a strength – 2024 was a nice bounce-back season for Tyler Stephenson where his defense improved mightily. He also improved at the plate, going from an 84 wRC+ in 2023 to a 112 wRC+ last season. ZiPS is expecting more of the same in 2025 as Stephenson is projected to have a 107 wRC+ and 2.6 fWAR.
Acquiring Jose Trevino from the New York Yankees is a huge upgrade at the backup catcher position. Despite being the second-string catcher, Trevino is projected to have a two-win season. Trevino has long been known for being one of the better defensive backstops in the game, and ZiPS sees that continuing in 2025.
Reds ZiPS: Pitching Staff
Earlier this offseason, I highlighted why the Reds could have a sneaky top-10 starting rotation in all of baseball. With the offense banking on a lot of bounce-backs, the rotation might need to be top-10 to get this team to October.
- Regression is coming for 2024 standouts – Hunter Greene and Nick Martinez turned in fantastic seasons for the Reds in 2024. Martinez threw to a 3.10 ERA while Greene had an ERA below 2.80 and finished 10th in Cy Young voting. This led to 3.8 and 3.5-win seasons for Greene and Martinez. Heading into 2025, ZiPS doesn’t have either pitcher eclipsing the 3.0 mark.
Some of the underlying metrics had Greene pegged for a step back; his 2.75 ERA came with a 3.47 FIP. If Greene can defy those numbers and improve upon or even just maintain his 2024 breakout, Reds fans will be happy.
- Brady Singer will perform as expected – Not really. Not in the way that fans are thinking. In 2024, Singer was solid, as he posted a 3.71 ERA on his way to a 2.5-win season. However, Singer carried an expected ERA of 4.65. ZiPS is aligned with those expected stats, as Singer is projected to have a 4.84 ERA in 2025. We saw Singer post an ERA above five in 2023; hopefully, he can prove to not be an even-year odd-year type of performer.
- Inconsistencies throughout – The rotation is expected to round out with some combination of Nick Lodolo, Andrew Abbott, and Rhett Lowder. Most Reds fans feel pretty good about these six guys heading into 2025. However, along with the expected struggles for the top half of the rotation, ZiPS is projecting ERAs above 4.40 for all of Lodolo, Abbott, and Lowder.
The inconsistencies of Lodolo, both in performance and being able to stay healthy, make his projection a little more understandable. The talent is there, we just haven’t seen it for long enough stretches. Abbott has also dealt with his share of injuries but has been more consistent both in ability and availability, which is reflected in his 4.46 ERA projection, the lowest of the three. Lowder was great in his brief stint in the bigs in 2024, he just needs to prove that his performance was not a fluke.
- Bullpen lacks strikeout stuff – The Reds bullpen has felt as though it has lacked a consistent and elite strikeout artist since Aroldis Chapman was on the squad. That is still the case. Heading into 2025, ZiPS projects there to not be a single bullpen arm who eclipses the 11 K/9 mark.
In Great American Ball Park, it is important to keep the ball on the ground, and the Reds do have some guys who are pretty good about it, especially newly acquired Taylor Rogers. But, in today’s game, you need to be able to limit contact as much as possible. And this bullpen is not built to do that.
Now, ZiPS is currently projecting Graham Ashcraft and Connor Phillips as starters. Those two are very interesting wild cards for this bullpen, as it has been long believed they could be really good bullpen arms if things don’t work out for them as starters. Well, we are at that point. They have the stuff to be great swing-and-miss guys in the Reds bullpen. I am very interested to see what comes of that possibility this spring.
Final Thoughts
The Cincinnati Reds have high hopes for 2025, and they should. But, ZiPS projections really are not seeing the vision, with projected regression for up-and-coming stars like Elly De La Cruz and Hunter Greene, and this pitching staff as a whole.
However, there are still some positives to take away. While the Reds are projected to have just four position players be two-win players, the Reds only had four players hit the one-win mark last year. This season, ZiPS is projecting 11 semi-regular players to post one-win seasons.
Again, that is not something typically one would write home about. But an improvement from awful to above replacement level is a big one. And hopefully, it leads to success for Cincinnati this season.
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