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Let’s not call the Cincinnati Reds’ hot start an early season fluke

By Jim Turvey

May 1, 2017; Cincinnati, OH, USA; Cincinnati Reds center fielder Billy Hamilton (left) celebrates with first baseman Joey Votto (19) pinch runner Arismendy Alcantara (30) and third baseman Eugenio Suarez (7) after Hamilton hit the game winning double against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the 10th inning at Great American Ball Park. Mandatory Credit: David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports
May 1, 2017; Cincinnati, OH, USA; Cincinnati Reds center fielder Billy Hamilton (left) celebrates with first baseman Joey Votto (19) pinch runner Arismendy Alcantara (30) and third baseman Eugenio Suarez (7) after Hamilton hit the game winning double against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the 10th inning at Great American Ball Park. Mandatory Credit: David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Cincinnati Reds currently sit at 14-14, a rather pedestrian record, but considering where they were projected by many to be before this season, to be only two games behind the mighty Cubs is quite the accomplishment.

Now it’s quite easy to look at the calendar, see it is May 5 (Happy Cinco de Mayo!), and say They’re only sitting at .500 because it’s so early in the season. That’s fair. Every season we see teams we know are going to fade down the stretch that start off hot and linger around .500 as late as the All-Star break before fading down the stretch. That also sells this Cincinnati Reds team short.

Through 28 games, by the best stats we have, the Reds have earned this .500 record.

On the offensive side of things, they currently sport a wRC+ of 98 (all stats in this article from FanGraphs). Five of their regulars have a wRC+ over 100 (remember, 100 equals league average), led by Eugenio Suarez at 158. Suarez is proving to be a legitimate big-league hitter, as he is fresh off a 21-homer, 11-steal campaign in 2016 and is already at six homers and one steal in 2017.

Thanks in part to their home stadium (and plenty of games against the Brewers early in the season), the Reds have been far from lacking in the home run department, as their 38 long balls rank in a tie for seventh across the majors this season. While it may not seem like a surprise to see the Reds among the league leaders in homers, the club ranked just 24th in the majors in homers last season, and that’s even with Adam Duvall (33 home runs) breaking onto the scene as a dynamic power force.

It isn’t just with the long ball that the Reds are thriving, however. Their defense has been electric this season. Now we need to be careful with defensive metrics for a couple reasons. For one, even though there have been great strides forward in the past couple of seasons, defensive metrics are still the weakest of the batting-pitching-fielding triumvirate of baseball statistics.

There’s also the fact that these stats often take the longest time to “stabilize,” or get to a point where we can truly learn something from the data. That being said, the Reds have been the second-best defense in baseball this season, per FanGraphs’ all-encompassing defense ranks.

There have been several key contributors on this side of the ball. Once again, the top standout is Suarez, as the 25-year-old is really having himself a nice start to 2017 (12th among position players in fWAR). Suarez has been 4.3 defensive runs above replacement this season (again, to assume that we can actually measure to the tenth of a run this early in the season is silly, but that’s just the way the stat is packaged), tops among third baseman by a good margin.

But it hasn’t just been Suarez. Tucker Barnhart has been excellent behind the dish, Billy Hamilton is chasing down fly balls with the best of ’em, and Zack Cozart (he of the 152 wRC+ as well) has been a top-six defensive shortstop.

We all saw last season what a top-tier defense can do for a pitching staff, as the Cubs were able to post season-long, mystifying ERA-FIP numbers thanks to their defense. They were seemingly getting “lucky” on balls in play, but because their defense was so excellent, this “luck” was actually sustainable. Given what most folks thought the Reds’ pitching would be like in 2017, this sort of “luck” would be needed.

However, so far in 2017, the Reds have actually been a bit unlucky, sporting just a 4.10 xFIP, but a 4.59 ERA. That 4.10 xFIP in 2017 has been good for the 16th-best xFIP in baseball this season, a massive upgrade from their 30th-ranked xFIP in 2016. So where have those improvements been made?

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Well for one, the Reds are suddenly among the league leaders in strikeout rate (9.04 K/9). While it helps to have a great defense behind you, if you’re sending the batter back to the dugout without a fight, that’s a lot better. That strikeout rate ranks eighth in baseball and is a significant leap from 2016 when they struck out 7.75 batters per nine.

The pitching has also improved its all-around batted ball profile allowed in 2017. The Reds are inducing more ground balls, giving up less hard contact and allowing fewer line drives. Their pitchers are getting ahead in the count more often, and they are getting hitters to reach out of the zone for more would-be balls with greater regularity. It’s good news – and improvements – all around.

This makes sense: The Reds are a young team, they should be improving. This season they’ve received 31 and two-thirds innings from Scott Feldman (age 34) and 25 innings from Bronson Arroyo (age 756), but outside of those two vets, it’s been all young guns making a name for themselves. Amir Garrett has been the name that has jumped out to many, as the 25-year-old rookie has quality starts in four of his five outings this season. Brandon Finnegan is shelved on the DL at the moment, but the 24-year-old was beginning to show that 2016 was no fluke with a hot start in 2017 as well.

The bullpen is full of flamethrowers, with Raisel Iglesias (27 years old; 1.10 ERA), Michael Lorenzen (25 years old; 2.87 FIP), and Wandy Peralta (25 years old; 1.42 ERA) all turning heads with their early-season performances. The Reds’ bullpen has been the second-best in all of baseball if we use xFIP as the metric to determine likely future success. The one worrisome sign is that the Reds’ pen is leading the majors in innings pitched already, thanks in large part to their young rotation not always making it deep into games. They’ve had plenty of success so far, but whether they can hold up being used at the same pace all season is yet to be determined.

Next: Twins vs. Red Sox series preview

Odds are that the Reds will fade to either the cellar of the NL Central or close to it by the time we reach August. Heck, they’re only two games ahead of the cellar-dwelling Pittsburgh Pirates right now, so they could be in last in a week. But the fact remains that to call the Reds’ fast start simply the result of some early-season luck would be wrong.

The young squad has played quite well in the early stages of 2017, and they have given their fans something to look forward to in what was supposed to be a lost season. With all the youth on this team, and the success stories that have already risen, it may not be long before the Reds are back in the conversation as a relevant and contending MLB team.

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