Watch out for the Cincinnati Reds, a team of developing young stars

The Cincinnati Reds have upgraded its pitching and found several fiery new bats. The result could be a serious challenge in the NL Central as early as next season.

Pressed to identify a second division team on the rise, you could do a lot worse than bet on the Cincinnati Reds.

The Reds are in fourth place in the NL Central, four games under .500 (56-60) entering play Monday, and have been above .500 exactly one day since April of 2017.  But they are in the process of assembling a cast of young stars that rivals the Toronto Blue Jays. Beyond that, the NL Central is showing itself to be without a long-term dominant team.

The striking aspect of the Reds has been the development of several members of the starting eight, most of them new inserts. Rookie outfielder Aristides Aquino broke in 10 games ago and has since hit seven home runs, batting .452 and slugging 1.161. In retrospect, Aquino is the obvious reason the Reds felt comfortable trading away Yasiel Puig. Fellow rookie Josh VanMeter debuted in May and is putting together a .851 OPS. Nick Senzel made the club out of spring training and has held down a regular outfield spot, batting .276.

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There’s no assurance, of course, that any of those three will keep up their impressive early paces. But there’s no question any longer about the consistency of the Cincinnati Reds third baseman, Eugenio Suarez. In his fourth full major league season, Suarez has developed into a legitimate star. His 33 home runs are already just one short of his career-best, and his.541 slugging average is on pace to set another career-high. Suarez collected 104 RBIs in 2018, and he’s on pace to repeat that production in 2019.

But the real improvement has come in the Reds pitching staff, and especially the rotation. The acquisition of Trevor Bauer – in exchange for Puig – only underscored the improvement in a staff that already featured rising star Luis Castillo and reclamation project Sonny Gray.  Gray and Castillo are a combined 18-10 in 47 starts with a combined 2.90 ERA.

It’s easy to measure the advances the Reds have made on the mound just by comparing the numbers for the most recent seasons. The table below shows the staff’s numbers (and standing among the 30 major league teams) for each of the past five seasons in four categories: ERA, ERA+. WHIP and Runs Allowed Per Game.

      Season            ERA                        ERA+                        WHIP                     RA/G

• 2019       4.06 (7th)              114 (5th)                 1.285 (6th)            4.24 (5th)
• 2018       4.63 (24th)            90 (24th)                1.404 (26th)          5.06 (25th)
• 2017       5.17 (29th)            87 (27th)                1.450 (28th)          5.36 (29th)
• 2016       4.91 (27th)            87 (29th)                1.451 (27th)          5.27 (27th)
• 2015       4.33 (26th)            92 (25th)                1.362 (25th)          4.65 (25th)

The ERA of the Reds pitching staff is more than a half-run better than it was just last season, and the staff is allowing nearly a run less per game. A staff that for several seasons had consistently been among the bottom five in most significant categories is now threatening the top five in those same categories.

This is not to say that the Reds are poised to make a playoff run this year. They remain handicapped by a bad start to the season, and as a result, have more than a half dozen teams to pass in the standings just to project as a serious wild card threat.

Next year, however, maybe another and more serious matter. In that respect, it will be interesting to see how this young core finishes the season’s final seven weeks. They’re off to a good start in that respect. The Reds are 6-4 in August and 12-7 since July 22.

The Cincinnati Reds have one more thing going for them, firebrand leadership. First-year manager David Bell has already been ejected more than a half dozen times and has been suspended for his part in a brawl. With about 50 games remaining Bell has an outside chance of breaking a 114-year-old major league record: most ejections by a manager. John McGraw set that one in 1905 when he got tossed 11 times. Stand by for further developments.

In the interim, however, don’t be surprised if Bell continues to goose his players even more regularly than he gets under the skin of umpires…and with better effect.