Cincinnati Reds: Team preview and prediction for 2020 season

Cincinnati Reds: 2020 Preview and Prediction

From a lineup standpoint, this group has the potential to be a powerhouse in run production. Yes, Joey Votto scares me a bit with the season he had in 2019. Hopefully, it’s not indicative of a downward trend.

Yes, I’m concerned about the health of Eugenio Suarez who’s a home run machine. Yes, the Moose pickup looks a little weird to me considering what we’ve seen out of him at the second base position. But then again, maybe they just wanted to get Moose away from the Brewers.

But if everybody is right, this is going to be a big-time lineup. They just might have to do something if Moose becomes too much of a liability at second; somebody is going to have to move.

I really like the Nicholas Castellanos pickup in the offseason. Castellanos is a solid bat you can plug into the top of your lineup and have a major impact.

With everything going down with Votto (possibly) regressing and Suarez’s injury, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Castellanos wind up being the MVP of this team and becoming a run-producing machine.

In my opinion, the Shogo Akiyama pickup was quiet but brilliant. Akiyama is a high-average Japanese player who has over 1400 hits over nine seasons in international ball.

Looking at this Cincinnati Reds lineup, strikeouts do seem to be a bit of a problem. After all, Eugenio Suarez led the Majors last year with 189 punch-outs. Bringing on a high-average, high-contact left-handed bat who plays the outfield is going to do wonders for this team’s overall contact rate.

On top of that, you have Nick Senzel with an extremely-high ceiling who can play all around the diamond, and Aristides Aquino who came up late last year and blazed the league with 19 homers in 56 games. This is a group that has all the capability in the world to be successful.