ST G16 - Athletics 9, Reds 7 (Reds Make Roster Cuts, Important TV Update)

0:00Well, hey, what's going on? Happy Tuesday, Nick Kirby here. Welcome to Chatterbox Reds. We're daily home for Cincinnati Reds content all spring training long coming up at just a bit myself and Craig Sandlin talked about some Reds roster moves, some Reds TV news and more. But first, as always, let's recap some cactus league baseball. The Reds lost 9-7 to the A's in good year on Monday. Reds now below 507 and 8 this spring. Reds have lost four of their last five games. So far, this spring is not gone the way many expected the Reds to do at least during the regular season.

1:01The Reds often leads all of spring training. That's both the cactus and grapefruit leagues with an 8-87 OPS and 29 homers. But the Reds pitching boy has it been ugly. Reds pitching staff now has a 7.89 ERA, which is, as you would expect, the worst in spring training. The Mariners are at 7.14. They're the only other team over 7. And then the next is the Reds socks at 6.52. That's nearly a run in a half better than the Reds. All right, well, speaking of pitching, Red Louder got the start making his third appearance the spring. Now, Louder got to a really rough start. He allowed a single and a double to the first two batters. Then the next batter reached on an air by second baseman Garrett Hampson. Louder then gave up a single and a double and just like that, A's had three runs. Another run was scored on a sacked fly, but Louder pretty much cruised the rest of the way. He retired eight of the final 11 batters he faced and got a

2:05double play to erase another runner. Final line for Red Louder, three and two thirds and he's pitched seven hits, five runs, three of them earned zero walks for strikeouts. Louder did pump in strikes, 59 pitches, 43 strikes. After the game, here's what Red Louder had to say. I felt good. It came out swinging on some fastballs and kind of just had to make an adjustment pitch backwards. And I think, you know, after after that mountain visit with Steve and we realized like, all right, we got to kind of pitch backwards, get soft going early, smooth salmon from there. It seemed like after the first, you had like, you know, much more efficient. I guess you didn't have like, I think you only had like 24 pitches over the next two weeks after the first. Yeah, I mean, we just flipped our game plan. Obviously they were coming out on fastball. And so we just flipped script and it worked. That are also quite a few swing and misses 12 whiffs on 35 swings for Louder on Monday. Connor Phillips gave up a two run homer on the very first pitch that he threw coming in

3:08relieving Red Louder. Phillips left the sweeper over the middle of the plate. He did not allow any more damage. Sam Moe continues to have a very impressive spring. He threw a scoreless inning. Moe's now yet to allow a run in over five innings. TJ Anton had a rough day. He gave up three runs on two hits. He also walked two batters. He could not finish a full inning of work. All right. Now in the offensive side, Matt McLean just keeps on hitting another two for three day, five sixty. Matt McLean's batting average is a spring. Nathaniel Lowe had a good day, two for three with a double that double crushed at 107 off the bat. TJ Bladay, he was one for four, but his second home run this spring, home run hit hard, 111 off the bat 423 feet. How about Reese Hines? He was two for two with a homer. His third already this spring is to the base. And we'll talk about it. Hines coming up, but he hit the hardest ball in Red

4:08Statcast history at one nineteen point six miles per hour. No, I'll be marked day one for three with a double that double hit one, oh, eight, high Stevenson. Oh, for two with a walk, Benson and Brian Hayes, both oh for one with a walk. Spencer Sear, tough day at the plate. He was oh for three steer hit and just two 17 so far this spring. All right, let's go ahead and get to my conversation with Craig Salon. Be sure to stick around the end. I'll run through all the reds pictures that are expected to throw on Tuesday and some more news and nuggets from around the reds. Welcome in once again, chatter box reds joined as always by Nick Kirby, Nick how we doing on this lovely Tuesday morning, Monday night, whatever you want to call it going good, going good. We're we're inching closer. This is like we're not there yet. It's like that. I'm a little excited about the two games because the brewers just because that's kind of different, but like whatever like the five days before that of spring, that's like that. I've already dreading

5:13how miserable of a feeling that is those like last few days. Thankfully, like it's March Madness, so it kind of eases this thing a little bit, but yeah, I've kind of gotten through most of my excitement about spring training and now it's kind of you're trying to get up for it every day. Yes, it's crazy. I don't necessarily know that it feels like we still have two and a half weeks of spring training. It feels like we're much closer to the season starting than we really are and yet here we are. It's on March 10th and we still have the first like two and a half weeks. First like two to three weeks really fly by and then like the last season never ends. Well, we are as you mentioned getting ever so close to opening day and the reds made a couple transactions on Monday to get the final roster even closer to that final 25 on a give us an update on what decisions were made on Monday. Yeah, not really any surprises. I guess it's probably just a matter of when it's going to happen. How long the reds might keep CES on the roster and

6:18you know, in case of an injury or something like that. But Christian and Kronossi and Strayon and Chase Petty officially option to AAA, Michael Trot wine option to somewhere. I don't think they have designated that. They're not sure if they're going to send them to AA or AAA. That's pretty much I think what that is, but I don't think either one of them performed bad. I mean, Petty it looks pretty good. I don't think I'll give it up a run all spring. It's not getting as much swing and misses. I think you'd want, but overall he's had had success. CES are really hard about just missed a home running of the day. It made it all really hard. I think he's looked pretty good. It's a mixed reports defensively on when he's played third base. But I don't think he performed bad. It just number one, it's a good thing that you don't need CES. And we're going to talk about another guy. It's a good thing. You probably don't need him. I mean, that's a good healthy thing that you're sending players down that aren't really necessarily deserving to get sent down. But CES, I think we've talked about this before. So this isn't really a new point. And as you

7:21get into the the dog days of spring training, you kind of have to recycle some of your points again. But CES is exactly where the well-being Morte was on March 9th, 2025. He's going to go into the season and everyone's going to forget about him. I was thinking this guy has no chance of playing and helping this team. And things can change very quickly as we saw last year with the well-being Morte. And by the time June rolled around the well-being Morte, it was a big key piece of the Cincinnati Reds. And CES could get to that spot again. And then Chase Petty, he's just he's still a role project at this point. But I think you've been encouraged with him. And I mean, the fact that Chase Petty might be your three, four star triple A. Again, that's just another good thing to have. Yeah, never a bad thing to have depth. And as you mentioned, CES, not a terrible spring. They hit 333 with an OPS of 800. I don't know that the power was necessarily there to the level

8:21that you would expect from CES if he's really going to make an impact on this team. Nobody's going to expect him to hit 333 during a regular season. Yeah, it's great that he's doing it in spring training. But just two doubles on the spring so far. No home runs. Just one RBI. So certainly, you know, I love to see the average there and would love to see the power come with it. And hopefully that'll come over time. I don't know if you saw this Nick or not. This isn't on our run down. So I'm going to catch you off guard here. So I apologize in advance. But it came to my came to my mind as we were talking through this. I don't know if you saw the article from Gordon Whitmer on Monday about CES said you're going to you're going to love this. This is the the headline that the inquirer tweeted out. Christian N. Carnasio and Strand looked like he could be the next Joey Votto when he burst onto the scene in 2023. Then of course, the article is from Joey Votto's

9:23heir apparent to AAA Red CES keeps battling. Thought that was interesting and you know, you're much more in tune with these things than me. But I never vision CES as the next Joey Votto. They're two completely different players. It's not even close. But nonetheless, I guess as we wrap up this conversation, your thoughts just on CES's future with the Reds. Obviously they went out this this offseason. You know, went out and got Nathaniel Low. Obviously, Sal Stewart has overtaken him in terms of first-based projections. Like what's next for CES? Is it with the Reds? Is it as trade bait? Is it like what is your projection for CES at this point? Well, the weather with CES is I mean some of it's obviously like him going to AAA and Raking is it within his control. And like he needs to do that to get to the big leagues with whoever. Everything else kind of unfortunately

10:28very much out of his control. He kind of sadly needs to get hurt to have a spot. I mean, that's the most likely spot for him is if Hayes gets hurt, he plays their base. I mean, you could have multiple injuries where he gets into a first base or DH type spot. Yeah, that was a weird article. Like he was never like the next Joey Votto that that's crazy. But I mean, he was the first basement of the future. I mean, I think we all thought he was going to be that. I mean, I said this many times. I mean, he had better numbers than Ellie. He had way better numbers than Matt McLean. He had significantly better numbers than Nualve Marte at every level in the minor league. I mean, he was a very, very productive hitter. Now, I mean, there were some flaws in his game with the, you know, the plate discipline and not drawing a ton of walks. But yeah, I mean, so yeah, it's still incredibly young. I mean, he still has a barely scratch the surface of even playing in the big leagues. And unfortunately for him, his injuries have just, I've been at

11:28really, really crappy times. Like there was times last year where the Reds were running players out in the DH spot like that CES clearly would have been the guy, but he was hurt. And I think in 2024 as well, his injuries has just come at very, very inconvenient times. But again, he's still young. And at some point, I do believe Hill's name will get called with the Reds in 2026. But I think it was a triple A in race. I wouldn't be shocked if the Reds tried to sell high to a team that that might want to take him there. It does well. So that's a possibility. I'm not going to say it's not. Yeah, I could definitely see somebody who's looking to take a chance on a power hitting first baseman, either because of injury to their first baseman or just in general, looking for depth, I could definitely see that happening. And as we get to the deadline, you never know what the Reds are going to need and what, what might open up for them in terms of opportunities. So obviously CES only 26 years old at this point, still plenty of opportunity.

12:29And his prime is still ahead of him. And see, go ahead. And as you say, every time you watch Grand Ashcraft or Connor Phillips, think the ball is pretty trading, you can see a scenario where the Reds traded for a reliever. Because I think the Reds will collect any relievers they can at this point. Absolutely, absolutely. CES, obviously, one of the big things that he brings to the table is power, Nick, and on Monday, the Reds had the hardest hit ball ever by a red in the stack. Gastara, tell us about it. Yeah, we've re-sized. Well, we don't really know it because we didn't see it. There's no video of it. Just gonna bring that up. The funny thing is it's very reminiscent of well, I don't have it in front of you. What was Heinz? It was 10119.6. Yeah. Okay, so, so, and Ellie's was the record at 119.2. 119.2. Well, kind of the record. We also had Tyson Lewis. We're gonna talk about you in a second.

13:32Last year had a 119.4 in the Arizona Complexly. So the top two, we have no video for whatever it's worth. But yeah, I thought like this was just a cool, I guess, you know, footnote to resize. He's had a really, really good spring. And like, I don't think there's a world where he makes the Reds opening day roster, but it's a lot more of a question than I thought it would be going into camp. I've just been really, really impressed with resigns. I mentioned it last year. I thought what he did at AAA was so underappreciated by this fan base because he stunk in 20 at bats in the big leagues. But I mean, that guy was night and day from what he did in 2024 in the minor leagues to 2025. I think he's still, there's a lot of potential with resigns. And I just, I don't think people should sleep on him. Again, I'm not saying he's, you know, a for sure thing or it's going to pan out. But man, he has a ton of upside. And in fact, he'll play center field as well. That just gives him more versatility. So I don't know,

14:37I think resigns is one injury away from making the opening day roster one outfield. Yeah, I was, yeah, I was going to say whether it's opening day or at some point, resigns will see the major leagues this year. I have zero doubt that that is going to happen. For those of you that didn't see and are listening to this on Tuesday morning, resigns hit a three one pitch in the bottom of the eighth, 119.6 miles per hour. The ball went 437 feet off Raffle Meal Torres. The legend. Apologize to Mr. Torres if I butchered that first name. But resigns now this spring neck. And this is to your point, like 455. He's got an OPS of 1.545. He's got three home runs, 10 hits. He scored in 22 appats. He scored seven times eight RBI like he's doing it all. We know defensively he can play the

15:39outfield and play it well. Look, again, knockout would you don't wish for injuries for anybody. But I think the reds have to be pretty happy right now with their outfield depth across the board. And I know that there's, I would say there's not necessarily that like star power anywhere in the outfield right now. But I feel like they have seven, eight, nine guys who could be solid platoon players for them throughout this entire year at this point. And it's just a matter of who's going to be hot at what moments. And at least for me, I just hope that Terry Francois is willing to ride the hot hand at the right moments and use that for some momentum. Yeah, they might not have like a top 30 outfielder and major league. Like, like, Freedle, I'd be like the 28th best outfielder overall. I think he came in at like his ninth best center fielder. So they might have a top 30. But like, how many teams have like seven legitimate

16:41we believe big league players are at least on the French. So they're going to, you know, kill him with depth and said it many times before. Terry, Fred Kona took a Cleveland Indian seemed to the World Series with Coco Chris, Roger Davis, Lonnie Chishol, Brandon Geier, and Tyler Nake when they all were to mix match platoon. So hey, this is reminiscent of the 2016 Cleveland ball club. Love it. And we also want to remind you that you can call our text 98 anytime day or night. The 98 suicide and crisis lifeline is a place to get support for anything related to mental health. Whether it's an immediate crisis, simply wanting to find out how to connect with care or anything in between. So 100% confidential secured anonymous way to reach out for help when you don't know where else to turn to connect. Call our text 98 or visit mantherapy.org to get help. It's okay. Not to be okay.

17:43Love it. Reigns isn't the only Reds quote unquote prospect that's been showing off. And there's a couple names that I know people have been watching for a little while now who had a chance to show off on Sunday. Since we didn't do a show, a live show on YouTube after the Sunday game wanted to bring this up and chat about it. Obviously, if you listen to the podcast on Monday morning, you probably already know some of this, but for those of you that didn't nick, Sunday was a good day for some of these Reds prospects. Yeah, I talked about it briefly on the podcast version on Monday, but yeah, afraid of Duno and Tyson Lewis both heading home runs. It was really cool to see they did it on it. They actually did it on a day with TV broadcast. They were two separate games actually, but really cool to see. There's two things I love about both of those guys is they have crazy upside. They're not just like your prospects that are good. I think both of them probably do have some some high risk. I'll be honest with that. But man, they're upside.

18:47Like afraid of Duno. I don't think that anyone outside the world, I think you would say like this guy has a chance to be the best hitting catcher in Major League Baseball. I don't think that's a stretch to say. His defense is a work in progress, but if his defense can be average, he's the best hitter. Hitty catcher baseball. That's a pretty good player overall. It Tyson Lewis. I mean, this guy just turned 20 years old. Like he's just scratching the surface and he's putting up some crazy exit velocities. I don't know if we really have any idea how good Tyson Lewis can be. So that was just really, really cool to see. And yeah, I don't think the Reds, farm system right now is maybe as great as it was in 2023 when you have this incredible depth. I don't think they have that same level depth. But they haven't had this many high upside guys. The legitimate store power upside guys, they haven't had a lot of years where I felt like there was multiple of those. And I'd really feel like they have that right now. And obviously,

19:49South Stewart is still technically a prospect and Ritloud are still technically a prospect. I mean, that's a really high upside prospect. Yeah, two 20-year-olds that showed out on Sunday. And Nick, I don't know if you agree, but for people that haven't seen Alfredo do know, haven't seen him bat, haven't just seen him physically. Personally, every time I see him, the only thing I can think about is Salvador Perez. Like it just, it just immediate comparison. Not only from a build, but I think Salvador has had such a long, successful career both at the plate and behind the dish. I don't think there's any real reason that Alfredo do know can't be a very similar catcher to Salvador Perez. Obviously, we all know he's got to work a little bit on the defensive side still to reach Salvi's real excellence in that perspective. But at 20 years old, I don't personally have any real reason to believe that that can't be a

20:51thing. And what Tyler Stevenson, having coming up on his last year now of team control, you really have to wonder how much they're going to push Alfredo do know this year, because there isn't really an era parent to Tyler Stevenson at this point, unless you're trying to convince me Jose Trabinho is going to be your catcher A moving forward. I think you're probably still going to have to get a stop gap if you don't reassign Stevenson. Where has it been very patient with catcher development? They're not going to just push him that they're not going to put a catcher on the big league roster that they don't feel is capable of receiving the ball and challenging now, I guess, two as a whole part of this thing too. But yeah, he's, I don't know if he's, I have a hard time believing it'll get as good defensively as Salvador Perez, but the one thing he does, he has significantly better plate discipline than Salvador Perez has. Salvador Perez was just a, you know, free swinger for the most part. So yeah, Alfredo do know I assume is going to start in Dayton. I mean, he was like

21:54kicked down the door at Daytona. I know the reds kind of hate to send the the Dominican players up north. They like the start in Florida, because like, if you ever go to a game, like a Dayton Dragons game in April, like these guys are all, like, remember, Ellie last year, like that's the whole team of these guys that have never played in these kind of environments. But he, he is worth the price of admission for the Dayton Dragons. Like, I'm, I'll try not to share you too much. I will try to go too hard on the prospects, but go to a Dayton Dragons game, especially if you're like me and you're not low in living Cincinnati, because Dayton actually has really good attendance, but all these other teams, like no one shows up, like you can go sit right behind the plate. You could watch, like, you're going to be like, holy crap, this guy's huge. And you can see him like, you know, call a game and be up close. He's worth the price of admission. I think you'll be really excited. I think it'll be one of those cool experiences. I'm like, oh, yeah, I saw that guy down a date. I'm like, I saw Tyler Stevenson back in the day.

22:55He's right at Daytona in 2025, 113 games played 32 doubles, 18 home runs, 81 RBI, had an OPS on the year of 946, 948. I apologize. Alfredo Duno is for real. It's just a matter of how, how patient the reds are going to want to be or how patient they can be for that matter, because he just turned 20 less than two months ago. So certainly, we'll keep an eye on him throughout the year as we always do with Reds MILB and keep you up to date on the progression there. Look, Nick, one of the big talking points this whole off season with the Fandole Sports Network going under and everything else has been the television and how people can watch Reds games. Obviously, we know at this point MLB TV will be the main broadcaster of those games. All 162 will be on television either through MLB TV or through

23:59national broadcast. But now on Monday, it was announced that there's a new way that some people will be able to watch a few Reds games at least throughout the course of the year. Yeah, a little prediction that I had came true. I'll tap myself on the shoulder for that one. But yeah, the Reds are going to have 10 games, simulcast this year on Fox 19. And it's called gray media. So it's a whole bunch of like Fox type stations. But I don't think they're all necessarily Fox stations. We don't have the whole list yet. But they're going to do 10 games. They're going opening day and then a whole bunch of Mondays. So it's like it's most Mondays from April in through June. And then there's like a couple. There's one in July, August, September. It's kind of cool. I like that a concept that like people can be like, okay, Reds are, you know, if you're just not going to buy Reds TVs. I don't want to watch the free games. They'll be most Mondays. So Monday night, kind of your night. And they probably have a lot of Monday off days too. So if they're playing, they're probably on that. So that's kind of cool.

25:02It's actually a total crag of 14 games that you can watch if you just have over their cable because the Reds have three games on Fox. And they actually have one game on NBC as well. So 14 completely free games. That's that's pretty cool. And the stations. We don't have the stations. But we know it'll be in the Cincinnati Columbus Dayton Toledo, Bolden Green, Kentucky, Lexington, Louisville, Evansville, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Charleston, Slash, Huntington, Chatternouga, Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, Charlotte, Greensville, Spartan, Spartanburg. And they might be on on some of those stations. They might be like that point two channel. Like I don't necessarily think it'll met for sure be the main channel. So you have to kind of check your your local availability. But you should be able to watch a lot at least most of those games I think on all those markets. So yeah, really cool. It's a great thing for the Reds. I think it's a really smart decision like get people hooked on this for free. And like, you know, oh, this is kind of cool. Yeah, you know what? This is only $100. And actually,

26:06if you wait if you're someone who wants to wait a little bit, it'll the price will drop throughout the year. I think I think I was looking at the Guardians. It was dropped down to like 40 bucks by like late June. So if you wait a little bit, you can get it for a lot cheaper. But don't absolutely like us. That's right. I already bought my subscription. I'm sure you did too. I don't have to buy it. I'm not in the Reds market, baby. I get the free free T-mobile. Lucky you. I bought mine. I bought the Guardians though. So I can watch the Reds when they play up here. All right. Well, I bought mine. I bought mine. So I could watch some of these preseason games as well. And there are still a couple opportunities for folks to check out the Reds preseason games on TV as well. Disappointed, obviously, the resigned. So run wasn't televised today. And we haven't seen any video tweeted out or anything, which is crazy. But still a couple opportunities coming up for fans to catch spring training games over the next couple of weeks before opening day. And they are free during spring training. You don't actually have to buy this subscription. So,

27:10especially if someone waiting for the monthly, I know Craig did the full year because it's a lot cheaper. Crazy smart guy. But if you're wanting to do the month to month, wait till opening day to do that. Don't start that early. I don't even know if they're offering it yet. But during spring training, they're all free. So if you want to wait, you can wait. It's all free. If you want to just do the 99, 99, 99 now, why not? But it doesn't really give you a huge benefit. I don't think yet. Yeah. I bought it. But yeah, you know, whether I buy it on March 4th or I buy it on March 27th, still going on my credit card in March, which means I'm going to have to pay it in April next. So a couple of a couple of opportunities. March 12th game against the Los Angeles Dodgers being broadcast at nine o'clock at night, Eastern time, Tuesday the 17th against the Guardians at 905, Wednesday the 18th against the Rockies, 405 PM Eastern. And then March 19th is the spring breakout prospect game where they play the giants prospects looking forward to seeing that as well. And then

28:14March 22nd Sunday, and they play the Cleveland Guardians at 305. Any final thoughts on this one, Nick, before we wrap it up? No, I think we covered it all. Good stuff, Craig. All right. Well, thanks so much for listening today to Chatterbox Reds. Really can't tell how much we appreciate all the support. Yeah, you subscribe to Chatterbox Reds or every list of this podcast. Make sure to do the right now with the only Reds podcast with new episodes the morning after every single game. Of course, all kinds of other great content here on Chatterbox Sports and podcast form also on Chatterbox Sports on YouTube. So be sure to check all of that out. I will hope that you have a great Tuesday. We'll talk again bright and early on Wednesday morning. Go Reds.