Might San Francisco’s LaMonte Wade Jr. help fix the 2025 Reds offense?

Here we are, still searching for ways to improve Cincinnati’s offense.

Yes.

The answer to the question of might San Francisco’s LaMonte Wade Jr. be a fix for the 2025 Reds offense is yes, though it’s worth emphatically pointing out that the question said ‘a fix’ and not ‘the fix.’

Wade, who’ll reach free agency at the end of the 2025 season, is reportedly on the trade block in the Giants front office, while Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported just yesterday that the team is pursuing big-smashin’ free agent 1B Pete Alonso to further render Wade redundant. Wade spent time at 1B in 94 games for the Giants just last year after spending time there in 116 games the season prior, but his 25 total dingers across the last two seasons pale in comparison to Alonso’s power (80 dingers in that time).

Here’s yet another example of me proposing the Reds take the lesser of the two options purely in the name of saving money. Here’s where I also mention that yes, I would prefer the Reds pursue Pete Alonso instead of LaMonte Wade Jr., but I’m doing my best to look at the baseball player landscape through the lens of the team’s epic frugality instead of through the lens of actually trying hard to win baseball games, something that’s become a giant pain in the patooskie over time.

Wade is estimated to earn some $4.7 million in 2025, his final arbitration year. Alonso is probably going to sign for $100 million or more. Other teams are playing games on a wireless xBox elite series 2 controller. We’re still stuck on the original Nintendo one. You can either try to figure out how to play that game within the limitations, or throw up your hands and walk away. I’m trying to do the former here.

Wade’s weakest points in San Francisco might be exactly what make him a great fit for the 2025 Reds, however, and I’ll try to lay that out here once more. Last summer, I made the suggestion that the Reds try to pick him up at the trade deadline, too, so this is me doubling down on a guy whose primary attributes - great walk rate, ability to mash LHP, positional versatility - make him a really good fit for an otherwise malleable roster situation.

Since the start of the 2023 season, Wade owns a .376 OBP - good for 11th best among the 144 MLB players who’ve logged at least 900 PA in that time. The Reds leader over that time was Jonathan India (tied for 34th best at .349), and you may recall the Reds jettisoned him to Kansas City already this winter.

Of the 25 dingers Wade has launched since the start of last year, 16 have come in road games with only 9 in his home park by the Bay. Per Baseball Savant’s park factors, San Francisco’s home stadium has been the 5th toughest park on LHH since the start of the 2022 season, while Cincinnati’s GABP has been the 3rd friendliest. In other words, the overall .401 SLG he’s posted in his last two seasons may well end up significantly higher if he got to call GABP home for a season, with its short right field porch playing perfectly into his otherwise refined plate approach.

While he spent the bulk of his time at 1B over the last two seasons, he’s also spent time across the OF in that time - and he’s spent time in the grass in 191 career big league games. While he’s never been lauded as an elite defender, he’s competent around the diamond in a way that would mesh well with the team’s other options at the corners, serving as something of a left-handed complement to what Spencer Steer brings right-handedly.

Because of his limited team control, the idea here is that Wade would be attainable without emptying the farm system, too. That’s just as vital for Nick Krall & Co. as the money issue, and I’m finding perilously few other offensive upgrade options out there that would come at such a low combined cost of 2025 salary and dents to the farm.

To be clear, the addition of Wade to this offense this winter would be, in a vacuum, something of a B- move. It wouldn’t be the D+ of simply rolling back out what they had in 2024 with hopes that group ‘just played better.’ It certainly wouldn’t be the A move of spending on a proven guy like Teoscar Hernandez, either. But in a world where this team mostly operates trying to find B- guys who just might play over their heads into B+ guys, Wade seems like an excellent target, especially since 2025 would be his platform year into entering free agency at age 31.