Cincinnati Reds set to acquire Gavin Lux from Los Angeles Dodgers

Add Lux to the infield mix!

After dealing away Jonathan India to the Kansas City Royals earlier this offseason, it appeared the Cincinnati Reds had finally thinned their crowded infield mix. Afterwards, it sure looked like the one clear need remaining on the roster was in their corner outfield, something they hadn’t yet addressed as of the afternoon of January 6th, 2025.

Turns out, they still haven’t addressed that. Instead, they’ve addressed...the infield, yet again!

Cincinnati is slated to acquire Gavin Lux from the Los Angeles Dodgers, per ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan.

To his credit, Lux does have 45 games spent in the outfield in his career, though he played 138 of his 139 games at 2B just last season (and 307 of his 429 career games have been spent at the keystone, too). His second most frequent position has been at short.

In exchange for Lux, who’s in his second year of arbitration eligiblity and has team control through 2026, the Reds are sending LA their Competitive Balance Round A draft pick as well as Mike Sirota, their most recent 3rd round draft pick (and the below embed might help explain why).

It’s hard not to immediately suspect that the Reds have larger intentions for Matt McLain playing in the outfield than we otherwise may have thought with this move. It’s also safe to wonder what the hell the Reds are thinking altogether as Lux is a decent-ish defensive infielder who provides almost nothing on the bases and brings some of the least pop in the game to the plate.

We’ll obviously have the ability to break this move down further as the rest of the offseason shakes out. For now, though, file this one in the very, extremely questionable file.