MLB Reacts - Just how many wins can this Cincinnati Reds club put up?

Optimism isn’t exactly running rampant around here!

We still have zero idea what this edition of the Cincinnati Reds baseball club can be.

The San Francisco Giants are good, or at least they appear to be, and the Reds are seemingly the only club who can beat them. Heck, those two clubs have played half their games against one another already.

We still haven’t seen anything from Big Offseason Signing™ Austin Hays, who was brought in on a discount after having been similarly injured all last year. Can he provide anything akin to a bounce-back?

Tyler Stephenson was probably the most realistic ‘the Reds should give this guy a contract extension’ candidate all winter long after his rock solid 2024 season and relative affordability compared to other roster peers, and he’s been out all year, too.

Rhett Lowder? Haven’t seen him. Andrew Abbott? Haven’t seen him, either. Alexis Díaz? Still on the shelf, but close.

All of this conspires to suggest that being 5-8 on April 11th instead of, say 9-6 really shouldn’t tell us a ton about where these Reds will end up. Heck, give Terry Francona the chance to manage the club with even a couple of these guys - and Matt McLain - and we may well forget all about those 1-0 losses and blown early leads.

We may not, though!

This week’s MLB Reacts survey asked you whether you expected the Reds to win more, or fewer than 78.5 wins after watching the first two weeks of play, the very over/under currently set by FanDuel. That’s a seemingly modest number should you be an eternal optimist of this franchise’s chances, but it’s hard to ignore the injuries stacking up and their current residence in the cellar of the National League Central once again.

As it turns out, a lot more of you think the Reds will finish with fewer than 78.5 wins than think they’ll breeze past that total.

Maybe it’s the bullpen issues that have you worried, them never having been truly addressed over the winter. Maybe it’s that the outfield, even if you squint and see success from Hays when he returns, still looks like a giant black hole.

Either way, it seems pretty clear there’s already a crisis of confidence around this Reds club, something that may only be swayed by a potent homestand this week/weekend as the club comes back home to Cincinnati.