Noelvi Marte’s imminent return puts Reds roster on notice

Who’s going to play? And where?

Christian Encarnacion-Strand knocked a baseball completely out of Fenway Park on Wednesday night, doing so with the bases loaded and the Cincinnati Reds teetering on the edge of being swept by the Boston Red Sox.

It was positively majestic, measuring at 439 feet after coming off the bat at 109.1 mph, per MLB.com’s Statcast, and it sailed clear over the Green Monster in left-center.

It was desperately needed by the Reds, who claimed the final game of the series 8-4 and moved to 45-42 on the season. More than that, though, it was desperately needed by CES, who’d slumped to just 8 for his last 54 with nary a homer across his previous 15 games (54 PA) after bursting back onto the scene as he came off the injured list in early June.

The real CES still has not graced the presence of the regular Cincinnati Reds lineup, I don’t think. What we saw from him down the stretch in 2023 (while 100% healthy) is probably what’s closest to that, but the 63 games in which he has featured across the last two seasons have come in piecemeal form and featured a player who simply had sat sidelined for too long to truly be anything close to ‘in peak form.’

There have been flashes, obviously. Yet the numbers - just .198/.227/.339 in 256 PA since the start of the 2024 season - have simply been unacceptable.

CES started at 1B last night, though he’s also picked up five starts at the hot corner since June 17th. To date, the Cincinnati Reds boast a league-worst .255 wOBA from their 3B position this year, their 54 wRC+ from that position also ranking dead last.

That’s not all CES, of course. A lot of it is Santiago Espinal, who’s been brutal for quite some time offensively. It’s just a bit of a jarring realization considering that seemingly a minute ago this Reds club was bursting at the seams with far, far too many 3B options - so many that the original signing of Jeimer Candelario was panned from the outset.

For the fanfare that CES’ grand slam deservedly got, it wasn’t the only Reds-related grand slam of note this week. Down on the farm with AAA Louisville, former top prospect Noelvi Marte socked a big one of his own while on rehab, launching an 0-2 breaking ball well over the wall in left-center against Indianapolis as part of his own 2-hit, 2-walk night.

Marte will likely be activated for Friday’s series opener against the Philadelphia Phillies. Despite his own awful 2024 season (that featured an 80-game suspension for PEDs), Marte did manage to hit well at the big league level this season before an oblique issue sent him to the shelf on May 5th - .294/.342/.515 in 73 PA. Between that and how hot he’s been while on rehab with AAA Louisville (and AA Chattanooga before that), it’s hard to envision a scenario where he does anything but get regular starts as the team’s ‘everyday’ 3B going forward.

That’ll lengthen the Reds lineup and deepen the options given to manager Terry Francona, obviously. It will push whatever a ‘Ryan Vilade’ is off the roster and Espinal into the role currently held on the active roster by whatever a ‘Ryan Vilade’ is, though it will make who plays 1B/DH on a daily basis a bit more interesting to decide. Spencer Steer must be in the lineup at all costs right now given how hot he’s become, while the catching combo of Jose Trevino and Tyler Stephenson has also hit so well this year that whoever isn’t behind the plate on a given day has been plenty deserving of DH duty, too.

It’s hard to actively sit Will Benson against RHP, but with the DH logjam and each of TJ Friedl, Gavin Lux, and Austin Hays deserving of spots, too, that suddenly looks like what’ll happen in the near term. It’s a good problem to have, of course. It’s also indicative of how banged up this roster has been so far this season that we’re just now beginning to even start that conversation nearly 90 games into the season.

For CES, it may well mean more time on the bench that we’d all prefer, since not playing over much of the last two seasons has likely been as much of the culprit for his problems as the injuries he’s dealt with in the first place. But at this stage of the game, he (and Benson, too) are likely on the outside looking in for ‘regular’ trips to the plate, instead being tasked with being the big-bats off the bench in strategic spots for Tito.

That could, and most likely will change at some point. Someone will struggle, more injuries will surely pop up, and the return of what’s left of Jake Fraley will further complicate the situation. But as the Reds barrel towards the July trade deadline, they do look to finally be sporting the deepest, most crowded roster they’ve had all season as the clock ticks down for them to figure out how best to assemble themselves for a playoff push.