Redleg Nation’s 2025 Cincinnati Reds Predictions

It’s almost here. Opening Day is tomorrow and the 2025 Cincinnati Reds season will begin. That means that it’s time for the staff here at Redleg Nation to make some predictions about the season.

Jason Linden

Record: 85-77

Do I think they are great? No. Do I think they are better than last year? Yup. They should score more runs and the defense should be better. The starting pitching should still be good and I don’t believe bullpens are really predictable. So I say 85-77.

Jim Walker

Record: Unsure

Even more so than usual, I am struggling to settle on my prediction for the Reds season. This group concurrently has a very high ceiling and very low floor. My only concern about the infield is that they maintain their health over the long grind of an MLB season. Ditto for the starting rotation where there is even the hint (dare I say hope?) of a developing depth.

The bullpen feels less certain; but, at least the quantity of decent arms is present to get a passable job done.

Unfortunately, the outfield feels like a dumpster fire waiting to happen. All of the presumed starting trio of Austin Hays, TJ Friedl, and Jake Fraley are coming off seasons wrecked by injury or illness for their age 29 or 30 seasons. And with Spencer Steer seemingly not in the outfield picture, offensive depth is nonexistent. There is little to no cause beyond blind hope for a strongly favorable prognosis here.

How do the pieces come together and play out? Check back with me in early September. I will predict though that if this group can get to September in a position similar to September 1, 2023, Francona will find a way to get them through to the post season.

Ashley Davis

Record: 90-72

Is this record possible for a team that went 77-85 a year ago? Sure it is. The everyday lineup is mostly healthy, the starting rotation is solid, and there’s a future Hall of Fame manager now sitting in the dugout on a nightly basis. I don’t think it’s that far-fetched to say this team could win 90 games, especially in a weaker division like the NL Central. Of course, the team could also go the opposite direction too. Injuries could happen, the regression in many players that we saw last year could be the norm rather than an anomaly, and the bullpen,
arguably the weak link, could have multiple meltdowns a week, leading to stacking losses.

The Reds really are a wild card in 2025, simply because there is a lot of “maybe this player” and “if this player”. Many things about this roster seem to be based on hope. Hope is good,
but hope is also dangerous. I’m choosing to believe in hope, or maybe I’m just part of the generation whose best Reds experience was a division-clinching home run 15 years ago and I’m so desperate to watch a winning team that I’m incredibly optimistic.

John Ring

Record: 84-78

• Big concerns about the offense in general and the outfield specifically.
• Give Graham Ashcraft a shot as closer. Matt McLain is back. Elly De La Cruz a Top 5 player in National League.
• Discouraged about injuries but all teams have them.
• Hiring Terry Francona was huge. Best Reds Manager since Jack McKeon.
• Starters look solid but concerned on the pitching depth.
• 84-78 and contenders for a wild card birth.

Richard Fitch

Record: 87-75

(Editors note – this is just a short excerpt from a piece from earlier this week from Richard about what he sees from Cincinnati this season. You can read the entire piece here.)

Hope springs eternal that Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Matt McLain, Lux and Hays will prove to be the players that lift the offense out of its malaise. Injuries are not going away, though, as we’ve already been reminded by the sidelining of Spencer Steer and Tyler Stephenson before the first pitch has flown.

Some have been fixated on David Bell to the extreme, leading people like Reds announcer Tommy Thrall to suggest Francona will be worth a staggering 10 wins in 2025. Baseball history says otherwise.

The good news is that Nick Krall has done yeoman’s work to improve the roster with a limited payroll. I’ll be optimistic and bet the Reds are more healthy and win 87 games this year.

Doug Gray

Record: 85-77

I’m not entirely comfortable about my prediction here. Like some others I think the ceiling is pretty high for this club. But I also think the floor is a lot lower than that ceiling and that’s without a bunch of injuries piling up. There are just so many “what ifs” on this team. Last season saw both Elly De La Cruz and Hunter Greene break out and become All-Stars. Nick Martinez pitched like an All-Star. Two years ago Matt McLain played like an All-Star, but then missed all of 2024. If those guys can all repeat those performances, or maybe even improve on them, the sky is the limit.

But what if they can’t? Even a little regression in that group limits the upside. A lot of regression throws a wrench into the gears. The downside isn’t that low, though. There’s depth on this team. It’s not Dodgers deep, but there’s plenty of solid depth that should keep the team from being bad in normal circumstances when it comes to health/some poor performances. They’ll need good luck with regards to health when it comes to their stars, though, if they’re going to make a real run at things in September, and hopefully October.

Tom Mitsoff

Record: Unsure

(Editors note – this is just a paragraph from a piece earlier this week from Tom about what he sees from the Reds. You can read the entire piece here.)

My prediction is that we can’t expect everything that needs to go right to go right. With that in mind, look for this team to climb over .500 for the year. Look for a close race between the Cubs and Reds for the division, which right now I would call a coin flip. It’s hard to imagine Milwaukee continuing its streak of division titles, but they always seem to put everything together. They’ll be third, with Pittsburgh and St. Louis holding the other three teams up.

The Full Predictions

Let’s hope this year we’re all a bit closer to being right than we were last year. In 2024 the six of us that participated all predicted at least a .500 season. This season it’s more of that, but with all of us going with an above .500 season.