{"id":2198085,"date":"2025-12-13T23:00:43","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T23:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2198085"},"modified":"2025-12-13T23:00:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T23:00:43","slug":"reds-should-feel-relieved-after-royals-overpay-but-know-an-upgrade-is-still-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/reds-should-feel-relieved-after-royals-overpay-but-know-an-upgrade-is-still-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"Reds should feel relieved after Royals overpay, but know an upgrade is still needed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Cincinnati Reds will still be in pursuit of a big bat, even with news that preferred target Kyle Schwarber is going back to the Philadelphia Phillies<\/a>. Aside from the Reds needing to regroup on that front, a parallel need is for a right-handed bat to replace what they’re set to lose with Austin Hays and Miguel Andujar in free agency.<\/p>\n

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This won’t be the same sort of earth-shattering move that signing Schwarber or someone of his ilk would’ve been. Nor is it a suitable replacement for said heart-of-the-order bat. However, the impact of Andujar down the stretch<\/a> and Hays, when he was able to take the field<\/a>, were key cogs against left-handed pitching.<\/p>\n

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At the same time, the Reds don’t have the budget to splurge on a platoon right-handed outfield bat. That means Andujar and Hays are likely goners, but there was a perfect buy-low candidate just waiting to migrate across Ohio.<\/p>\n

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Former Cleveland Guardians outfielder Lane Thomas represented a potential bargain that could’ve filled an important need for the Reds. Unfortunately, Thomas was just picked up by the Kansas City Royals<\/a>, but the cost undoubtedly made the Reds turn the other way.<\/p>\n

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Reds should feel relieved after Royals overpay Lane Thomas<\/h2>\n

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On the surface, Thomas looked like a huge risk. The 30-year-old put up an absolutely putrid .160\/.246\/.272 line with four homers in 2025. Not ideal. However, he was limited to just 39 games due to injury and was heavily impacted by a nagging case of plantar fasciitis <\/a>that dragged down his performance like an anchor.<\/p>\n

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He’s expected to make a full recovery and be ready for spring training, but the injury and subsequent downturn in performance are what should’ve made him a bargain. But instead of staring down a minimum-type deal, he signed a one-year, $5.75 million deal with Kansas City.<\/p>\n

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If Thomas didn’t cost more than a $1-$2 million, he could’ve been a great value-add for the Reds. Much like Andujar and Hays, Thomas absolutely mashes lefties. For his career, he’s slashed .292\/.359\/.500 against southpaws, showing off good contact, on-base skills, and power when a left-hander is on the mound. But that extra $4-$5 million will have the Reds headed back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n

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Given the Reds budget, they’re likely looking for bargains, not market value for what a player was two years ago. If Cincinnati was in on Thomas, they were right to pass, and will likely need to upgrade their lineup through a trade if these are the prices on the open market.<\/p>\n

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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source blogredmachine.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cincinnati Reds will still be in pursuit of a big bat, even with news that preferred target Kyle Schwarber is going back to the Philadelphia Phillies. Aside from the Reds needing to regroup on that front, a parallel need is for a right-handed bat to replace what they’re set to lose with Austin Hays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2198086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2198085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Reds-should-feel-relieved-after-Royals-overpay-but-know-an.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2198085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2198087,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198085\/revisions\/2198087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2198086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2198085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2198085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2198085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}