Can past MLB postseason experience be the difference for the 2025 Cincinnati Reds?
Terry Francona was seated toward the front of the bus, which was bound for a Reds Caravan stop in Louisville. As the new Cincinnati Reds manager was amusing himself by swapping stories with a member of the Reds' broadcast team, something more serious broke his concentration.
Toward the back of the bus, Francona noticed an important and telling moment unfolding between newly-acquired and veteran catcher Jose Trevino and Alfredo Duno, a 19-year-old catching prospect.
Francona's managerial instincts switched on, and he considered involving himself before ultimately deciding to let the interaction play out organically.
"Trevino had Duno, and he had him corralled," Francona said, "and they were going over catching. I didn't want to go barge in but part of me (said) − 'G** damn, this is (freaking) great.'"
What Francona witnessed on that Jan. 24 bus ride was part of the Reds' offseason plan coming to fruition.
Keep in mind that Trevino was essentially just weeks removed from a run to the World Series with the New York Yankees. He then became one of the centerpiece-acquisitions of Cincinnati's offseason because of his defensive skills and his leadership qualities in dealing with pitchers.
Passing on invaluable wisdom to teammates, including as it related to this past postseason, was part of the incentive for the Reds to acquire Trevino, and he was already serving his new club effectively before the calendar hit February.
The Reds were intentional this past offseason about adding players like Trevino with playoff experience. In fact, Cincinnati more than doubled the amount of combined games worth of playoff experience on its roster. That can be mostly attributed to the additions of Trevino (11 playoff games and 28 plate appearances in 2022 and 2024 combined) and infielder/outfielder Gavin Lux, a World Series champion with the Los Angeles Dodgers (30 playoff games combined from 2019-2024).
"Lux, Trevino − they’ve been there and done it," Francona said, "but they’re not overbearing in their presence (and) they have a lot of good stuff to say."
(Coincidentally, Trevino and Lux were also the subject of scrutinized, bang-bang plays at the plate twice during Game Three at Yankee Stadium in the 2024 World Series. Trevino made a legal block that withstood a replay review to deny Lux in the fourth inning but Lux in the sixth inning beat a throw and Trevino tag to score).
The influx of playoff experience goes beyond Lux and Trevino. It seeped into seemingly every area of the roster.
Brady Singer, the projected No. 4 starter in Francona's starting pitching rotation this year, made his postseason debut last year with the Kansas City Royals.
In the bullpen, projected back-end reliever Taylor Rogers had playoff baseball in his veins to the tune of four career appearances.
Austin Hays, who this spring might have played his way into an everyday role with the Reds, had five games' worth of playoff mettle to offer. Even after Hays battled injury and a kidney infection during his short stint with the Philadelphia Phillies, he still fought back in time to play a significant role in the postseason.
Keep in mind that in Francona, the Reds have the seventh-winningest postseason manager in MLB history by wins (44). Needless to say you can put him in the "playoff-tested" category, too.
Playoff baseball is the game in its peak form. It comes with pageantry, champagne showers, an unmatched intensity on the field and from the grandstands, national TV exposure, and more. The desire in Cincinnati's front office is that these new players who've seen it all before could have an outsized influence on the 2025 team, ultimately driving the Reds back to the postseason for the first time in a full, 162-game season since 2013.
"That’s the hope," Francona said. "I think the guys we brought in, it’s gonna help a lot."
By the numbers: Career postseason experience on the Reds roster
- IF/OF Gavin Lux* — 30 games, 85 plate appearances
- C Jose Trevino* — 11 games, 28 plate appearances
- RHP Emilio Pagán — 11 games, 10 innings pitched
- RHP Nick Martinez — Seven games, 11 IP
- OF Austin Hays* — Five games, 17 plate appearances
- LHP Taylor Rogers*— Four games, 3 1/3 IP
- IF Santiago Espinal — Two games, six plate appearances
- RHP Brady Singer* — One game, 1/3 IP
- LHP Brent Suter — One game, 1 2/3 IP
- OF Will Benson − One game, one plate appearance (optioned to Triple-A Louisville in spring training)
*= acquired this offseason
How does the influx of playoff experience actually help this Reds team?
For the Reds, this isn't just about winning in the postseason − something the club hasn't done in 30 years. They have to get there first, and the little things required to do that might have been one of the club's biggest blindspots in recent seasons.
Sharing playoff war stories and passing them around the clubhouse can become infectious. The Reds' playoff veterans can be the catalysts for getting their teammates hooked on the idea of the postseason. That's what Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt described in his own clubhouse last year when he had the unenviable task of replacing Francona in Cleveland.
There's a kind of active diffusion of playoff knowledge that spreads through the clubhouse. The playoffs are a glittering lure, and those who had been there convinced the uninitiated to crave it.
"You know what it (the playoffs) feels like, and if you are a player who truly wants to win, you want that feeling again," Vogt said. "You’re constantly talking about it in the clubhouse. You’re constantly telling stories about the playoffs. You’re constantly pushing guys. ‘You want to get there. It’s the best baseball.’ And then once you get there, they’ve been there before. So, they’re not gonna have big eyes. They’re not gonna get in the big moments and have it feel (new). They’ve done it before and then they’re hungry to get back."
In the Cincinnati clubhouse, the playoff storytelling has already started. The new, playoff-hardened quintet of Reds is talking − even to fringe players like pitcher Brandon Williamson, who's still in the midst of a rehab process for his 2024 Tommy John surgery.
"I think it's really during the 162. They understand what a team looks like that goes to the playoffs," Williamson said. "A team that goes to the playoffs takes care of the 162. So, all those guys know when we're 50 games in, 75 games in, 100 games in, are we doing the things that playoff teams do?"
Probably not coincidentally, Williamson's remarks sounded a lot like what Hays had to say about how he's talking up the playoffs.
Hays also spoke to applying the lessons learned from the pressure cooker that is the playoffs.
"Everybody sees the difference between the team that wins and loses when you’re watching the games," Hays said. "The errors that happen. The mistakes that happen. But when you’re inside the clubhouse on a team that wins… you feel it. You see it. You see what happens with the breaks that happen, and why. There’s value in that. Having the experience, you help the guys navigate it."
Trevino taking on early leadership role for the Reds
In tracing the works of the new, playoff-tested Reds, Trevino's name came up frequently. It turns out his encounter with Duno on the Reds Caravan tour was just the beginning. From veterans to likely minor leaguers, many spoke of encounters with Trevino, the one-time All-Star and Gold Glove catcher.
That included Reds pitching prospect Chase Petty, who described the calming effect of having Trevino catch his early-camp bullpen sessions.
"It's been a huge help. Just the mentality part of it. He taught me how to be so much tougher out there," Petty said. "How to be mentally stronger and assess situations differently and just to understand the hitter a little bit better, and to trust my stuff because he trusts my stuff... Something like that goes so far."
Francona offered a striking Trevino anecdote from the first day of camp in Goodyear for pitchers and catches.
The early-camp bullpen sessions aren't long, but Francona said Trevino went to the highest levels of the front office and coaching staff to learn about the pitchers he'd be catching that day.
"He said, 'I need to know, gimme some background on these guys.' We're in the first day of camp," Francona said. "He wanted to know how to get them through their 10 minutes. That's pretty powerful, man. Give guys like (Trevino) carte blanche. Like, go ahead.
"It's easy to say the right thing but when you're doing it by example also, it's more powerful."
Putting the playoff experience in the overall context of Reds' plan
None of this is to suggest that Trevino, Lux, Hays, Singer and Rogers have to carry the Reds in 2024. These five players are one prong of the overall plan for 2025 being executed by President of Baseball Operations Nick Krall, General Manager Brad Meador and their cohorts.
Certainly, returning Reds such as Hunter Greene and Elly De La Cruz, both All-Stars in 2024, are vital to the calculations for 2025. The Reds also appear to have real pitching up and down its staff this year, and some of those players can boast playoff experience (Nick Martinez, Emilio Pagán, Brent Suter).
Still, the influx of new playoff experience was an undeniably important prong of the overall plan for 2025. The front office saw something vital about onboarding the wealth of postseason wherewithal that it did.
That's evidenced in the fact that it was costly for the Reds to assemble this group of veterans. Outside of Nick Martinez's decision to return for 2025, these five new players represented some of the Reds' biggest offseason investments, both in terms of trade value (Singer) and contract value (Hays, plus the contract extension Trevino inked this past week).
This could all pay off in big ways. Winning in this manner has been done before, and it's replicable. Singer saw Kansas City build a winner last year via similar methods and means.
“We went through this last year in Kansas City. We signed a bunch of free-agents, and trades and stuff like that," Singer said. "And that’s what we’re kind of doing here. We’ve got a lot of new guys that have played quite a few years in the big leagues and have experience in the postseason, and that’s our goal, to be in the postseason.
“How far that takes us and seeing what that does, it’s so special being in the postseason. Doing that last year (in Kansas City) was incredible. It's a different feeling."
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Can past MLB postseason experience be the difference for the '25 Reds?
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