Welcome Back To the Reds Eugenio Suárez!

The Cincinnati Reds offeaeson before Sunday was similar to building a puzzle piece by agonizing piece and hoping you could cobble disparate pieces together by sheer luck to make something passable. Almost like Frankenstein.

There were deals for pieces like J.J. Bleday and Dane Myers but those seemed like bandaids for an offense that required major surgery.

But then it all changed with news that the Reds were brining in slugger and fan favorite Eugenio Suarez. Amazingly the former Red is returning to Cincinnati on a one-year, $15 million contract that includes a mutual option for the 2027 season (valued at $16 million).

Suárez is coming off a massive bounce-back power season in 2025, where he matched his career high in home runs while splitting time between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Seattle Mariners. Last year he flashed the power that the Reds were desperately lacking in 2025. He hit 49 home runs and knocked in 118 RBIs. Whereas most of Cincinnati’s batters were were either league average or below on offense, Suárez posted a 125 wRC+ and had a 3.8 fWAR.

It was a tale of two halves of the 2025 season for the newest Reds slugger. While playing for the Diamondbacks at the outset, Suárez was a dominant force, clubbing 36 home runs and driving in 87 RBIs across 106 games. However, the second half of his season with the Mariners told a different story. In 53 games with Seattle, his production plummeted; his batting average dropped to just .189, and he managed only 13 home runs and 31 RBIs.

But even with that drop off, if Suárez had been on the Reds in 2025 he’d have been first on the team in home runs (by 27 of them), first in RBIs and the leader in wRC+. This is a one year deal, and yes it is a lot for a team of Cincinnati’s market size, but Suárez‘s bat was the best one that this team could realistically acquire with the best upside for the window of that single year contract. It may not make the Reds contenders for a World Series run but it is an acquisition that shows the front office understands the major deficiencies of this team and has taken a big swing to address one of them.