Cincinnati Reds: Scott Schebler would benefit from stay in minors

A trip to the minor leagues may be the best option for the Cincinnati Reds’ rookie outfielder.

Coming into the season, left field was a major question for the Reds, as it has been since Adam Dunn was traded in the middle of the 2008 season. By the end of spring training, Adam Duvall and Scott Schebler proved themselves to be the top candidates for the job and manager Bryan Price was set on a platoon between the two.

While they started out the year splitting time, Duvall has emerged as a more viable everyday player (though he has been struggling as of late, too) and has since been named the starter. That has left an already-slumping Schebler to come off the bench, and it isn’t serving him well.

After a hot start to both spring training and the regular season, Schebler has cooled down considerably at the plate. In 55 plate appearances, the 25-year-old hitting just .140/.218/.300. Since starting out the season with four hits and a walk in his first 10 trips to the plate, the left-handed slugger is 3-for-41 (.073) with four walks.

Schebler’s big, full-effort swing hasn’t done him any favors, as he has struck out 30.9 percent of the time he’s stepped into the batter’s box. He has swung and missed at 18.7 percent of the total pitches he’s seen, which is the third-worst rate in the majors among batters with at least 50 plate appearances. Of the pitches he’s swung at, Schebler has only made contact 63.8 percent of the time, sixth-worst in baseball and well below the league average of 77.8 percent.

This isn’t a new issue for Schebler. He’s always had a big swing, which resulted in 87 home runs in six minor-league seasons, but also a lot of strikeouts (544 in 2472 plate appearances — a 22 K%).

Defense has been a glaring issue for Schebler, too. He has already made two errors in the outfield and has taken bad routes on a number of other fly balls. In addition to left field, the Reds have tried him out in center field and he hasn’t looked comfortable there, either. While there’s not enough of a sample size to read too much into the advanced defensive metrics on Schebler, they haven’t been kind to him, as his UZR/150 (which estimates his performance over a 150-game span) is currently at minus-37.6.

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With playing time getting harder to come by for the scuffling rookie as Jay Bruce is set to return from paternity leave, Schebler would benefit from some time in Triple-A Louisville. While there, he’d be able to start every day all over the outfield, getting valuable opportunities to work on his plate approach and defense consistently, rather than watching from the bench. Leaving him in the dugout in Cincinnati does no good for his development, which is the same reason Jose Peraza is currently in the minors.

Right now, the Reds don’t have any great options to call up as a replacement for Schebler, which is likely the main reason the team hasn’t sent him down yet. Jesse Winker is still getting his feet wet at Triple-A and is being kept down due to service time reasons, while Kyle Waldrop has still not adjusted well to pitching at that level. Steve Selsky is another potential replacement, but he’s not on the 40-man roster.

The club will have another outfield option soon enough, however. Yorman Rodriguez, who has been on the 15-day disabled list since the start of the season with a hamstring strain, has been taking batting practice recently and could go on a rehab assignment soon, according to MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon. Rodriguez will have to stay on the major-league team anyway since he’s out of options, presenting the team with an opportunity to send Schebler down to keep working on the holes in his game.

A trip to Louisville isn’t going to fix all of Schebler’s issues, but it would certainly not hurt him to be getting in the lineup more often than he currently is. Winker is the left fielder of the future in Cincinnati, but Schebler is a potential replacement for Bruce in right field down the line. The Reds need to figure out what they have with him and help him make adjustments to his swing, and that isn’t going to happen if he continues to get sporadic playing time.