Cincinnati Reds 2018 season awards: Offensive Player of the Year

As we pass out the Cincinnati Reds 2018 season awards, today we focus on the Offensive Player of the Year. Eugenio Suárez was the runaway winner for this award.

Despite missing three weeks of the season in April with a broken thumb, Eugenio Suárez finished in the top three in nearly every major offensive category for the Cincinnati Reds in 2018. Suárez edged out Scooter Gennett for our 2018 Reds Offensive Player of the Year.

Suárez was smashing the ball this season. His team-leading 34 home runs were a career high and tied for fourth in the National League. He also posted a team-leading .526 slugging, which blew away his former career best by .461 (2017). Although he had a significant drop off in production after the All-Star break, Suárez was top 5 in the National League during the first half of the season.

Suárez also hit one of the Cincinnati Reds’ 11 grand slams this season, giving the Reds an early lead vs the Pirates on May 24.

Suárez led the team in OPS and was the leader in on-base percentage (.366) and walks (64) among Reds players not named Joey Votto. While he wasn’t always the most patient at the plate (10.6 BB%), he got on base when it mattered and drove in 104 runs, which led the National League for the first five months of the season. He finished fifth in the league in RBIs.

This breakout season came at a very convenient time. Just this offseason, the Reds signed Suárez to a 7-year, $66-million deal. In the first year of his contract, he set career highs in nearly every category and made his first All-Star team.

If this year was any indication of how the rest of his contract will go, Cincinnati Reds fans have a lot to look forward to. Suárez will enter next season at age 28, fresh off a breakout year and will hopefully be even better than he was in 2018.

Congratulations to Eugenio Suárez on a fantastic 2018 campaign. Suárez is Blog Red Machine’s 2018 Offensive Player of the Year.