Nick Krall's comments quietly point to an expensive problem Reds fans didn't expect

When the Cincinnati Reds made the July 31 trade deadline deal that brought Ke'Bryan Hayes to town, they were thinking about shoring up their infield defense while finding a more comfortable place for Noelvi Marte to call home.

For a while, it worked. Hayes didn't hit much, as per usual, but he locked down the hot corner while Marte flourished out in right field. At the time, Nick Krall had no idea what kind of a logjam he'd be facing just a few months later.

The unforeseen cause of this infield pile-up is 21-year-old top prospect Sal Stewart. At the time of the Hayes trade, Stewart had just been promoted to Triple-A Louisville. He'd spent the entirety of last season at High-A Dayton. No one could've reasonably looked into their crystal ball and predicted he'd breeze through Chattanooga and Louisville and wind up being an impact bat in the heat of the playoff race. Yet here we are.

Stewart was a hot topic of conversation during Krall's address to the media, with the Reds President of Baseball Operations saying, "He spent a month in the big leagues. I think he spent a month and change in Triple-A. There's a lot of development there. It's continuing to take good at-bats. Continuing to be a big-league player offensively. It's learning how to play defense at different positions. He's been a third baseman. He's played some second. Moved him to first base and that was something that he played very sparingly in August and September. So, it's learning how to grow his whole game."

He'd go on to say that Stewart would have to "earn a spot next year just like everyone else," but, barring a dreadful spring training showing, it seems nearly a lock that he will. And with that come the complications.

Sal Stewart's emergence may have inadvertently made Ke'Bryan Hayes an expensive Reds backup

Other topics of conversation were Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Elly De La Cruz, and infield defense as a whole. Encarnacion-Strand was once a Top-100 prospect on both Baseball America and MLB.com's lists, thanks in large part to his incredible raw power.

However, despite an impressive debut in 2023, Encarnacion-Strand has struggled to stick at the big league level, due to a shaky hit tool and lack of patience at the plate. Still, he's only 25, and with explosive power potential, he'll get another chance. Like Stewart, Encarnacion-Strand has experience at both infield corners.

A third player factors into the corner infield equation in Spencer Steer. Steer isn't a third baseman, but at first, he plays Gold Glove-caliber defense, posting eight defensive runs saved (DRS) this season. Terry Francona is known to favor solid defenders, so while there's a chance that Steer's ability to play the outfield might place him into a sort of super utility role, he might be the everyday first baseman if Francona has his druthers.

The weak link defensively in the infield is Elly De La Cruz, though Krall seemed to chalk up his MLB-leading 26 errors to fatigue due to playing all 162 games and stated that there are no plans to move him off the position. Even if they did, the options other than Gavin Lux to take over at short are slim.

That leaves Hayes, the highest paid of the group, as the final piece. In this scenario, it certainly feels as if Hayes is an afterthought, less than three months after his acquisition. By far the best defender, Hayes' bat is borderline unplayable, and any hit to his defense would plummet him to the realm of the replacement-level player.

Unfortunately, Hayes has four years and $30 million remaining on the eight-year, $70 million extension he signed as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates. If he truly is relegated to a backup role, he'll be an extremely expensive one without any versatility, as he's never played any position other than third in his MLB career.

What looked like a good idea at the time seems to have become an expensive mistake in no time flat.