This disappointing veteran could emerge as a painfully realistic Reds target

In the hierarchy of what the Cincinnati Reds are looking for in a lineup upgrade, the following traits (in order of importance) are what they are looking for: pop, left-handed, acceptable or better defense. The issue is, the more a player excels at these skills, the more expensive he'll be. For a cash-strapped team like the Reds, that becomes a problem.

Still, if Cincinnati goes into 2026 with the same lineup that finished 2025, it will all but guarantee the upstart squad takes a step back. The National League is too competitive to simply count on internal improvements and player development to lead the club back to the postseason.

There's a way the Reds could get creative and bring a big bat like Kyle Schwarber into the fold, but walking that tightrope leaves little wiggle room to solve the various bullpen needs. So they'll set their sights lower, and a recently DFA'd player with a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger on his resume could be where they settle. Unfortunately, it would be a lot lower, reaching down to grab Nathaniel Lowe off the scrap heap in a move that might not even help.

Nathaniel Lowe might check most of the Reds' boxes, but he'd be an "upgrade" in name only

The lefty-swinging first baseman might have an impressive resume, but there's a reason that he's been DFA'd twice in under six months. Lowe's Silver Slugger season came back in 2022, but his .302/.358/.492 27-homer campaign has stuck out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of his career.

The .851 OPS he posted that year is substantially better than any other season he's had, never topping a .779 mark over the rest of his career. He's also never hit more than 18 homers in any other season.

In 2023, he took home his Gold Glove en route to a World Series title with the Texas Rangers, but he's seen his defensive performance fall off, bottoming out with -5 outs above average posted this season.

Lowe is coming off a year in which he slashed a career-worst .228/.307/.381, though his performance varied depending on where he called home. Beginning the year in Washington with the Nationals, he posted a .665, though from mid-August on with the Boston Red Sox, he returned to form with a .790 mark over 34 games.

There's a chance his showing in Boston is who he truly is, but even in 2024, he saw a decline in hard hit rate and average exit velocity compared to his 2023 performance, indicating that the 30-year-old might be slowing down.

More importantly, even peak Lowe doesn't solve much for the Reds. He's a left-handed bat with occasional pop, sure, but he'd just further muddy the waters with the already crowded situation Cincinnati has going on between the infield corners and DH.

Can you really argue that he would be appreciably better than Spencer Steer? Because he's not going to displace Sal Stewart, and despite his noodle bat, Ke'Bryan Hayes' otherworldly glove-work will keep him in the lineup.

Therefore, adding Lowe might fit in the budget, but it would fall into the category of doing something just for the sake of doing it, and the at-bat bottleneck it would create would offset any positive value he brings, and then some.