There's a lot to like about the Reds signing Nathaniel Lowe to a Minor League deal

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — A trend around MLB right now is that reliable veteran big league role players are having trouble finding a job.

“There are certain guys who are struggling,” Terry Francona said.

“If you look at the climate overall, there are a lot of guys in similar positions (as myself) who still don’t have jobs now,” said veteran first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, who signed a minor league deal with the Reds on Saturday.

As teams prioritize holding onto as much depth as they have on their 40-man roster and as teams prioritize the speed, defense and ability to option to Triple-A the younger players who are already in the organization, there’s a group of perfectly solid first basemen, corner outfielders and DH’s who haven’t been able to land a big league deal.

A few weeks ago, before I knew that the Reds’ front office had been given clearance to expend their budget and afford Eugenio Suárez, Lowe was literally the top free agent fit on my board as I looked for options for the Reds (I listed him as the top hitter — not counting Suárez — on this big board that I published a few weeks ago).

Between 2021 and 2024, Lowe was one of the more consistent first basemen in MLB. With the Texas Rangers, he won a Silver Slugger Award, a Gold Glove, a World Series and posted four consecutive seasons with two-plus WAR.

Lowe, who was traded to the Nationals during the offseason as Texas looked to shed salary, had a “down” year in 2025. He says it was the first “bad” season of his career. Still, he was effectively a league average hitter. He also would have ranked as the fifth-best hitter on the 2025 Reds against RHP, among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances.

Even in a down year, he would have helped the 2025 Reds. He’s also just 30 years old, and analytics show that his plate discipline remains strong.

“I explained to him, you’ll be treated like the veteran you deserve,” Francona said. “We can’t guarantee you anything because I can’t do that. I told him I’ll undersell it because I don’t feel comfortable (selling) something to get him in here and then a month later it’s not what I said. He has been a good bat. He had some down times last year. But he’s not far removed from being an All-Star. You got him on a non-roster, it’s kind of hard to not let him come.”

The real difference between 2024 and 2025 for the left-handed Lowe was his poor production against left-handed pitching. He was actually even better vs. RHP in 2025 than he was in 2024. He also hit 16 homers vs. RHP last season, which was the second-best power output vs. RHP of his entire career.

He ended the 2025 season on a strong note. After joining the Red Sox mid-season, Lowe posted a strong .790 OPS (20% above league average) in 34 games and appeared in each of the Red Sox three playoff games in 2025.

Lowe doesn’t chase, and he takes his walks at a high clip. He also played every day in 2025, finishing the year with 146 starts.

“He’s a great dude, great teammate, great clubhouse guy,” said Reds reliever Brock Burke, who won a World Series with Lowe with the Rangers in 2023 and played with him for nearly his entire career. “If we can get him back on his feet, you’ll see a really good player.”

Burke said that Lowe was the glue guy of the Rangers’ World Series team in 2023. In that season, Lowe’s strike zone judgment was in the upper echelon of MLB hitters.

“He held the team together,” Burke said. “That was the year he won a Gold Glove. He had a couple of home runs in the World Series run as well.”

Lowe’s home run total isn’t eye popping, but it’s a product of where he has played his home games. Had he been playing in GABP, Lowe would have hit 32 homers in 2022, 25 in 2023, 16 in 2024 and 20 in 2025. Statcast shows that GABP is analytically literally the best park in baseball for Lowe to hit in.

Many veterans like Lowe — Rhys Hoskins, Justin Turner, Donovan Solano, Ty France, Jesse Winker, Michael Conforto, Mark Canha, Tommy Pham, Starling Marte, Randal Grichuk and Andrew McCutchen — are still free agents. Instead of waiting around, Lowe took the Reds’ offer to come to camp and compete for a spot.

“I’ve just got to come in and compete,” Lowe said. “It’s an opportunity to help this team get better. From the outside looking in from a roster standpoint, there’s a chance to come in and compete.”

He appreciated Francona’s honesty about where he stood in the mix on the spring training roster.

“It’s what you look for when you look for a job,” Lowe said. “For somebody to shoot you straight is all you can ask for.”

Unless something changes with an injury, the Reds’ lineup feels pretty set. The most likely scenario is that Tyler Stephenson is at catcher with Jose Trevino as the backup, Sal Stewart plays first, Matt McLain plays second, Elly De La Cruz is at short, Ke’Bryan Hayes is the primary third baseman, Spencer Steer plays left, TJ Friedl is in center, Noelvi Marte is in right and Eugenio Suárez is the DH.

If the Reds want their best offensive lineup, they could slot in a left-handed hitter like Lowe, Will Benson or JJ Bleday into the DH spot and have Suárez play third (or do something like play Lowe at first and Stewart at third, or Benson/Bleday in left, Steer at first and Stewart at third).

Depth is always a good thing. The 2025 Reds had their worst stretch of the season last year in May when they were counting on several guys who weren’t in the Opening Day lineup. After crunching the numbers, my color coded spreadsheet shows that this is significantly the best position player depth that the Reds have had entering a season over the last six years.

Things could change with spring training injuries, but there’s also depth for the depth that’s better than what it has been.

Lowe now enters the Reds’ bench battle.

One spot will likely go to a right-handed backup center fielder in Dane Myers or Blake Dunn. One spot will go to Trevino, the backup catcher.

The battle for the other two spots includes Benson, Bleday, Rece Hinds, Dunn/Myers, Michael Toglia (he was good in 2024, was a first-round pick in 2019 and is a talented bounce back candidate), Tyler Callihan, CES and others.

(One logistical thing is that the Reds have seven first base options in camp in Stewart, Steer, Suárez, Lowe, CES, Toglia and prospect Cam Collier. Francona said the Reds will use B games on the backfields to get each of those guys enough work in the field at that position).

The Reds may not start the season with the ideal super utility backup on the roster, and the team doesn’t have a ton of depth at the big league level in the middle infield (Steer is the favorite to be the backup second baseman). Francona said, “If you ask every manager in the big leagues, they’d like to have a utility player that plays everywhere that’s really good.”

The Reds are going to break camp with the best roster instead of forcing a utility player onto the roster because they’re worried about contingencies.

“Every manager wants to have the perfect team,” Francona said. “I’m not sure that’s the way it works. I sit there every night. You worry so much. Do we run for our catcher? If something happens… If Elly is DHing and somebody gets hurt… For all of the worrying, if you don’t put your best team out there knowing that at one point you might get embarrassed, you just live with it.”

So if the bench was Lowe, Benson, Myers are Trevino (or Benson, Bleday, Myers and Trevino or something like that), the bench wouldn’t be perfect from a roster construction standpoint. But that bench would include two players who can make an impact as a left-handed bench bat plus a right-handed backup center fielder who plays great defense, can really run and can hit LHP.

Francona says that it’s too early to look at how the bench could look this year and how he could use those guys.

‘Let them get ready, see how they play and we’ll put it together the best way we think works,” Francona said.