It’s time to call up Edwin Arroyo — to play a role

NEW YORK — It’s time for the Cincinnati Reds to call up Edwin Arroyo. They should play him a couple of days a week at second base, a couple of days at third and then take advantage of the chances that will come up to put him into the game off the bench.

Arroyo wouldn’t be playing every day. Having a prospect be an every day player is typically the best approach with top prospects, and the most obvious reason why Arroyo hasn’t been called up yet is the lack of an available every day role (there are also skills that you’d like to see him continue to develop and improve).

Calling up Arroyo as a role player would give the Reds a chance to see if he’s ready to stick as an every day player and see just how real his progress in Triple-A has been. He’d strengthen the Reds’ depth in some important areas where they’re lacking. And this plan wouldn’t mean that the Reds would be giving up on Matt McLain.

It makes sense to make the move now with McLain in a slump, with Eugenio Suarez’s starts in the field being managed after the time that he missed coming back from an oblique injury and with the Reds lacking any infield depth.

Noelvi Marte and CES in 2023 and Sal Stewart in 2025 are examples of how it can help your roster when you call up a prospect to simply play a role instead of taking a full-time starting position.

The Reds’ lineup is pretty good right now, and it doesn’t need saving. McLain is good enough for this to still be a winning lineup with him as a part of it hitting ninth. He has a case as the best defender and the best base runner on the team. His power and speed make this a different situation than the Reds were dealing with with Ke’Bryan Hayes before Hayes went on the IL.

McLain is too talented of a player to give up on by simply replacing him with Arroyo. It’s not the right time to have that conversation.

But it’s also been two-plus years since McLain has been an impact player in the big leagues. It’s alright for there to be some competition. The last two seasons have had an odd trajectory for McLain. He’ll struggle. Then, he’ll start to lose a bit of playing time and someone like Spencer Steer will make spot starts at second base. Then, with McLain under some more pressure, he’ll have a really encouraging week or two and show some promising signs as the “survival instinct” kicks in (he talked about this in spring training). When it starts to feel like McLain is figuring things out, he’ll go into a terrible slump.

This has happened several times, including over the course of May.

“We were talking about that today,” Terry Francona said. “I don’t know if I have a good reason. Believe me, if I did… I agree with you. He’ll show you signs. When he does, then it kind of falls back. If I had a better answer, I’d give it to you.”

At the plate, it feels like McLain doesn’t have a wheelhouse. What is the pitch that he crushes? What is the area of the plate where you can’t leave a pitch against him? What are the great matchups for him?

He looks like a hitter who needs some more confidence. He’s searching and pressing. This week, it’s been really interesting to watch him spend time with Mike Napoli. They spent an entire half-inning having an in-depth conversation on Monday. On Tuesday, Napoli coached McLain one-on-one through some early batting practice.

Francona said the key for McLain is being on time to produce his “A-swing.”

“At times, mechanically, he’s having a hard time being on time,” Francona said. “He’s a little late. It’s hard to get your A-swing when you’re late. It’s hard to have good mechanics when the ball is getting up on you because you’ve got to adjust just to try to get to it.”

A few times this year, Francona has been asked about sticking with McLain in an every day role. The manager has raved about the way that McLain impacts the game on defense and on the bases. He speaks about his belief in McLain at the plate.

Recently, he brought up an example from the 2004 Red Sox in an answer about McLain.

In 2004, Mark Bellhorn was slumping in the playoffs. The fans and the media were clamoring for Pokey Reese to play more. But Reese was a defense-first player. Playing Reese because you’re chasing offense would be backwards, Francona said.

He ended the story there. But it felt like the metaphor he was making was that McLain was Bellhorn in this scenario — the talented hitter without a better offensive option behind him.

Arroyo is a defense-first prospect (he might just be a better fit as a super utility player), and McLain is actually a better defender than Arroyo is, and McLain’s offensive ceiling is much higher.

There are plenty of reasons to keep playing McLain, and one that’s flying under the radar is that he’s still performing pretty well vs. LHP. At some point down the road though, there will be a competition between the two of them.

Now would be a good time to see what Arroyo can bring to the table.

Look at the Reds’ bench: TJ Friedl, Will Benson, Dane Myers and the backup catcher. The bench has three center fielders on it, and two of them are left-handed hitters who aren’t offering you enough right now at the plate to pinch-hit over one of the Reds’ starters on a regular basis. Outside of platoon piece/late-game defensive replacement Dane Myers, the bench right now isn’t very usable. Friedl has three plate appearances over the last seven days, and Benson has two.

Arroyo would give the Reds a different look. And because of the versatility of Spencer Steer and Sal Stewart, you could mix and match configurations in the infield to get Arroyo involved for regular at-bats at different positions.

He could start over McLain against a tough righty (Arroyo has pretty decent splits and is much better against righties). Suárez is coming off of an injury and had a short rehab assignment, so he’s on a bit of a load management plan right now and could use days off here and there. You could take Nathaniel Lowe out of the lineup for a day, move some pieces around and create a spot for Arroyo.

And then some days, Arroyo wouldn’t be in the lineup. He’d be the left-handed bat off the bench (he’s a switch hitter but is better versus RHP), and he’d be the backup infielder ready to enter the game when needed. Francona would have some more options as he manages the game with the depth of a true infielder on the bench.

The gap between Triple-A and MLB is so huge right now. The only way to really know what you have in Arroyo is giving him a chance in the big leagues. It’s also probably too early to just hand a full-time starting position to him, which is why making him a part of a rotation to see what you have makes sense.

He still has a lot that he needs to improve at — specifically a consistent approach at the plate. It’s about swinging at the right pitches, being at his best pitch-to-pitch and proving that his power surge in 2026 is real. There are reasons why he’s not ranked as a blue-chip prospect by various outlets. He also has room to improve defensively. He’s a glove-first middle infielder who’s still learning third base.

In the long run, Arroyo will have to show in the big leagues that he can be more than a role player. He’ll have to earn a starting job. By calling him up now, he could start trying to play his way into that.

Plus, the competition could help McLain get going.

The ideal situation for the Reds would be the competition bringing the best out of McLain, and Arroyo helping out the Reds’ bench.