Nobody who watched the first week of Rece Hinds’ MLB career will ever forget it. Most everybody who watched it will use it as a measuring stick for the debut of any other player, so rife was it with gargantuan homers and pinpoint precision with his powerful swing.
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If only things had managed to keep even a sliver of that pace.
The Cincinnati Reds designated Hinds for assignment on Sunday morning as part of a larger series of short-term focused roster moves. They needed a 40-man roster spot for a catcher since they needed to place Jose Trevino back on the 10-day IL, and it was Hinds’ spot that, for whatever reason, was up.
Cincinnati also shuttled Luis Mey back to AAA after his rough outing last night, recalling a fresher Jose Franco to help add to the bullpen depth for the time being.
The story here, though, is with Hinds. Even as recently as spring training, manager Terry Francona spoke about how Hinds had done everything he needed to do to make the team only to lose out on a numbers game. Then, when Noelvi Marte ran into a serious slump to begin the 2026 season at the big league level, it was Hinds – not JJ Bleday – who was turned to, and he got a multi-week run in the outfield almost every day to show whether or not he’d made significant enough improvement at the AAA level to warrant a full-time role in the big leagues.
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He went 4 for 33 with a lone walk and 18 strikeouts, with nary a homer to his name.
There is huge swing and miss with Hinds, that’s undeniable. The former 2nd round pick is still just 25 years old, though, and the rest of the tools in his arsenal are pretty dang impressive, and there will undoubtedly be another team out there willing to take a flier on him to see if they, unlike the Reds, can unlock the rest that’s there.
If anything, this also rings as an endorsement of who else the Reds have in their current outfield mix. Bleday has obviously hit the ground running, and the presence of Blake Dunn, Hector Rodriguez, and Marte has obviously given the Reds the impression that they’ve got a baked-in hierarchy at the position that no longer needs Hinds, should he be claimed on waivers.
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