He’s raking, plain and simple. But will it last?
We do not yet know who will be taken with the 37th overall pick in this summer’s draft, but there’s a good chance they’ll end up a good pick.
We do not yet know how well Mike Sirota, the 3rd round pick of the Cincinnati Reds in the 2024 MLB Draft, will turn out, but he’s already showing a ton of talent (including a 1.104 OPS through 14 games with Class-A Rancho Cucamonga).
What we do know, though, is that Gavin Lux has been completely incinerating all offerings at the plate for the Reds so far in 2025, and that’s something that simply cannot be discounted. We also know, of course, that the complete trade between the Reds and Dodgers from this past offseason has been spelled out above – Sirota and the Reds Competitive Balance Round A pick (#37 overall) for Lux, who the Reds control through the end of the 2026 season.
Among the 110 MLB players who’ve logged at least 80 PA against RHP so far in 2025, Lux ranks 6th with a .448 wOBA. The players in front of him you may recognize, too: Pete Alonso, Aaron Judge, Corbin Carroll, Pavin Smith (?), and Fernando Tatis, Jr.
That’s it. That’s the entire list ahead of him.
He’s doing it almost completely devoid of power, of course – his .147 ISO ranks tied for just 70th in that group. He’s also doing it with an insane amount of luck, his .518 BABIP far and away the single highest among that group.
That luck is going to run out, surely. Even though he’s often been on the ‘luckier’ side of the BABIP curve (like his .341 mark in 2023), he’s not going to run anywhere close to even .400 at season’s end. Still, it’s worth pointing out that he also owns the highest line-drive rate among that group of 110 MLB players (33.3%), and he’s tied for first in the group with the lowest infield fly rate (at 0%). In other words, yes, he’s sporting an unsustainable BABIP, but he’s also putting the ball in play in perhaps the best possible way to sport a higher than normal BABIP.
At the time, his acquisition was questioned by many, including me. Much in the way the Reds had doubled-down on infielders the previous winter despite a glut already existing there on the roster, I wondered how trading away Jonathan India only to backfill with Lux would shake out in the grand scheme. To date, it’s worked out in a way that already makes him look indispensable, with Spencer Steer banged up, Matt McLain already with an IL stint, Christian Encarnacion-Strand out altogether, and Jeimer Candelario in a funk that looks neverending.
Whether it’s at 2B, in LF, or even at 3B in a pinch, it’s hard to argue that he’s been perhaps the single most consistent cog in a Reds offense that has turned itself around completely after a trio of 1-0 losses early on, and has shown enough defensive versatility already to give Terry Francona a way to make sure that continues even if every other option returns healthy and productive.
Lux is going to slump eventually. That’s just how the baseball gods make this all work. But he’s not only helped carry the Reds through an entire month of baseball, he looks much more like the guy who looked 100% in the second half of 2024 than the guy who was working back from an ACL injury before that, and that’s going to be a boon for Cincinnati going forward.
So far, so very, very good.
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