This morning the Cincinnati Reds announced that they had optioned Noelvi Marte to Triple-A Louisville. They did not officially announce a corresponding move, but C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic reported that the team will be calling up outfielder Rece Hinds to take Marte’s spot on the roster.
In his first taste of the big leagues in 2024, Rece Hinds went absolutely wild. He was called up the week before the All-Star break and proceeded to hit .423/.464/1.192. During that time he had 11 hits in seven games, with four multi-hit games, three doubles, a triple, five home runs, two steals, and 11 runs batted in. Hinds would go on to be named the National League’s Player of the Week for that.
Then he didn’t play for five days because of the All-Star break. In the first game back he would go 1-4 with a double. He would only play in two more games before being sent back to the minor leagues. He would get called up again in late August and spend the final five weeks with the big league team but didn’t get a single start went went 0-8 while playing in 14 games.
During the 2025 season he would see limited action in parts of two different call ups. In May he was called up and after going 0-3 in his first game he went 2-3 with a walk, double, and a home run on May 8th. In the remaining 13 games he spent with the Reds during the season he went 3-37 with one walk and 18 strikeouts.
While he did struggle in his limited use with Cincinnati in 2025 he was crushing the ball in Triple-A with Louisville. In 107 games with the Bats last season he hit .302/.359/.563 with 26 doubles, two triples, 24 home runs, 33 walks, and 113 strikeouts in his 436 plate appearances. The production was good, but you would have liked to see a few more walks and a a lower strikeout total than he had. With that said, he drastically cut down on his strikeouts from the year before where he had 160 of them in 422 plate appearances with Louisville.
This spring Hinds came into spring training and did all that he realistically could do to try and make the team. He played in 21 games with the big league club and hit .410/.465/.949 with four doubles, a triple, and five home runs in 43 plate appearances. That came along with four walks and 13 strikeouts. Cincinnati wanted him to play every day and they didn’t have that kind of role open, so rather than have him as a bench player with the Reds he was optioned to Louisville to get playing time every day.
Hinds picked up right where he had left off while in Arizona. His season began with five straight 2-hit games and in four of those five games he drew at least one walk. He’s slowed down a little bit since then, but that’s just because of how hot his season began. Through the first 13 games of his 2026 season he’s hitting .354/.475/.771 with three doubles, a triple, five home runs, and 16 runs batted in.
And probably most important to note is that he’s been more patient and he’s making more contact. He’s walked 12 times and has 15 strikeouts in his 61 plate appearances. The contact rate is only slightly improved over last year, but it’s still an improvement – but the walk rate is nearly three times as high early on and is sitting at a Joey Votto in his prime rate of 19.7%. That’s happening because his outside of the zone swing rate has gone from 40% to 31%. He’s also swinging less often on pitches in the zone (77% in 2025 in Triple-A compared to 69% this season). Hinds has made more contact on pitches he’s swung at both in the zone and out of the zone this season, too.
While the move isn’t yet official, so there’s also been no word on how he’s expected to be used, given what we heard about when he was optioned to the minor leagues it should be expected that he will get regular playing time. There’s no real reason to think that three weeks ago he needed to play every day and that’s why he wasn’t a bench player with the Reds but now they think he doesn’t need to play every day and can sit on the bench.