For most of 2025, Spencer Steer felt like a steady drumbeat that never quite crescendoed. The power showed up in flashes, the versatility remained useful, but the overall impact just didn’t land the way the Cincinnati Reds needed from one of its few established bats.
On a roster built around youth development that comes with nightly volatility, Steer was supposed to be a stabilizer. Instead, his overall value dipped (0.6 WAR, down from 1.5 last year), and the Reds too often went hunting for a swing elsewhere when they already thought they had it in-house.
Then September happened, and suddenly the calculus changed.