BONUS: Nate Lowe GIVES Cincinnati Reds MAJOR Bench Bat EDGE as On-Base Threat in Lineup Strategy

It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

I'm Aaron Judge, welcome to MLB The Show 26.

The greatest game in baseball is back, whether you're a gamer or a baseball fan.

This one is tough to put down.

Jump into franchise mode with your favorite team.

Build your roster, chase a pennant, and see if you have what it takes to win it all.

It's the closest thing to being in the big leagues yourself.

Use it MLB The.Show slash Lockdown and use Code Lockdown to unlock a pack for Diamond

Dynasty.

Internet connection required.

Preorder now on PlayStation 5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch, rated E for everyone.

MLB The Show 26, own the show.

Water usually wins.

It rots wood in Tears Docks apart, unless you build with treks.

Treks Marine Grade Decking is 100% submersible, built to resist rod and sold-and-fresh water.

Water has met its match.

This decking, visit treks.com slash docks.

The Cincinnati Reds made the right decision when they chose Nate Low.

You are Lockdown Reds.

You're daily Cincinnati Reds podcasts, part of the Lockdown podcast network, your team

every day.

What's up?

I'm Jeff Carr and this Lockdown Reds special video.

We're going to call it the Lockdown Reds lineup show is all about Nate Low because the

Cincinnati Reds got an awesome player in Nate Low, the kind of guy who got the back of

a baseball card that you can trust.

He does have a nice career at a rough 2025, but he presents a clear weapon for this bench

because there's really three things that I look at when I look at Nate Low's career coming

here in two Cincinnati.

Firstly, he's an op-o taco artist.

Secondly, he's an on-base specialist and that all ends up being a bench that extraordinaire.

We're talking about a guy that when he is going, he is hitting the ball to left field.

He is hitting the ball to center field and left field specifically because when you look

at his career, he actually doesn't pull the ball very much.

He's a lefty that pushes it into left field when everything is going correctly.

I'll be interested to see how teams shift him because I don't necessarily think he's

going to get that traditional lefty shift.

There might be some teams that shift him more like a right-hander whenever he's at the

play.

I think that he is a guy that the Reds can rely on in multiple different ways because

his power is to left field.

And while last year we did see a bit of a drop off and I'll get to that later on in

this show, we still see a guy that can provide a lot of value for the Reds off the bench,

main first base, for a guy that you can bring into a game in a key pinch.

Think about these past couple of years.

The Reds have had some interesting guys coming off of the bench, usually their glove first.

Now, the thing you'll lose and we're going to call them Nate Low, by the way, but Nate

Low's glove isn't horrible, but his bat is important.

There's not been a lot of guys here recently that the Reds have had the luxury of keeping

on the bench because their bat is good.

They've had to use their glove in certain situations to think about Santiago Espanol.

Now, I know Santiago Espanol played a lot last year, but I don't think he should have.

And I pretty sure you agree with me on that.

There was some sort of intangible quality or whatever it might be that he was just a magnet

for Terry Francois to put in the lineup.

But he is ideally a bench player, more so gloves suited than bat.

Nate Low is the opposite.

And by the way, we're going to call him Nate Low on the podcast.

I don't necessarily know if that's what he wants to be called.

I haven't asked him.

But I know plenty of Nathan's and I know plenty of Nate's and I don't know any Nathaniel's.

I know a couple of Nate's and Nathan's that when they were in trouble, they were called

Nathaniel, but that was when they were in trouble.

So we're going to call him Nate Low because right now he's not in trouble.

Now if he has a struggle of game, we'll call him Nathaniel, but yeah, as far as lockdown

Reds is concerned, he is Nate Low.

And he's a guy that his career has been about getting on base.

In fact, over the last couple of years, seasons, he is usually in the top percentage of guys

when it comes to walk percentage in 2024, using the top 3% of Major League hitters with

a 12.6% walk rate for reference, league average is 8.4%.

In 2023, it was even higher at 12.8%.

Last year it dipped a little bit to 10.2, but you still like to see that.

Now his strikeout rate did go up a little bit, but again, we'll talk about that in just

a little bit when it pertains to his 2025.

But this is a guy that throughout his career has walked a ton, gotten on base a lot, and

really been an asset to his team, albeit mostly that's been the Texas Rangers.

But there has been some time with Boston last season, as you'll see in this nice little

picture right here.

This is actually a picture of him looking at a ball that he pulled.

He doesn't do that very often, because most of the time he's hitting it the other way,

as we've talked about.

But I really have been excited to see that the reds were able to get Nate Low.

And in case you're unfamiliar, the deal that the reds got him on was a minor league deal

with a spring training invite.

Yeah, we're talking about a dude that's going to be making Major League minimum for the

reds, and he could be having some very important at bats along the way.

This is going to be an easy guy for me, like if there is a right-handed closer on the

mound or something like that, and Nate Low is still sitting on your bench, you call

Nate Low in the game, and you expect it a nice hit there from him.

I don't know that I'm expecting home runs, we're not talking about a guy that has gone

crazy in his career with home run power, but he's just been a good, solid piece of

hitting dude.

I mean, when it comes to his best season for the long ball, that was back in 2022 with

the Texas Rangers when he hit 27 bombs.

Since then, 2023, he had 17 bombs.

In 2024, he had 16 bombs, and last year, between the nationals and the redsocks, he had

18 bombs.

So he's not going to be a guy that hits a ton of home runs for you, but he's going to

hit enough, and he's going to get on base a lot.

Last season, even when he struggled, he got on base at 307 clip.

Here before that 361, the year before that 360, his career on base percentage is 347.

I think that he's going to tick a little bit closer to his career numbers than what we

saw from him and what you can see from him in his 2025, because after he left Washington,

he finished the year with the redsocks, only played 34 games with him, but he did a mass

of 119 played appearances, and in that time, he slashed 280, 370 or 20.

So things were working out there for him toward the end of the season, and I think we're

going to see a lot more of good night low than what the nationals saw from him early

on in the year, because like I mentioned early on the year, 119 games for the nationals,

490 played appearances, the slash line was a meager 216, 292, 373.

So we're going to see a lot better from that.

I would expect when it comes to night low in 2026.

So why was a guy like this available?

Well, that's simple, 2025 was a slog, we'll break that down next.

And there'll be the show is already out, and if you haven't gotten it already, you're

already falling behind in the diamond dynasty.

Some strong teams out there.

I've put together a nice one myself, got a couple of good players on it, Chase Burns

is on my rotation.

I got Ellie Della Cruz as my short stop feeling good about my diamond dynasty team, and you

can get a jumpstart on your diamond dynasty team with a special promo code, and we got

a special URL for you today.

If you go to M O B T H E dot show slash locked on and you use the code L O C K E D O N, you'll

get a free pack to use in diamond dynasty, go build that diamond dynasty team in M O B

to show 26 right now with the help of locked on res, because we got that special promo code.

Plus you can jump into franchise mode, road to the show so much is happening on this M O B

to show 26, you know, get you ready for opening day M O B to show 26 is out now on PlayStation

5, Xbox Series S and X and Nintendo switch, it's ready to be for everyone.

Make sure you go get yourself a copy of the day.

Workplace chaos deadline stacking up in box overflowing and the one position that you have

to fill is still sitting open when the pressure is on and you need the right hire.

This is a job for sponsor jobs indeed sponsor jobs helps you reach the people who actually

fit what you're looking for skills experience location so that you're not just hoping the

right candidate stumbles across your post and here is the stat that says it all in the

minute that I'm going to be talking to you companies like yours make 27 hires on

indeed according to indeed data worldwide.

So if you're hiring spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates

who check all of your box less stress less time more results when you need the right person

to cut through the chaos.

This is a job for indeed sponsor jobs and listeners of locked on reds will get a $75 sponsor

job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed dot com slash

podcast just go to indeed dot com slash podcast right now and support locked on reds by saying

you heard about indeed on this show indeed dot com slash podcast terms and conditions apply

need to hire this is a job for indeed sponsor jobs.

The tournament is here one of the best times of the year brackets and buzzer beaters upsets

and more it's nonstop action from tip off to the final cut down of the nets and right

now.

Bandole is giving new customers a way to stay in the action all tournament long.

In fact, here's the best part you get $300 back in bonus bets every day for 10 days.

That means 10 chances to stay involved throughout the entire tournament.

I don't know about you.

That's awesome because my tournament bracket looked amazing after day one only this one

pick.

Then it's like seven the next day is that's what the tournament does.

You can mix it up however you want game picks futures and even same game parlays for bigger

potential payouts.

It's perfect for the tournament because every day there's something new visit fandole.com

to sign up today.

That's fandole.com to get in on the action on reds everyday club.

Just go to locked on reds dot supercast dot com to learn more $5 a month $50 for the

whole year.

Now through the end of March, you can use the promo code March and get a free month.

Nate low was available to the Cincinnati Reds for a minor league deal.

So initially there's two thoughts with this number one.

It crawls living right man.

He got himself a heck of a deal.

Number two.

Why?

Why?

But why is a guy who's played some pretty good baseball for his career available for

nothing?

I mean, not nothing.

He gets better at minimum, which is a little over a million dollars.

I would love a million dollars.

But I mean, as guys like him go, that is more luck than I would have thought the reds

could have with a guy like this.

Because in seven seasons, like I mentioned, his last sign is 264 347 or 24.

Pretty solid hitter.

And quite frankly, had he not had such a down year in 2025, I think he would have been

getting a multi-year contract and probably been priced out of the reds range.

That is why he was here.

Because 2025 was a rough season for him.

Overall, even though I told you that once he got the boss and things started to turn around

for him a little bit, even after the turnaround, his entire season and 153 games and 609 played

appearances, he slashed 228 307 381.

That's not who he is.

That's not who his career has been, but it was such a down year that people started to

look a little bit deeper.

And when you look a little bit deeper at what happened in 2025, it's not as if he was

getting unlucky.

Nate Low had a bottom 30% tile in average exit velocity.

So he wasn't hitting the ball very hard.

His barrels, his hard hit percentage, all of it was below average.

There's a lot of blue on his stat cast page.

We talk about this a lot every day, as we'll know, then when it comes to stat cast, there's

blue and there's red and you want to be red.

As it is, with most things in baseball, you want to be a red, you don't want to be blue.

That's the cubs and the brewers.

Don't be blue.

But when it comes to stat cast, you want to be red.

And really the only thing that was red for him was the fact that he didn't chase bad

pitches and then he walked a good amount.

He also has a pretty decent bat speed.

So you like to see that there might just be a little bit of a little bit of loopiness

in his swing.

And so hopefully the reds can kind of shore that up a little bit.

But ultimately, it felt like there wasn't a lot on his profile that said he was getting

cheated.

So I think that's why a lot of teams were blocking at the idea of adding him to the roster.

But for me, I think that this is a clear bounce back candidate.

We were talking about a dude who for the prior two seasons before 2025 had an on base percentage

of 360 or better.

For two seasons in a row.

So yeah, he had a rough season last year.

But I think that we will see a bounce back in a big way for the reds.

And we're not talking about a guy that has to give them 600 played appearances.

Like, think about last season.

And I mentioned Santiago Espanol just a minute ago.

Do you realize how much he played for the reds?

Now I know that there's a bit of an irony here because I'm sort of bashing on Santiago

Espanol a bit.

And he somehow made the Dodgers opening day roster.

Don't know how that happened.

Again, there's some undefinedable quality.

The Santiago Espanol has that seems to endear him to people.

But last year, Santiago Espanol got 328 played appearances.

If those simply go to Nate Low, the reds have a massive upgrade here.

We've talked about this a little bit and that, you know, Gavin Lux's played appearances

are now going to go to a euhenio Suarez.

And we're going to see Santiago Espanol is taken up by some people.

Like, there's definitely a lot of one-for-one upgrades that we are not counting on that we are

not, that's not the right way to say it, that we are not like assessing correctly.

Because I think that people look at the reds lineup and still think that it lacks some.

And while it's not perfect, it is not a Dodgers lineup, it's not even a Yankees lineup.

It's a much better lineup than what it was last year.

The reds are giving significant playing time to guys who are significant upgrades over

guys who got significant playing time last year.

And Nate Low is going to be so keep it.

If you just give him 328 played appearances and you say, give me his career numbers.

For this season and 328 played appearances, you're going to see probably somewhere around

12 to 15 home runs.

You're going to see an on base percentage that is close to 35% of the time.

And you're going to see a slugging percentage of over 420, which last year would have

like been one of the best on the team.

I don't think we realize how rough the red slugging situation was last year.

Because if you look at this team and if you just go to a stats page and you sort it by

slugging percentage, South Stewart and Miguel and Doohar are the top two.

And those guys played so little on this team that you got to do a little qualifier and

you say, okay, guys who played more, well, that's Austin Hayes or that's Noel V Marte.

Like you got to go down to LA De La Cruz at 699 played appearances.

This slugging percentage was 440 and there are only three other guys on the roster that

had a slugging percentage above 400 past Ellie.

So I think that Nate Lowe is a huge addition.

A.U. Hanuman Swars is a huge addition.

This lineup is better.

And even though Nate Lowe was available because of such a rough 2025, dude's going to break

out in a big way bounce back.

Sorry, that is an actual distinction, right?

We talked about that with Matt McClain.

Is it a bounce back or a breakout?

It's probably a breakout from Matt McClain.

It's a bounce back season for Nate Lowe coming here in 2026.

And I'm here for it.

We're going to talk so much more about Nate Lowe and the Reds roster and all this other

stuff this week as we've got so much content for you leading up to opening day.

And as we pass opening day all throughout the year, we're talking since and I had your

Reds base about right here on Lockdown Reds.

So make sure that you subscribe so that we do miss any of it.

And if you want to get an ad free version of the show, check out the Lockdown Reds everyday

or club over at LockdownReds.supercast.com and use that promo code March for a free month

through the end of the month of March.

But then I'll do it for us here today.

Steven, Steve, we'll be back with me tomorrow as we continue to get you set for opening

day right here on the Lockdown Reds podcast where we are Lockdown Reds every single day.

Water usually wins.

It warps in Rod's wood.

It pulls it apart bored by bored.

Unless you build with treks.

Treks Marine Gray decking is 100% submersible for docks.

Built to last, it resists Rod warping and decay in salt and fresh water.

For homeowners, that means care free days on the water, not constant maintenance.

For builders, it means trusted performance that minimizes callbacks.

Water has met its match, treks decking, performance engineered for your life outdoors.

Visit treks.com slash docks.

You're juggling a lot, but you can still squeeze in a financial plan.

With the Northwestern Mutual Financial Advisor as your partner, it's not only possible,

it's personalized.

So if you're tying the knot, closing on a house, or welcoming a little one, you'll be

ready for whatever life tosses your way.

It's the right time to feel less stressed and more certain.

That's a better way to money.

Let's get started at nm.com.

The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Exfinity tech support?

How can I help?

I can't get Jurassic Park back online without you.

Oh, you just need infinity, plug in your gateway, and you're good.

All set, luckily, Exfinity has reliable self-healing Wi-Fi that keeps you safe from threats.

Wow, you can even boost speeds to your most important devices.

Get reliable Wi-Fi at one price for five years.

Guaranteed.

Exfinity.

Imagine that.

Watch Jurassic Park with Exfinity.

Restrictions apply, select plans only.