Orioles give Reds slugger a shot at redemption after Blaze Alexander injury

The Baltimore Orioles have called up former Reds first baseman Christian Encarnacion-Strand as the corresponding move for putting Blaze Alexander on the IL. Of the Orioles' internal options for replacing Alexander, Encarnacion-Strand makes the most sense. He's been playing third in Triple-A all season since the Orioles traded for him, and he has an OPS of .864 with 17 homers in 61 games this year for the Norfolk Tides. He's not a defensive specialist by any means, but the Orioles are hoping that his power bat can make up for some of what they are losing with Alexander out.

It will be interesting to see how the Orioles deploy Encarnacion-Strand along with Coby Mayo at third base. They are both third basemen who would be better off playing first base, so the Orioles aren't getting any sort of defensive advantage by playing Encarnacion-Strand over Mayo. They both have similar strikeout weaknesses at the plate, with Mayo running a 32.5% K rate and a 30.7% whiff rate this season in the majors and Encarnacion-Strand putting up a 30.4% K rate and 30.6% whiff rate in triple-A (bound to go up against better pitching). So there is no real approach difference where the Orioles could say that one option gives them a better chance of making contact.

A Coby Mayo and Christian Encarnacion-Strand timeshare is not going to be perfect

They are also both right-handed, so it's not a natural platoon situation either. However, Encarnacion-Strand has hit righties better than lefties throughout his career. In the past, the Orioles have not appeared to believe in reverse splits, so it will be interesting to see how they navigate this situation where they now have two defensively deficient right-handed third basemen, one who hits righties and one who hits lefties.

Common sense would say that Encarnacion-Strand would start against righties and Mayo would start against lefties, but are the Orioles going to do that? If that were the plan, then Encarnacion-Strand would go from being in the minors to being the Orioles' primary third baseman. Do the Orioles want Encarnacion-Strand to be their primary third baseman even if the splits would say he should be?

Besides how he is deployed, it will also be interesting to see how Encarnacion-Strand performs. At one point, he was someone that the Reds were pretty excited about. When he came up in 2023 and slashed .270/.328/.477, it seemed like he was on his way to establishing himself as an important part of the Reds' young core around Elly De La Cruz. The next few seasons were not kind ot him, and eventually the Reds ran out of patience waiting for him to put it together, and that's how he ended up on the Orioles.

His performance in Triple-A this season has been encouraging, but even with his high batting average and impressive OPS, he still has an OBP of just .309. A .309 OBP in Triple-A most likely means that he's going to have a sub .300 OBP in the majors, and it's really hard to justify having a sub .300 OBP guy in the lineup, especially if he can't really play defense. He's going to have to hit a lot of homers in order for the Orioles to consider him a full-time third base replacement for Alexander. If he doesn't, the Orioles are going to end up either trading for a replacement third base man at the deadline or giving someone else on the Tides a shot.

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