Oh look, Tyler Stephenson is socking meatballs again!

The 2022 Major League Baseball season was a brutal one for Cincinnati Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson. He knocked the cover off the ball - his 130 OPS+ was the brightest of bright spots on an otherwise poor Reds lineup - but was limited to just 50 games played on the whole.

It wasn’t just one injury, either - it was a litany of them. A busted thumb, concussions, and ultimately a broken collarbone put Cincinnati’s future star on the shelf more often than not, rendering him forced to watch from the sidelines as his club sputtered and stumbled all year long.

All things point to him being primed to make up ground in 2023, however, as his recover has gone to schedule, and on Tuesday he posted video of him taking full hacks in the batting cage once again.

Stephenson is both the present and future of this franchise, and it’s damn good to see him en route to bashing dingers-a-plenty again in 2023.