Zach Buchanan

zbuchanan@enquirer.com

One day during the last home stand, Tyler Holt walked into the Cincinnati Reds’ clubhouse to find his locker and chair decorated with a dozen cutout stickers of shortstop Zack Cozart. This was an escalation of a recent line of jokes at the rookie outfielder’s expense.

The two do share a resemblance, after all.

“He wishes he could be like me, basically,” Cozart said.

Holt is the favorite subject of ridicule in the Reds’ clubhouse, but only because he paints a target on his chest. No player tries harder to buck the seniority system that rules insulated baseball environments, and no player catches more flack because of it.

He’s also the only player with the guts to give as well as he takes. If a group of Reds players are doubled over laughing, it’s usually because of something directed at Holt or something he directed at another.

“Basically, every day we come in and the first person I want to talk smack to is Tyler Holt,” Cozart said. “It’s just fun to get him riled up. Any time we’re joking, he’s usually in the middle of it, no matter what the joke is.”

At 27, Holt is a bit old for a rookie. Perhaps that’s why he refuses to act like one. In a world where the biggest deference is paid to players with the most service time, Holt acts like he’s got 10-and-5 rights.

His nickname for Adam Duvall is “Rook,” despite the fact that Duvall has three more weeks in the big leagues than he does. He likes to ask fresh call-ups to carry his bags. While veterans usually sit at the back or front of the team bus on the way to the airport, Holt likes to take Jay Bruce’s seat in the third row.

“Bruce is like, ‘Hey, let’s go kid. Get out of here,’ ” Cozart remembered. “Then he moved up a spot to right behind (third-base coach Billy) Hatcher, which is like the second spot. He’s like, ‘I don’t care! I don’t care! Do something!’

“That’s just the way he is. He comes back at you.”

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Favorite stories about Holt abound. Last month, first baseman Joey Votto floated the idea of retirement if his struggles continued. Now when Votto homers, Holt meets him at the top step of the dugout with a message: “Thanks for not quitting, Joe.”

Holt’s teammates have noticed him at the top step after homers a lot, despite the fact that he usually spends the middle innings under the stadium staying warm in the batting cages.

“The second someone hits a homer he’s the first on the step trying to get on TV,” Cozart said. “We always joke about it, so the last time I hit a homer he wasn’t even there. He didn’t show up.”

Holt has been told ad nauseam how his act wouldn’t have flown in a more veteran clubhouse. He counters that players like Scott Rolen or Miguel Cairo would love him.

(“No they wouldn’t,” Cozart said.)

His current teammates certainly do. The 2016 campaign has been a long, disappointing one for the Reds, and it’s not even halfway over. Holt’s presence has added a bit of lightheartedness to a dark season.

Holt is happy to be a target. He understands the effect he can have on his teammates’ psyches.

“If I can be an outlet for these guys to mess around and lose focus on if they went 0 for 4 and had a bad day, that’s what I’m here for,” Holt said. “A little pick-me-up. We’re all human and we all joke around and want to have fun, but also succeed at our sport. Baseball doesn’t allow us to do that.”

Holt’s presence wouldn’t be so potent if it wasn’t so authentic. It’s not surprising that he’s currently trying to wean himself off both coffee and Red Bull. He can’t help but wake up energetic.

Cozart found that out recently when the Reds spent a morning with their families at the Cincinnati Zoo. The 30-year-old shortstop was dragging himself around, while Holt was bouncing off the walls.

“He did joke around with his mom, fake throwing her in the sea lion water,” Cozart said. “He does that, and then he’s scared to pet the sea lion. I don’t know what’s going on. He might be fake tough.”

Holt admits that some mornings he gets out of bed and baseball feels like work. Then he gets to the park and Cozart makes fun of his shoes or Bruce tells him to shut up, and the adrenaline spikes like it’s the opening bell of a title fight.

The truth is, he needs the back-and-forth as much as his teammates do. A recent 2-for-24 streak has depressed his numbers, but Holt was batting .296 with a .722 OPS through June 9 as mostly a pinch-hitter and reserve outfielder.

He doesn’t think he’d play so comfortably if his teammates were more adamant about putting him in his place.

“I truly believe that I don’t have the success I’ve had this year with them if they weren’t as accepting of me of who I truly am,” Holt said.

His teammates agree that the nothing-but-hustle version of Holt on the field doesn’t come without the one in the clubhouse who loves to stir the pot. If he were just happy to be in the big leagues, he’d shut up and take his medicine.

Bruce thinks that’s the entire reason Holt made it to this point in the first place. It certainly wasn’t his minor-league pedigree as a 5-10 former 10th-rounder who was waived by his original team last fall. He’s told Holt as much.

“We were talking, and I said, ‘I think it’s the way that you do what you do. Not necessarily doing what you do, but it’s the way you do it. You’re a baseball player,’ ” Bruce said. “The city of Cincinnati really has an affinity for those type of players.”

So do Holt’s teammates.