The Reds’ glorious rotation was the most important purpose behind the workforce’s return to the playoffs in 2025, and rival groups have taken discover of this expertise and depth. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal writes that Cincinnati continues to be getting commerce inquiries about its starters, and whereas the Reds “stay open to the chance if the return improves them for the current and future,” this excessive asking value may scare off quite a lot of suitors.
Certainly, it may be that not a lot has modified on the pitching entrance since October, when president of baseball operations Nick Krall mentioned he “wouldn’t say no” to the concept of dealing from the rotation. As Krall added, nonetheless, “while you commerce pitchers you’ve acquired to go (again)fill them someway. Everyone knows the way it works, the place you run out of innings in some unspecified time in the future within the season, guys get harm, issues occur.”
A couple of weeks later, each Krall and supervisor Terry Francona additional downplayed the concept Hunter Greene particularly could be accessible on the proper value, with Krall noting “That’s a tough one to really say, ’Hey, we’re going to commerce the man that has an opportunity to be the ace of your workers and top-of-the-rotation man going into the postseason.’ We’re trying to determine find out how to get higher, however proper now that’s not on the desk.”
Persevering with that thread, Rosenthal writes that “rival golf equipment doubt their huge arms are actually accessible,” in reference to Greene, Nick Lodolo, and Andrew Abbott. Greene is signed to an extension by means of at the very least the 2028 season, Lodolo has two years of arbitration management remaining, and Abbott is managed by means of 2029 and continues to be a 12 months away from reaching arbitration eligibility. Brady Singer has been extra extensively talked about as a possible commerce chip since he’s a free agent subsequent offseason, however Rosenthal feels the Reds would need each a MLB-ready starter and a bat for Singer’s providers, which looks like a tall order.
Pretty much as good as Cincinnati’s rotation was in 2025, the group is already down a few arms since Nick Martinez and Zack Littell are free brokers. Chase Burns is one in all baseball’s high pitching prospects and is penciled into the fifth starter’s position for 2026, and one other top-100 prospect in Chase Petty is within the combine. Past these high six starters, nonetheless, the Reds have extra younger depth however quite a lot of injury-related query marks. Forearm and indirect issues restricted Rhett Lowder to 9 1/3 minor league innings and no time within the majors final 12 months, and Julian Aguiar and Brandon Williamson missed all of 2025 whereas recovering from Tommy John surgical procedures.
Like Krall implied, the “you may by no means have sufficient pitching” mantra may alone be sufficient to make the Reds cautious about buying and selling any of their starters and depleting the workforce’s clear power. On the flip aspect, transferring a starter (even one of many high three arms) for a premium return would enable Cincinnati to deal with a number of roster holes, notably throughout the workforce’s lineup.
The Reds haven’t accomplished a ton to improve their average-at-best offense, because the workforce has added JJ Bleday and Dane Myers whereas buying and selling Gavin Lux. Cincinnati’s pursuit of Kyle Schwarber was an outlier based mostly on Schwarber’s standing as a neighborhood product, so the workforce’s restricted payroll will doubtless preclude any extra main expenditures except another cash is moved off the books (i.e. Singer’s $12.75MM wage for 2026). For now, the Reds are primarily relying on inner enhancements for lineup assist, which is a dangerous endeavor in an NL Central that retains getting extra aggressive.
