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The Reds’ excellent rotation was the biggest reason behind the team’s return to the playoffs in 2025, and rival teams have taken notice of this talent and depth. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal writes that Cincinnati is still getting trade inquiries about its starters, and while the Reds “remain open to the possibility if the return improves them for the present and future,” this high asking price might scare off a number of suitors.
Indeed, it might be that not much has changed on the pitching front since October, when president of baseball operations Nick Krall said he “wouldn’t say no” to the idea of dealing from the rotation. As Krall added, however, “when you trade pitchers you’ve got to go (back)fill them somehow. We all know how it works, where you run out of innings at some point in the season, guys get hurt, things happen.”
A few weeks later, both Krall and manager Terry Francona further downplayed the idea that Hunter Greene in particular would be available at the right price, with Krall noting “That’s a hard one to actually say, ’Hey, we’re going to trade the guy that has a chance to be the ace of your staff and top-of-the-rotation guy going into the postseason.’ We’re looking to figure out how to get better, but right now that’s not on the table.”
Continuing that thread, Rosenthal writes that “rival clubs doubt their big arms are truly available,” in reference to Greene, Nick Lodolo, and Andrew Abbott. Greene is signed to an extension through at least the 2028 season, Lodolo has two years of arbitration control remaining, and Abbott is controlled through 2029 and is still a year away from reaching arbitration eligibility. Brady Singer has been more widely mentioned as a potential trade chip since he is a free agent next offseason, but Rosenthal feels the Reds would want both a MLB-ready starter and a bat for Singer’s services, which seems like a tall order.
As good as Cincinnati’s rotation was in 2025, the group is already down a couple of arms since Nick Martinez and Zack Littell are free agents. Chase Burns is one of baseball’s top pitching prospects and is penciled into the fifth starter’s role for 2026, and another top-100 prospect in Chase Petty is in the mix. Beyond these top six starters, however, the Reds have more young depth but a lot of injury-related question marks. Forearm and oblique problems limited Rhett Lowder to 9 1/3 minor league innings and no time in the majors last year, and Julian Aguiar and Brandon Williamson missed all of 2025 while recovering from Tommy John surgeries.
Like Krall implied, the “you can never have enough pitching” mantra might alone be enough to make the Reds wary about trading any of their starters and depleting the team’s clear strength. On the flip side, moving a starter (even one of the top three arms) for a premium return would allow Cincinnati to address multiple roster holes, particularly within the team’s lineup.
The Reds haven’t done a ton to upgrade their average-at-best offense, as the team has added JJ Bleday and Dane Myers while trading Gavin Lux. Cincinnati’s pursuit of Kyle Schwarber was an outlier based on Schwarber’s status as a local product, so the team’s limited payroll will likely preclude any more major expenditures unless some other money is moved off the books (i.e. Singer’s $12.75MM salary for 2026). For now, the Reds are primarily counting on internal improvements for lineup help, which is a risky endeavor in an NL Central that keeps getting more competitive.
