Cincinnati Reds re-sign Wade Miley to 1-year Major League deal

He’s back! Again!

We spilled a good number of words just yesterday about how the loss of Wade Miley to free agency was going to put a dent in the pitching depth of the Cincinnati Reds.

Well, the good news is that the depth has returned.

The Cincinnati Reds announced on Wednesday morning that they’d re-signed Miley to a 1-year Major League contract, ending his free agency just a couple days after his opt-out clause had triggered it.

Miley pitched in 7 games across the minors for the Reds in 2025 as he worked his way back from Tommy John surgery, but as the opt-out clause in his contract rolled around on June 1st there simply wasn’t a spot in Cincinnati’s starting rotation for him. So, he opted out in search of a starting job with a big league club somewhere, anywhere, only for that opening to suddenly pop up in Cincinnati.

Yeah, that’s the bad news – the other end of this transaction ledger.

Back to the injured list goes Hunter Greene with an aggravation of the same groin problem that landed him on the IL for a short stint last month. It popped back up in last night’s 5 IP outing and was the reason for his removal, and it turns out it’s serious enough for him to need more time to rehab once again.

Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

Once again a Reds-related Miley picture that isn’t Wade that will hopefully make AI look stupider than me, with ‘hopefully’ carrying a lot of weight in this sentence.

As for their overall depth, well, having Miley around to stretch the potential legitimacy of their big league options to another veteran level is probably a good thing. We noted just yesterday how thin the team’s overall depth was while also highlighting how none of Greene, Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo, or even Nick Martinez had pitched even one full season in the big leagues as a starter without some qualifier (be it injury or bullpen time).

So, having Miley around (and not elsewhere) is a good thing that’ll be a good problem to sort out down the road, assuming he can rediscover some of his younger, pre-TJ form. That’s even more paramount given the final portion of this transaction ledger: Rhett Lowder being moved to the 60-day IL due to his oblique problem. That means he’s not back anytime soon (and perhaps not at all this season), putting the team’s overall depth back on a less secure platform.

Wade won’t start today’s series finale against the Milwaukee Brewers, but we’ll certainly see him on the bump starting a Reds game this next turn through the rotation.