So much of the local discourse surrounding the Cincinnati Reds baseball season has been the offense, or lack thereof. But, it’s pitching that beats hard upon the shore of the baseball world. It says here that pitching will decide the fate of the Reds in 2025.
Terry Francona may be excited at the prospect of watching Elly De La Cruz create offensive havoc, but my sense is that he’s far more excited at the prospect of using Hunter Greene, and a slew of young exciting arms neutralize the rest of the National League Central.
And neutralize the rest of the Central they will have to do because ownership refused to spend the money necessary to guarantee a more reliable offense, choosing instead to bet on the health and development of the young players brought up in 2023, as well a few moves around the salary edges in the form of Austin Hays and Gavin Lux.
In swapping Jonathan India for Brady Singer, the Reds further weakened the offense in an effort to bolster a pitching staff that will be necessary to carry the Reds not just through the first 162 games, but into October.
Looking at the 12 staffs that pitched into October last season, we saw that the top four starters mostly hit predictable starts and innings markers. Top starters ranged from roughly 170 to 190 innings while approaching 30 starts:
| Pitcher | Team | Starts | Innings |
| Zack Wheeler | PHI | 32 | 200.0 |
| Cristopher Sánchez | PHI | 31 | 181.2 |
| Ranger Suárez | PHI | 27 | 150.2 |
| Aaron Nola | PHI | 33 | 199.1 |
| Cole Ragans | KCR | 32 | 186.1 |
| Seth Lugo | KCR | 33 | 206.2 |
| Michael Wacha | KCR | 29 | 166.2 |
| Brady Singer | KCR | 32 | 179.2 |
| Tarik Skubal | DET | 31 | 192.0 |
| Jack Flaherty | DET | 18 | 106.2 |
| Reese Olson | DET | 22 | 112.1 |
| Tyler Holton | DET | 9 | 94.1 |
| Dylan Cease | SDP | 33 | 189.1 |
| Michael King | SDP | 30 | 173.2 |
| Matt Waldron | SDP | 26 | 146.2 |
| Jeremiah Estrada | SDP | 0 | 61.0 |
| Corbin Burnes | BAL | 32 | 194.1 |
| Grayson Rodriguez | BAL | 20 | 116.2 |
| Albert Suárez | BAL | 24 | 133.2 |
| Dean Kremer | BAL | 24 | 129.2 |
| Nestor Cortes | NYY | 30 | 174.1 |
| Luis Gil | NYY | 29 | 151.2 |
| Carlos Rodón | NYY | 32 | 175.0 |
| Marcus Stroman | NYY | 29 | 154.2 |
| Tyler Glasnow | LAD | 22 | 134.0 |
| Yoshinobu Yamamoto | LAD | 18 | 90.0 |
| Gavin Stone | LAD | 25 | 140.1 |
| Jack Flaherty | LAD | 10 | 55.1 |
| Clayton Kershaw | LAD | 7 | 30.0 |
| Landon Knack | LAD | 12 | 69.0 |
| James Paxton | LAD | 18 | 89.1 |
| Framber Valdez | HOU | 28 | 176.1 |
| Hunter Brown | HOU | 30 | 170.0 |
| Ronel Blanco | HOU | 29 | 167.1 |
| Spencer Arrighetti | HOU | 28 | 145.0 |
| Sean Manaea | NYM | 32 | 181.2 |
| Luis Severino | NYM | 31 | 182.0 |
| David Peterson | NYM | 21 | 121.0 |
| Jose Quintana | NYM | 31 | 170.1 |
| Tanner Bibee | CLE | 31 | 173.2 |
| Gavin Williams | CLE | 16 | 76.0 |
| Ben Lively | CLE | 29 | 151.0 |
| Carlos Carrasco | CLE | 21 | 103.2 |
| Freddy Peralta | MIL | 32 | 173.2 |
| Tobias Myers | MIL | 25 | 138.0 |
| Joe Ross | MIL | 10 | 74.0 |
| Colin Rea | MIL | 27 | 167.2 |
| Chris Sale | ATL | 29 | 177.2 |
| Reynaldo López | ATL | 25 | 135.2 |
| Max Fried | ATL | 29 | 174.1 |
| Charlie Morton | ATL | 30 | 165.1 |
| Hunter Greene | CIN | 26 | 150.1 |
| Nick Martinez | CIN | 16 | 142.1 |
| Nick Lodolo | CIN | 21 | 115.1 |
| Andrew Abbott | CIN | 25 | 138.0 |
| Frankie Montas | CIN | 19 | 93.1 |
| Graham Ashcraft | CIN | 15 | 77.1 |
Outliers included the Dodgers, who suffered devastating injuries on the pitching side of the ledger for the second year in a row, but used superior depth to avoid their fate in 2023 when they were upset by the Diamondbacks. Cleveland leaned heavily on their relievers, as did Detroit, who had Tarik Skubal pitching 192 innings and a dramatic fall off from the rest of the starting staff.
A look at the Reds starting staff here at the bottom reveals why the Reds felt the need to acquire Singer at the cost of the team’s third most productive offensive player. An influx of innings are imperative to reduce the strain on a bullpen that was necessarily overused last season. Singer (179.2) gives them that. Greene hopes to add another 30 innings to last year’s total. If Nick Martinez can give the Reds an additional half dozen starts and Nick Lodolo can finally deliver a healthy season, Cincinnati might be well on its way to making it to October.
While I’ve heard no discussion of employing a 6-man starting staff, when the early season off days disappear and long stretches of games appear in May, the current depth of the starting staff might provide an opportunity to keep a staff that has never experienced those big inning numbers fresh and less susceptible to injury by bringing up Rhett Lowder later in the season and occasionally using him as a sixth starter, or even swapping out someone in the rotation to provide rest and readiness for the postseason.
A Lewie Pollis article has been making the rounds lately on Substack, neatly summed up by Cup of Coffee writer Craig Calcaterra:
“Pollis, after watching dominant relief aces flame out during the past couple of postseasons, looked more deeply at pitcher usage and its consequences. And what he has found is that while a starting pitcher may experience diminished performance in a given game by being kept in for a third time through the lineup, there is a hidden, longer-term cost to be paid for doing that in terms of bullpen arms being overworked. That makes a lot of intuitive sense, but Pollis has attempted to quantify it, and he has found that each additional out a starter records is associated with a an improvement in a team’s aggregate bullpen ERA.”
If the Reds are committed to seeing their starters go longer into games, sharing the load periodically during a long summer might be a way to accomplish that.
Hope springs eternal that Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Matt McLain, Lux and Hays will prove to be the players that lift the offense out of its malaise. Injuries are not going away, though, as we’ve already been reminded by the sidelining of Spencer Steer and Tyler Stephenson before the first pitch has flown.
Some have been fixated on David Bell to the extreme, leading people like Reds announcer Tommy Thrall to suggest Francona will be worth a staggering 10 wins in 2025. Baseball history says otherwise.
The good news is that Nick Krall has done yeoman’s work to improve the roster with a limited payroll. I’ll be optimistic and bet the Reds are more healthy and win 87 games this year.
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