When you think of the MLB owners who deserve the moniker of Scrooge, Bob Nutting and Bruce Sherman tend to be the first names that come to mind. However, when you combine a miserly attitude toward payroll
spending with antagonistic public comments, there are few families who ruin Christmas more for their fans than the Castellinis. Should the Reds ownership group decide to go full Scrooge McDuck this holiday season, they might consider trading Hunter Greene to the Yankees in the coming days.
2025 Statistics: 19 games started, 107.2 IP, 7-4, 2.76 ERA (166 ERA+), 3.27 FIP, 3.27 xFIP, 31.4% K%, 6.2% BB%, 0.94 WHIP, 2.9 fWAR
2026 FanGraphs Depths Charts Projections: 31 games started, 184 IP, 11-11, 3.94 ERA, 3.90 FIP, 28.6% K%, 8.0% BB%, 1.19 WHIP, 3.6 fWAR
Contract Status: Set to earn $8 million in fourth year of six-year, $53 million extension signed after the 2022 season. Due $15 million in 2027 and $16 million in 2028. $21 million club option in 2029 with $2 million buyout.
When you look around the league for the most sought-after starting pitchers, few players offer the combination of ace ability, age, and affordable team control as does Greene. After selecting Greene out of Notre Dame High School in Los Angeles with the second overall pick in the 2017, the Reds were patient bringing their potential franchise cornerstone along, only handing him his MLB debut in 2022. He was good but not great in his first two seasons in the bigs, pitching to a 4.62 ERA and 4.31 FIP with a 316:96 strikeout-to-walk ratio across 46 starts totaling 237.2 innings. It’s perfectly serviceable from a mid-to-back of the rotation starter, but still not the heights you would hope from a player with the expectations Greene had.
But then a switch flipped starting in 2024 as Greene developed into a true ace-caliber talent. Over the last two seasons, Greene has allowed the lowest opponents’ batting average (.184), averaged the third-highest velocity on his fastball (98.4 mph) and posted the sixth-best ERA (2.76), sixth-best WHIP (0.98), and eighth-best strikeout rate (29.2-percent) of any starter with at least 250 innings pitched while also placing among the top-20 in FIP and fWAR. During that same span, Greene’s fastball has graded out as the best four-seamer in MLB with a +40 Statcast Run Value. Since his debut, he is one of 12 starting pitchers to exceed the elite threshold of a 20-percent strikeout-minus-walk rate (K-BB%) and one of 28 starters to exceed the elite threshold of a 30-percent called-strike-plus-whiff rate (CSW%).
As is often the case, this jump was driven by a sharpening of command that comes with each additional year of experience as a big league pitcher. He just posted the lowest walk rate (6.2-percent) of his career after carrying a 9.3-percent walk rate across his first three seasons. The improvement in command also helped him to limit the quality of contact of opposing hitters. His first two seasons, almost 22.5-percent of his batted balls were pulled in the air, but that rate has dropped to around 18-percent this year and last. As a result, he managed to lower his home run per nine rate from 1.63 his first two seasons to 0.94 over the last two campaigns.
I love Greene’s ability to integrate mechanical adjustments and make tweaks to his repertoire to overcome shortcomings in his game. His fastball has always had fantastic velocity, but the pitch got hammered his first two seasons until he added an inch of induced vertical movement in the offseason following the 2023 season, and the results are night and day. He also added a splitter starting in 2024 and the pitch has been a serious neutralizer of lefties.
The biggest knock against Greene the last two seasons has been health. He has made just 45 starts and pitched just 258 innings in 2024 and 2025. An elbow injury cost him a month in 2024 and a recurring groin strain robbed him of two months in 2025. In fact, he has never made more than 26 starts in a season and topped out at 150.1 IP in 2024.
Given his age (26), ability, and contract terms, it’s difficult to find a good comp for the type of package it would take to pry him from Cincy. The Red Sox’s trades for Chris Sale and Garrett Crochet are fairly decent, the Astros’ acquisition of Gerrit Cole and Orioles’ move for Corbin Burnes less so. At a minimum, it looks like the Reds could demand a pair of consensus top-100 prospects plus at least another pair less-heralded youngsters. It’s not a stretch to imagine the Reds demanding George Lombard Jr. and Elmer Rodríguez in addition to several of the impressive crop of upper level pitching prospects.
This discussion is all but moot, however, given recent reports that Greene is likely to stay put. Jeff Passan recently reported that there is “A minuscule chance he moves. Not quite Skenes, but pretty close.” The Reds have ostensibly shown a willingness to spend this offseason as they look to expand on having snuck into the 2025 playoffs, making a reported nine-figure offer to Kyle Schwarber and guaranteeing just over $25 million to a trio of relievers. However, this is also the same franchise whose team president (and son of owner Bob Castellini) taunted the fanbase by asking “where you gonna go?” in response to disappointment over trading popular players and then claiming the team was run as a “non-profit” organization less than a year later, so more than many other franchises it feels like anything could be on the table.
To reiterate, it’s almost certain that Greene will not be dealt this offseason. It’s no surprise that the Yankees have inquired on his availability with Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, and Clarke Schmidt unavailable at the start of the season as they recover from their respective surgeries, Greene’s name by far the highest caliber of all the pitchers they have been linked to. If he can stay healthy, you are looking at a five-win pitcher — Cy Young candidate territory — who carries less than a $14 million AAV for the next three seasons. It’s the type of player you build a contention window around and rather than sell to restock the farm. Yankees fans can only hope that the Castellini’s are feeling like Scrooge toward their own franchise and Santa toward every other team.
