There are five teams that play baseball in the National League Central division, and the Cincinnati Reds are in fifth place among them. They own a -39 run differential so far through 59 games, a mark that’s the third worst in the entire NL. Their best position player, Elly De La Cruz, is on the injured list for potentially the next four weeks, while their best pitcher, Hunter Greene, has been there for the entire season – and will also be there for at least the next four weeks.
Chase Burns, who has absolutely
carried the team, is going to slam into his innings limit in August at this rate.
Chris Paddack is getting starts for the Reds. Chris Paddack!
Things haven’t gone at all to plan for the Reds in 2026 despite beginning the season on something of a miracle run, once reaching a full nine games over the .500 mark on the back of an incredible streak of close victories. Regression hit them just as hard as the injury bug, and they’ve gone just 10-18 over their last 28 games as a result.
It isn’t outlandish to suggest that, yes, there are still over 100 games yet to play and, yes, the Reds sit just 1.5 games back of the final Wild Card spot in the superexpanded megaplayoff format. But climbing their way back into this thing without Elly, without Greene, without their closer, half their bullpen, Rhett Lowder, and the guy they specifically went out and acquired last summer as the finishing piece for a playoff run sure does seem like it’s a wager on which I would not bet the house.
The Reds picked a bad year to just be mediocre in the Central, unlike when they lucked into being rewarded for such mediocrity last year.
Therein lies the rub. If you’re going to be bad, be last, be woefully injured, but do so with at least a core around which you can still build beyond 2026, it behooves all parties involved to use the trade season that’s looming to get more good pieces for that, and shed the ones that you got for this where the pieces simply didn’t fall into place. However, the way in which this Reds club is currently constructed, and the way in which select pieces are (and, more often, are not) playing means there isn’t a whole lot the front office is going to be able to do to give things a silver lining over the next eight weeks.
The first thing teams that begin to sell tend to do is unload their relievers to teams that truly need them for the playoff push. Unfortunately for the Reds, Emilio Pagán – their 35 year old closer whose contract includes a $10 million player option for 2027 and a $500K assignment bonus should he be traded – pitched horribly before a serious hamstring injury sent him to the shelf for two months. Old, declining, overpaid, and hurt are four descriptors that don’t define ‘good trade chip’ at all. The rest of Cincinnati’s bullpen, the worst ranked unit in the sport by FanGraphs fWAR, has a veteran or two that someone would take and pay, but they aren’t the kind of players having the kind of years that will bring back any real return.
Then, we turn our heads to the rentals on the roster, guys who’ll be free agents at season’s end and not Reds the next chance the Reds have to win more games than they lose.
Eugenio Suárez is obviously the headliner here, brought in for $15 million this past offseason after slugging 49 dingers elsewhere in 2025. He, too, is set to be 35 at the deadline, and he’s fresh off the most serious injury of his career to date. Owner of an 86 OPS+ and just 4 dingers on the season, there’s still a chance he gets red hot early and often enough before the deadline to prompt someone into dangling a lottery ticket return, but keep in mind this is also the same Geno that struggled to land a huge commitment in free agency over the winter due to his second half slump in 2025 with Seattle. A contending team would take him for his good vibes even at this level of production, but the Reds aren’t getting a decent return there, either.
Nathaniel Lowe has been an incredible pickup, and someone would surely take him. Still, he’s the same 1B/DH guy who needs platooning that he was after finishing strong with Boston last year, and that was only good enough for him to land in the Reds lap on a minor league deal. A good team would trade for him, but again, he’s not bringing back anything more than a far-off lottery ticket or known AAAA reclamation project.
Could the Reds even deal Tyler Stephenson? I suppose there’s always a chance a key catcher gets dinged up, and he’s ‘heated’ up to a .725 OPS over his last 50 PA to raise his season number up to .609. Even then, the Reds can’t just turn to Jose Trevino to catch more often since he’s been hurt basically all year, and there’s not an upper-minors catcher of the future to whom they can turn things over for the second half (as they aren’t going to do that with Alfredo Duno just yet despite how otherworldly he’ll be down the road). Finding someone to simply split time with PJ Higgins as they play out the string might end up costing just as much as keeping Stephenson, especially once you consider the need to learn the young pitchers this team is trying so hard to develop for the future.
Speaking of the pitchers, it’s hard to see the Reds cashing in on those right now, either. Over the winter, they looked to be in prime position as the envy of the league with the combination their rotation had of depth, talent, youth, and cost, yet here they are with Greene, Lowder, and Williamson all hurt, Lodolo only just recently back (and looking a shell of his 2025 self), Andrew Abbott perhaps turning back into himself after a brutal April, and Burns, who they wouldn’t trade for Fort Knox. Lodolo will be a free agent after next season, and maybe they choose to shop him this winter, but trading him now even in an extreme seller’s market would be selling woefully low. I didn’t mention Brady Singer until now because…because you know why I didn’t mention Brady Singer until now.
The good news, if there is any here, is that the Reds are still in a position to simply let this dwindle out in 2026, let the guys walk who’ll contractually walk, and still field a decent core on-paper for 2027 with what’s on the roster (if healthy). It’s how they got to this point in 2026 after letting Nick Martinez, Zack Littell, Scott Barlow, Austin Hays, Miguel Andujar, Gavin Lux, et al find different pastures after 2025 – none of those guys was ever brought in to be ‘the guy,’ and losing them simply opened up an opportunity to find a replacement elsewhere.
I think there was at least the hope that at least one of the veterans they paid for 2026 would turn in enough good work to let the club get out from under their contracts with something else to show for it if things fell apart they way they’re falling apart now, and that simply hasn’t happened at all to any of them. That simply had to factor into the equation with Geno, with keeping Singer for his final year, with the one-year deals for Pierce Johnson and Caleb Ferguson.
At least they stumbled into JJ Bleday, who’ll be under team control through 2028. Maybe flipping him this July if he remains the best hitter in the sport for a few more weeks is something worth considering…
