Reds Have Discussed Extension With Nick Lodolo

The Reds locked down a hopeful core member for at least the next six years earlier this week when signing righty Hunter Greene to a $53MM extension, and they’re hopeful of doing so with another promising young arm. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that Cincinnati has been discussing an extension with left-hander Nick Lodolo as well.

There are plenty of similarities between Lodolo and Greene. Both are former top-10 overall draft picks — Greene No. 2 in 2017, Lodolo No. 7 in 2019 — and both entered the 2023 season with exactly one year of Major League service after debuting for the Reds early in the 2022 season. Both pitchers were widely regarded as top-100 prospects in the sport before making their respective Major League debuts last year.

That’s not to suggest that Lodolo should or will sign on for identical terms, but the framework is likely one that could interest the Reds. Both Greene ($7.23MM) and Lodolo ($5.4MM) signed life-changing signing bonuses out of the draft, arguably creating less urgency for either pitcher to sign a long-term contract. That didn’t stop Greene from doing so, but every player’s personal motivations, appetite for risk, etc. are different, of course.

It’s not clear when or whether talks between the Reds and Lodolo’s reps at Excel Sports Management will gain steam, but the team’s interest in hammering out a long-term contract shouldn’t come as a great surprise. Lodolo made the transition from the upper minors to MLB rather seamlessly in 2022, pitching 103 1/3 innings of 3.66 ERA ball in his debut campaign. His 29.7% strikeout rate trailed only his own teammate, Greene, and breakout Braves righty Spencer Strider among rookie starters last season. Loosening the parameters and looking at all MLB pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched in ’22, Lodolo ranked 14th out of 124 in terms of strikeout rate.

Lodolo paired that innate ability to miss bats with a solid 8.8% walk rate and an above-average 46% grounder rate. Were it not for a lower back strain that wiped out all of May and June for the left-hander, Lodolo might well have factored into NL Rookie of the Year voting. The aforementioned Strider and his teammate Michael Harris were always the runaway favorites, but given the absolute tear on which Lodolo finished out the season, a larger number of innings might’ve had him in the running.

While Lodolo was hit hard in two of his first three starts off the injured list last season, he found his stride over his final 13 trips to the hill. In that time, he pitched 77 innings of 2.92 ERA ball with a 30% strikeout rate — including a 2.48 ERA and 35% strikeout rate in the season’s final month. At the very least, with better health, he might’ve wound up in third on the ballot rather than his eventual sixth-place finish.

In 2023, Lodolo was sharp through three turns, with a scoreless, seven-inning, 12-strikeout gem in Philadelphia standing out as the headliner. The Rays trounced him for eight runs earlier this week, ballooning his season ERA to 4.98 overall. However, Lodolo’s strikeout and ground-ball rates are near mirror images of his 2022 marks, and his walk rate is actually down two percentage points in 2023. The 25-year-old southpaw’s young career has produced an overall 3.89 ERA, 29.7% strikeout rate, 8.4% walk rate and 46.2% ground-ball rate in 125 innings, giving the Reds’ front office plenty of reason to believe he can join Greene and righty Graham Ashcraft as cornerstones of the current rebuild.

As it stands, the Reds control Lodolo through the end of the 2027 season, and he’d be eligible for arbitration following the 2025 season. He still has all three minor league option years remaining, so it’s technically possible that those trajectories could be impacted if he struggles for an extended period and is optioned to Triple-A. Aside from a couple of hiccups (e.g. that clunker against the Rays), however, there’s not much in Lodolo’s first 23 big league starts that suggests he needs any additional seasoning in the upper minors.