July 23: Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall pushed back on Morosi’s report, telling Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer that he’s had conversations with the majority of the league but has “not gone down one road that specific.”
Krall’s comments came on the heels of a Cincinnati victory over Atlanta last night. That win kept the Reds within four games of a Wild Card spot in the National League, albeit in an extraordinarily tightly bunched race. Though they’re only four games back, the Reds would need to vault past the Giants, Cubs, D-backs, Padres, Pirates and one of the Mets or Cardinals in order to move into Wild Card position. The Cubs are actually a half-game up on the Reds in the standings, and their own president of baseball operations, Jed Hoyer, publicly conceded just last night that his focus will be on 2025 and beyond.
The next few days will likely be pivotal for the Reds as they chart their course for the remainder of the season. They have two games left against the Braves, followed by three road games against the Rays. They’ll host the Cubs on the evening of July 29 — their final game before the July 30 deadline.
July 21: Back in early July, when the Reds were 41-45 and just a few games out of the NL Wild Card race, club GM Brad Meador suggested that the club was not yet ready to commit to a strategy for this year’s trade deadline. Flash forward to today, and fallen to a record of 47-53 after getting swept by the Nationals coming out of the All-Star break. It appears that recent performance may have been enough for the club to officially set course, as Jon Morosi of MLB Network reports that the club has begun to inform rival clubs that they are willing to part with players on expiring contracts.
It’s hardly a surprise that Cincinnati would limit any sell-off to rental pieces. After all, the club has an exciting core of young talent led by star shortstop Elly De La Cruz and right-hander Hunter Greene that figures to keep the Reds in the playoff conversation in the coming years, and this season has been complicated by injuries to key pieces such as Matt McLain, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, TJ Friedl, Brandon Williamson, and Graham Ashcraft. By maintaining that core of players as well as veteran pieces under longer-term control such as Jonathan India and Jeimer Candelario, the Reds can remain fairly well positioned to load back up for the 2025 campaign this winter and make another attempt at returning to contention.
The Reds’ list of pending free agents is a relatively short one, but it nonetheless has some interesting names. Right-hander Frankie Montas, whose $20MM mutual option for 2025 is all but certain to be declined, is perhaps the player with the most name recognition that the club could look to move. Righty Nick Martinez has a $12MM player option for 2025 and could also be made available, while outfielder Austin Slater (who the Reds acquired from San Francisco just two weeks ago), lefty Justin Wilson, and right-handers Buck Farmer and Lucas Sims will each see their contracts run out at season’s end.
According to Morosi, the Orioles are among the clubs to have interest in Cincinnati’s rental pitchers, including Montas and Martinez. The fit between Baltimore and either of those two pieces is somewhat obvious, as the Orioles have lost starters Kyle Bradish, John Means, and Tyler Wells to season-ending surgery this year. That’s left them to put together a patchwork rotation filled out by Dean Kremer and Albert Suarez behind front-end duo Corbin Burnes and Grayson Rodriguez. At least one more playoff-caliber starter would make plenty of sense for the Orioles, and they would likely benefit from adding additional depth beyond that as well.
Whether Montas, 31, constitutes a playoff-caliber starter at this point in his career is up for debate. The righty has struggled badly with the Reds in 89 innings (18 starts) this year, posting a 4.85 ERA and 5.04 FIP which are both roughly 15% worse than league average. While Montas has allowed three runs or fewer in 12 of his 18 starts this year, blow-up starts have been a fairly frequent occurrence for the righty, including a combined 12 runs allowed in 11 2/3 innings in his last two starts against the Nationals and Rockies.
Bleak as his recent performance has been, Montas isn’t far removed from a stretch of mid-rotation success with the A’s from 2018 to 2022 where he posted 3.70 ERA and 3.61 FIP in 99 appearances. With that being said, it can’t be ignored that Montas underwent shoulder surgery back in February of last year. Since his return from going under the knife, his peripherals are those of a completely different pitcher. He’s struck out just 18.7% of batters faced after entering 2023 with a career 24.3% strikeout rate, and after allowing free passes to just 7.8% of opponents through the end of the 2022 season he’s watched his walk rate balloon to 10% since undergoing surgery. Even with those flaws, however, Montas’s track record as a quality mid-rotation arm could still certainly attract interest from pitching-hungry suitors.
Martinez, however, could prove to be the better fit for the Orioles’ needs. The right-hander has found a niche as one of the best swingmen in the game over the past three seasons with San Diego and Cincinnati, and this season the 33-year-old boasts a solid 3.88 ERA with an even stronger 3.15 FIP. While his 18.9% walk rate isn’t anything to write home about, he’s limited walks to a clip of just 3% this year while surrendering just six home runs in 72 innings of work. Martinez has been used primarily in relief this year, although he made five starts for the Reds early in the season and demonstrated the ability to move between the rotation and bullpen with relative ease during his time in San Diego. The veteran righty would offer the Orioles pitching depth for both the bullpen and rotation down the stretch, possibly working out of the rotation for the remainder of the regular season before moving into the bullpen during the playoffs.
Of course, Baltimore is far from the only club that could be interesting in the Reds’ available rentals. The Dodgers, Astros, Red Sox, and Padres are among the other teams known to be in the market for starting pitching, while virtually every contender is typically on the prowl for rental bullpen help this time of year and could have interest in either Martinez in a relief role or a rental bullpen arm like Wilson, Farmer, or Sims.
Shocking!
Even though I predicted this all along.
I’m sure the altar worshippers will declare this the best move ever though, even as another year of these kids’ window was wasted due to incompetence.
Not a Reds fan, but it does indeed seem like a team 6 games below .500 and 10.5 back from the division lead should sell their rental players.
Nothing in this article says they won’t sell their rental players while buying controllable players. Kinda silly to react to this specific bit of news negatively.
But as a Reds fan, knowing they’ll trade rentals for lower rated prospects or mostly trades for ptbnl or for cash considerations. They have no intentions of buying controllable young talent especially places of need. It doesn’t have to be written in an article for Reds fans to know the end results.
You can only get what the market tells you those guys are worth. If that’s their value, that’s their value. Considering those guys are all JAGs, that’s probably the return. That wouldn’t prohibit them from making other moves. But regardless, the Reds should trade their rental players. It makes the most sense.
Looks to be about a baker’s dozen sellers. So even rentals can get good prospects.
If no one makes a fair offer the team will have a opportunity to get back into the playoff picture. 1 series sweep can change everything. Most bubble teams are waiting 1 more series before they really decide. They look done but 1 amazing week they are back in it.
They could buy younger players but the prices should be high and do you want to pay for a year that you aren’t contending when you can sign or trade for someone in off-season.
They won’t buy. It’s about saving Bob some lettuce.
I don’t think a team is going to overpay for the likes of Frankie Montas, Justin Wilson, or Austin Slater.
It’s possible but I don’t think anyone is giving up too much for the likes of Frankie Montas, Justin Wilson, or Austin Slater, personally.
we Reds fans have been through this so many years that we know what is going to happen…our rentals will be traded for prospects that never make it above AA
Reacting that way is part of This One’s, er, Nostradamus’s schtick.
Just as he predicted, the Sun rose this morning
Self professed smartest guy on this thread
To this one belongs to the reds, since you’re a loser scare of real responses that make you look stupid.
Still waiting to hear why you’re on the internet instead of working for a mlb front office?
Oh that’s right, bc you’re a fkn moron who doesn’t actually know what he’s talking about. Take this and your other mutliple accounts and go play in traffic already. Worthless waste oxygen
The window is only just starting rn, and injuries and the marte suspension have had a real part in their step back or lack of a strong step forward this year. Under the actual circumstances of the reds’ season this is absolutely the right move for them to make and none of the players on the block rn were likely to be part of the reds’ long term future even if the reds were contending this season.
Um incompetence okay but with a very healthy does of injuries.
Krall is fooling himself and probably doing so because declaring they are sellers would essentially mean Krall failed at his job. $50M spent this offseason with very little return…
You don’t have to be an “alter worshipper” to see the case for a team fading out of contention selling rental/short term veteran pieces at the deadline. The reds are barely into their window with their emerging young core rn and injuries have definitely played a role in their disappointing season. Perhaps they could have spent better in the off-season but hindsight is 20/20. And even so, it was never a guarantee that the reds young players were going to step it up en masse this season, so it’s not really reasonable to judge the fo on the premise that the team was just a couple free agent adds away from a serious playoff run.
You’re wasting your breath, Pete
There’s no sense trying to speak reason to him
Hilarious that anyone would think the Reds would “load up” over the winter to make a run. This team will never win under this ownership.
They need to get rid of Bell and Krall for the moves they made, like Austin Slater, signing Justin Wilson after the Dodgers released him and the numerous of players they wasted options on but they never get to play and a day or two later they’re on there way back to AAA
Amen brother
Those are an odd couple moves to focus on re: slater and Wilson. Literally every team takes fliers on bench and depth pieces throughout the season. Like if you think they should have made bigger moves that’s fine, but considering how far we were from the deadline at the time, idk what bigger moves were available when they made those deals.
Jeimer, Pagan, Montas were all bad moves. That’s $41M this year for 0.5bWAR total. That’s terrible value.
Lmao you’re a moron.
There’s a reason all of you idiots are on the internet hating on your supposed “favorite” team, and nowhere near an mlb organization.
Wanna know why? You don’t actually know what you’re talking about. Run along kid
Lmao,
Okay get rid of bell and Krall(the most asinine ignorant take by you)
Who you replacing them with that’s at least equal, if not better.
I know you can’t answer, no one does. Bc you’re actually stupid and don’t know what you’re talking about.
Josh
I disagree. The future does hinge on Lowder and Burns. McLain will be back and out of Hinds and Marte, at least one should rake. I see a bright future for the Reds.
Rece Hinds was hitting .215 in AAA, there is no reason to believe he’ll continue to rake. And who knows with Marte. The problem the current Reds has, is the same as they always have, will the 2 or 3 bonified MLB ready players they have run out of preFA service before they are surrounded by enough talent to succeed. The answer for the past 30+ years is probably not, as they’ll be looking to trade the likes of India, TySteve, possibly Lodolo and Diaz before enough of other young players figure it out.
They have enough talent now. But practically none of them have “figured it out”. Porous defense and run the bases like the Keystone Cops (before your time). Hopefully maturity resolves some of these issues- but Reds are competitive now. Victorious? not so much. Krall’s annoucement says everything, which is absolutely nothing.
If they get rid of Bell. He doesn’t deserve another year. Look at his record. Surely there’s somebody out there that can do better
What I’d like to figure out is what is the cause of all these injuries and misdiagnoses. They go into ST with a slew of guys not ready and then we have to wait 20-30 games for guys to get healthy. Is it a training staff that pushes too hard or not hard enough? Is it a medical staff that is incompetent? Get those answers figured out then you can start calling for heads to roll.
McLain ain’t coming back this year I bet…he is injury prone or soft. Maybe both
No disrespect Manny but you must not follow the Reds closely. Hinds got off to a fast start then went 1-8 with 3 strikeouts and was subsequently benched by David Bell, meanwhile Will Benson remains on a torrid pace in strike outs and is hitting .194 is playing every game. Also, Marte has been miserable at the plate and in the field. It is beginning to look like his start last year was more juice than talent.
Bob
I know you follow the Reds closer than me, but I have seen several of Hinds’ games and the light-tower power and speed combo is all real. Could be a 0.210 hitter with 30 homers and 20 steals, imagine Schwarber with speed and ok defense. I have seen the MILB stats and I will still take Hinds and Steer as corner outfielders. And Lowder and Burns are exciting, De La Cruz is next level and McLain is solid. CES will be back. Sadly, India is surely gone. But take my analysis with a grain of salt, I thought the Cubs starting pitching would keep them a couple games about five hundred.
I would also very much be willing to move those guys
Seriously. I’m baffled by the backlash in the comments here. Literally none of the names on the table here are irreplaceable or pieces that were ever meant or realistically expected to be part of their long term future.
Hmm … seems like this rumour might be from the Reds point of view …
So? Literally they are reporting that the reds have made it known that rental players are on the block and discussing the players that fall in that category. What other pov should it be from?
Many teams are interesting in these Reds.
I’d dump Jeimer’s contract if you could find a taker too.
You take Ty France in exchange?
We heard in the offseason that they wanted Hernandez from the Dodgers. I would have much rather thrown money at him over Candelaria.
Nobody wants Jeimer. He is still guaranteed $45M
Rendon or Benintendi can be had for him.
Why can’t you roll with Stephenson as a Catcher and back-up 1st base and put another catcher on the roster. Steer has shown to be a solid LF and 1st so on days he needs a break just bring Stephenson to 1st. Jeimar is Moose 2.0.
This seems like the prudent thing to do.
Your team didn’t meet expectations and is unfortunately out of contention. Keep the core and sell the pieces you’re going to lose anyway. Let other teams know your intentions as early as possible so you have time to work deals to get the best return possible.
Shhh…some people on here don’t want to hear words like “prudent” and “rational”
100. Imagine being this salty over competent gm-ing relatively early in an ongoing rebuild lol.
They don’t have a ton of rentals but this makes the trade deadline only slightly larger
Nobody wants Montas – and Martinez isn’t gonna get you a lot either. Trade the bullpen, trade the outfield except HInds.
Hinds might end up being decent but I’d hold Friedl first.
Norby & a lower level prospect for Martinez- do it!
Montas will find a home and for real prospect. Martinez will fetch a good prospect.
Doubt Martinez fetches a a good prospect. He’s not a starter but is a good reliever / swing guy who can spot start or long relief (3 innings). Reds paid him like a 3 or 4 when he’s not even capable of holding down a rotation spot. Has value but not good prospect value. Couple 45s is about what they can expect if they trade him. Maybe a 50 but definitely not 55. I’d consider 55 to be a good prospect but 50 an ok prospect.
Agree. Just different definition of good prospect. Trades today are mostly quantity trades. Even for the best elite players you will get some top 100 guys but not the teams best guys. It works. Teams prefer to keep their best bets and the other team likes multiple chances to hit. Lots of high upside 45s 50s have been traded. A 45 with high ceiling A ball teenager is a good prospect to me. And in the context of the conversation. A good prospect for Martinez and good prospect for Crochet are not the same prospect.
Martinez can start or long relief
He’s not a very effective starter. He can be an opener yes but he’s not a guy that’s gonna be a starter. 3 maybe 4 innings as an opener or 2-3 innings as a relief guy.
Has value certainly he’s good at it but a little over paid
Martinez can start or long relief
=====================
He is 0-3 with a 7.36 ERA as a starter.
And too expensive to be a long reliever.
No, just no. Typical fan overrating of guys who are really of marginal value to contenders.
Montas won’t get you anything other than a lottery ticket.
He won’t get you a lottery without the Reds picking up some salary. He is owed maybe $6M PLUS next year’s $2M buyout.
Hinds is quickly coming back to earth, only took a week to get the scouting reports out there.
lol I love knowing none of you idiots will ever be making decisions.
You all would make the team 100000x worse than they are
As a Reds fan I’d make everyone but McClain Cruz India Green Abbott and Lodolo available.
India should be moves if Krall is smart. He is having a career year. He will nab you a top 100 prospect for sure and maybe more as he has 2 1/2 years of control. In a similar vein I would consider moving Tyler Stephensen for the same reason if the price is right. Although we don’t hav an obvious replacement for him if we do.
How does nick Martinez feel about a san diego return?
And how willing would the money crunched padres be to keep him at 12 million next year if he opts in? I guess they could trade him in the offseason.
His skill set is what padres need rn. A starter until Musgrove is back and a quality bullpen piece after.
With Darvish not collecting a check for now, they can afford him, and he should cost little in prospects, right?
Martinez had a great year. Not too pricey. Sellers market. It will cost you but not a top 100 guy. Preller loves trading quantity packages so would have no problem getting him. I don’t think he will opt in unless something awful happens.
He’s a multi-inning reliever on a $14MM contract. He’s not going to fetch a big haul.
Two top 40 guys is a big haul for him to me. Reds can pay some or all of his salary allowed. They should do well.
Two top-40 guys? We can see why “Dream” is part of your moniker.
2 top 40 org prospects? I mean that’s potentially not anything. They’ll get a couple org top 30 guys but towards the back half of that.
The whole reason Martinez left the Padres was the Padres didn’t want to pay him. Not sure that’s any different now.
And the haters are out. The Castellini family does the best they can with what they have. (See small market)This group of young talent is excellent and they were drafted, traded for, or signed this winter by the people the Castellini’s hired and you crap on. Do any of you haters remember how much the Reds spent this winter???
Easy to “predict the negative” when that’s all that comes out of your mouth(so to speak).
Ps, there will be no response to haters past this post. Enjoy
Reds overspent this off-season. I thought they gave out some bad contracts. Ownership wanted to win. They spent $. Didn’t spend it wisely but A for effort.
Cut salary. Reload the farm up. Try again next year.
I dont entirely disagree, but I will give them some credit for keeping the deals short. A more charitable view of their off-season strategy is that they spent in a way that gave them some potential for a playoff run if enough prospects stepped up and performed, but also the ability to retool and reallocate in the near future I’d the results turned out like they have.
You’re an idiot. They didn’t overpay for anyone
Amazing you altar worshippers use haters to describe people who actually want the team to go somewhere before they have to sell off this group. We have seen this act before over the last couple of decades.
But don’t let that stop your Twitter rants.
Feel free to follow another team. 29 others ones out there. I hear Oakland could use some of your incessantly negative comments.
The Reds end of the year payroll will likely be less than last year’s end of the year payroll. All they did was replace outgoing salary.
Good to see a Castellini on this board. By birth or marriage?
They tried to add to a good team and it just didn’t work. Hard to explain why but their hitters just regressed and Montas was a bad signing from the start. Jeimer picked it up after a slow start at least. Them and the Royals had active off seasons for small markets.
I’d love lodolo in Baltimore. Montas can go pound sand. And if the Os want a huge walk rate, why bother with Martinez when they can just get Tanner Scott who hands out walks like a politician hands out promises.
1.1 walks per 9 is low. Incredibly low.
Yes, but that describes neither Montas nor Scott.
Dream on FOme. The Reds aren’t trading Lodolo.
Lodolo is too costly and the Reds won’t be trading him because the O’s won’t give up anyone good enough for him. Why would the Reds even deal him? He has years of arb left and control. The Reds would want something like they got for Castillo from the M’s plus some.
Lodolo is not Castillo get real.
Correct. Lodolo has many more years of control than Castillo had. So more valuable in terms of trade cost.
Wanting and reality is two different thing.
Ok. I would trade you Lodolo. Throw in Montas and still pay his salary remaining. All of it. Either Sims or Farmer.
Orioles give up Dean Kremer. Heston Kjerstad. Coby Mayo. Chayce McDermott. Reds need OF help now more than IF. No real help there unless you go to High A.
Hahahaha–another lopsided fan-fantasy trade proposal.
It’s because they’re not trading Lodolo
It’s weird how badly ran and cheap the Reds have gotten. We all know they won’t be able to afford Hunter Greene when he hits the market 3 years from now. It wouldn’t be completely impractical to trade him this off-season and get back a huge return of quality prospects.
Correction: 5 years from now.
Not cheap. They overpaid and gave out bad contracts. Very active off-season.
Bad contracts, I’ll agree. The payroll though? I’ll respectfully disagree. They rank 22nd in baseball. The Reds should be up in the mid-teens in salary. They’re still cutting corners I believe, otherwise they wouldn’t be making some of these bad signings they have in recent years( i.e. Mike Moustakas ) or even more baffling, getting rid of Sonny Gray. Make it make sense.
Right where they should be. They aren’t in the teens media market size so should not be payroll size.
I agree they did spend, just poorly. But also think they are at a point where they shouldn’t be 24th in payroll. It wouldn’t have killed them to bring back Sonny Gray, for instance.
Oh look, two idiots who don’t actually know what they’re talking about.
Greene is already signed through 2028 with a 21m club option for 2029. Not likely going anywhere till 2027
When does de la Cruz get his extension?
De La Cruz will want to head to the bright lights, big city.
I’m sure he has been approached already. No movement is more likely because of his agent I would guess
“ While his 18.9% walk rate isn’t anything to write home about, he’s limited walks to a clip of just 3% this year…”. Huh?
He meant 18.9% strikeout rate
Likely an 18.9% strikeout rate, which is not impressive.
Bring Martinez home AJ.
Could Montas and sims combined get a top 100? I think that’s plausible. Maybe Cruz instead of sims too
A top 100, sure — in the Angels’ farm system maybe.
Feels like they’ve been trying to trade India for 5 years…
They’d be stupid to trade him at this point, end up replacing him with someone like Espinal.
One bright spot for Cincy is India’s apparent bounce back from his injuries. Had we traded him last winter we would have been selling low. Now his value has increased. Package Martinez, Montas and India and listen to offers? We need an everyday right fielder with some power. Too many platoons out there with no one producing a boost to our offense.
I thought this was going to be the reds year to take the division away from the brewers???
Costly injuries coupled with floor performances
Not been a good season offensively for the team
That’s it. Too many injuries and non performers.. The youth plan wasn’t that bad. You expect players to repeat (and hopefully improve upon) their first significant successful time in the majors(last season). .
Completely lost seasons from McClain, CES and to this point practically Friedl and Marte
And I’d have to crunch the numbers, but if you looked at OPS from the OF last season vs this I’m sure it’s beyond depressing
Good lord, Deeds is so incompetent. “Bleak as his recent performance has been” is NOT PROPER ENGLISH. You can’t just leave “as” out at the start of the sentence because you feel like it. Grammar isn’t optional, especially if you’re being paid to write. And Deeds is hardly meriting of a professional gig with his brutal writing.
I think it’s a stylistic choice, bro.
What style is that? Bad grammar?
If Lodolo was made available he would be popular. There are a LOT of contending teams who need a lefty starter. Lodolo is under control through 2027 so more than a rental.
No chance the reds make him available
Greene, Lodolo, EDLC, McClain, and Steer are who this team is trying to build around with Marte, India, Stevenson, CES, and Abbott as good next pieces
If the Reds did shop Lodolo, I would want O’s GM Mike Elias on the phone with them immediately.
I don’t think they will though.
I keep commenting on this post and my comments aren’t showing up. What is going on?
I keep getting follow ups to my post about trading Lodolo. Yet they are not here and neither is my post. Yet I get follow up posts that I cannot respond to?
What ever they do MUST be done with 2025 and beyond in mind….UNFORTUNATELY!
Sign me up for Martinez, but Montas is a hard pass.
Martinez from the Reds, plus Fedde from the White Sox and Scott from the Marlins would be a pretty sweet deadline for the O’s and wouldn’t require parting with any of the elite prospects like Holliday, Basallo, and Mayo.
The Reds should be open to dealing their rental players to any team not named the Dodgers. The Dodgers never give good prospects back in any deal with the Reds that ever was worth anything.
They really don’t have much worth trading other than seeing what they’d get for Montas or Martinez and maybe India? I don’t see teams lining up to trade for absurdly overpaid pitchers who can potentially hit a wall because they haven’t pitched much in two years.
If Krall has any illusions of CIN having an outside chance of staying in the hunt, I’d like to remind him that only one member of the Reds’ bullpen has an ERA below 4.00 Sorry to rain on anyone’s parade, but that’s a cold hard fact that rarely gets mentioned.