02-13-2024, 10:29 AM
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Reds pitchers report today: The battle for the starting rotation
Today is the day that spring training officially starts. Pitchers and catchers are due to show up today at the Cincinnati Reds spring training facility in Goodyear, Arizona. The catching position seems to be set as long as both Tyler Stephenson and Luke Maile remain healthy. What doesn’t seem as set is the pitching situation.
The Reds spent the offseason upgrading their pitching staff over what they had in 2023. But while that did happen, what isn’t clear is exactly how all of it is going to play out. Today we’re going to take a look at the jobs that do seem to be locked up before taking a look at the ones that may be available.
One would imagine that if Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, and Frankie Montas are healthy that they will be in the starting rotation short of just an absolutely abysmal performance in spring training. I would argue that the same holds true for Graham Ashcraft, who outside of a 6-week stretch in the middle of May/June, pitched like a #1.
Depending on how you want to look at that, there’s one or two spots up for grabs in the rotation. The guys in play for that spot/those spots would include Ashcraft, Brandon Williamson, Nick Lodolo, Connor Phillips, and Nick Martinez.
Among that group it would seem that only Martinez would shift into a relief role with the club (at least to start the year) if he didn’t make the rotation. The others, if they lost out, would likely head to Triple-A to keep starting and provide options and depth for the rotation.
Ashcraft, Williamson, and Lodolo can all point to their past performance as a reason as to why they should get one of the spots. Ashcraft posted a 2.00 ERA in his first six starts last year before a 6-week stretch of eight starts with a 12.82 ERA. He got things going in his final start of June, and over his final 12 starts of the year posted a 2.58 ERA before a toe injury cost him the final month of the year. There was a long stretch of very good pitching for him at the end of the year and a shorter, but very good stretch to begin the season, too.
Brandon Williamson had a strong debut on May 16th, but he struggled for the next month after that and at the end of June his ERA was 5.82. But like Ashcraft, he turned things around and he made 15 starts from July through the end of the season with a 3.79 ERA. While his second half wasn’t as good as Ashcraft’s, it was still an above-average showing from the lefty and the sample size wasn’t exactly small (in the sense of small within a season).
For Nick Lodolo he’s not going to be pointing to any part of 2023. He made seven starts, and after the first few he was very bad. Of course we would later find out that he was pitching with a stress reaction in his leg and that injury would ultimately keep him off of the big league mound for the final five months of the year. He attempted to come back late in the year and pitched on a rehab assignment in Louisville, but his stress reaction returned and he was shut down. What Lodolo can do is point to his rookie season in 2022 when he made 19 starts with a 3.66 ERA and had 131 strikeouts with just 39 walks in 103.1 innings.
Nick Martinez has split much of his big league career between being a starter and a reliever, but his career in the big leagues is a tale of two parts – before and after he pitched in Japan. From 2014-2017 he posted a 4.77 ERA while making 68 starts and 20 relief appearances. Then he spent 2018-2021 in Japan. When he returned he signed with San Diego and he has a 3.45 since coming back to the big leagues while making 19 starts and pitching in 91 games out of the bullpen. With the Padres over the previous two seasons he’s posted a 3.41 ERA in 95.0 innings as a starter and a 3.48 ERA as a reliever in 121.2 innings. His peripheral stats are better as a reliever, but he’s found success as a starter in limited action in that role.
Connor Phillips doesn’t have big league numbers he can point at. And his numbers in Triple-A were merely solid at best. But Phillips has some of the best stuff of anyone in camp and if he comes out and performs (which in his case would involve consistently throwing strikes – the biggest issue he’s had in the minor leagues), then there’s a case to be made for him, too.
The depth is a lot better this spring than it was a year ago. But there are still some question that need to be answered for just about everyone, too. Frankie Montas, Nick Lodolo, and Graham Ashcraft are all coming back from various injuries. Hunter Greene’s got to show a little more consistency in order to take that next step – speaking of which, he was one of the five pitchers that Eno Sarris of The Athletic picked as a potential breakout. Brandon Williamson and Andrew Abbott need to show that what they did last year was both real and that they can continue to adjust to hitters adjusting to them.
We’ll return to this later in the week and take a look at the bullpen, which has just as much depth and just as many spots of uncertainty
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