The Starting Pitching That Undercut A Hopeful Cincinnati Reds Season

It is mathematically no longer possible that the Cincinnati Reds will make the 2023 postseason. Heading into the season’s final weekend, their 82-78 record was tied with that of the division rival Chicago Cubs, and 1.5 behind the 83-76 Miami Marlins. But their path to the final Wild Card spot was dependent upon the failure of others. Winning out may well still not have been enough. And a heavy loss to the St Louis Cardinals in game 161 sealed the deal.

Ultimately, what cost them was a dearth of starting pitching. It is not the scoring of runs that is the problem; the hitting line-up, put simply, is good enough. Notwithstanding the middle-of-the-pack metrics on the season, the line-up come season’s end – once the hugely talented young infield was in place paired with the emergence of Will Benson – was productive in the immediate term and tantalising in the long.

Similarly, the bullpen – which did not figure to be a strong suit at the season – has held up well, with the combination of Buck Farmer, Ian Gibaut and others holding the fort for the unhittable-on-his-day Alexis Diaz. When the Reds’ lineup has put them ahead, the relief core has largely held onto it, a big improvement from 2022.

The problem, then, has been not having enough leads to defend. And rather than be the fault of the line-up, this has largely been a problem caused by a shortage of starting pitching.

Midseason reinforcement Andrew Abbott hit the ground running, giving up only five runs in his first six starts (1.21 ERA, 0.88 WHIP), continuing his electric season at the Triple-A Louisville Bats. Perhaps fatigued by this extended season, though, he faded down the stretch, giving up a 6.48 ERA over the season’s final two months and going winless since August 16th.

The de facto number one starter Hunter Greene certainly has ace stuff, and signed a contract extension earlier in the season that commits him to the spot, but the results are not there yet. Greene’s high strikeout rates speak to the quality of his stuff, yet the high home run yield also speaks to the imprecise delivery of it all. Greene heads into the regular season finale with a 4-6 record and a 4.71 ERA across 21 starts, numbers that have gone backwards from his rookie year, rather than progress.

The seasons of both Abbott and Greene were emblematic of that of the Reds as a whole. They have plenty of promise, but are not quite there yet. Elsewhere, fellow second-year player Graham Ashcraft was particularly inconsistent and broke down before season’s end (perhaps better suited to the bullpen long term given his limited pitching arsenal), while the other promoted starting prospect, lefty Brandon Williamson, was solid in his rookie campaign (23 starts, 117.0 innings pitched, 4.46 ERA, 1.28 WHIP) but not yet the quality required for a postseason team.

And those were the good ones. After that, it tapered off quite significantly. Veteran Luis Cessa was cut long ago after his incredibly difficult start to the season (merely the first of three teams to cut him this season), while Luke Weaver rode his league-worst 6.81 ERA a lot longer before the same inevitably happened to him too. Nick Lodolo wound up on the season-ending injured list after only seven starts, Connor Overton managed only three, while Vladimir Gutierrez and Justin Dunn never got off it at all.

This is not to say that the Abbott/Green/Ashcraft/Williamson starting core will be a problem. Far from it; every Major League franchise would find use for all of them somewhere. However, the four were not able to offset the fact that a team with postseason aspirations – no matter how unexpected they may have been after a 100-loss season in 2022 – gave a combined 47 starts to Weaver, Overton, Cessa, the clearly-not-ready Lyon Richardson and the journeyman Ben Lively.

In the long term, the extended run-outs for the core four should speed up their development and accelerate the timeline of the franchise’s return to contention. It must however smart to know that, had the Weaver experiment ended a few starts earlier, the Reds would likely be back to the postseason already.