Top Reds pitching prospect Nick Lodolo will make his Major League debut tomorrow, the team announced. Lodolo, the No. 7 overall pick in 2019, will start tomorrow’s game against the Guardians and join fellow top prospect Hunter Greene in the rotation. Greene impressed with seven punchouts and a barrage of triple-digit heaters in his own MLB debut this past weekend. Lodolo has not yet been selected to the 40-man roster, so Cincinnati will need to make a corresponding move before he is formally promoted to the big leagues.
It’s been expected since the season opened that Lodolo would take the mound this week and make his big league debut, but it’s nevertheless notable that Cincinnati has now made it official and set the stage for a forthcoming 40-man move to add the prized young lefty to the roster. Lodolo split the 2021 season between Double-A Chattanooga and Triple-A Louisville, pitching to a combined 2.31 ERA with an eye-popping 38.8% strikeout rate, just a 5.5% walk rate and a 54.3% ground-ball rate.
Impressive as those numbers were, Lodolo also missed time last year with blister troubles and, far more troublingly, with a shoulder strain that ended his season in August. He looked plenty sharp this spring, tossing 11 1/3 innings of 2.38 ERA ball with a 12-to-2 K/BB ratio, so it certainly looks as though he’s put the shoulder troubles behind him for now. Still, those injuries limited Lodolo to just 50 2/3 innings in 2021, and he of course didn’t pitch at all in 2020, when there was no minor league season.
The largest workload Lodolo has ever recorded is the combined 121 1/3 innings he pitched between his junior season at Texas Christian University and the Reds’ lower minor league levels in 2019, when he was drafted. It stands to reason that Cincinnati will be relatively careful when it comes to managing his innings.
Even if the Reds limit his innings on the season as a whole or on a start-by-start basis, there’s good reason to be excited about the lefty’s arrival on the scene. As one would expect for a pitcher with that lofty draft stock and those scintillating 2021 numbers, Lodolo is widely regarded as one of baseball’s most promising young pitchers. He ranked as a top-100 prospect at Baseball America (No. 32), MLB.com (No. 42), Baseball Prospectus (No. 42), FanGraphs (No. 52) and ESPN (No. 79).
There’s a fairly wide split as to just how highly Lodolo ought to be regarded, though most scouting reports on him will characterize him as a likely mid-rotation arm. Still, FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin wrote that Lodolo was one of the “more divisive” players discussed with evaluators when writing their top prospect rankings, noting that while analytics-driven evaluations love his changeup, scouts question it and wonder why he threw it so little (9%) if it’s truly one of his best offerings.
FanGraphs touts Lodolo for having three plus pitches, whereas Baseball America opines that the slider is Lodolo’s only plus offering. The Athletic’s Keith Law omitted Lodolo from his Top 100 altogether, but ranked him fifth in the Cincinnati system while opining on the lack of a third plus pitch and likening Lodolo’s slider and arm slot to that of Andrew Miller.
Split camps are nothing new when it comes to prospect evaluation, and there’s certainly still consensus that Lodolo is a big league talent who’ll play a role with the Reds for years to come. Data-driven models and traditional scouting may not agree on the lefty’s ceiling, but Lodolo will have the opportunity to start proving skeptics wrong beginning tomorrow. He’ll bring a mid-90s heater, a quality sweeping slider and that divisive changeup with him to Great American Ball Park, and there’s a clear long-term opportunity in the rotation now that Cincinnati has traded Sonny Gray and dropped Wade Miley via waivers.
If Lodolo is in the big leagues for good, there’s still enough time on the calendar for him to log a full year of service time — regardless of his finish in end-of-year awards voting. He’d be eligible for arbitration after the 2024 season and would be controlled through the 2027 campaign via arbitration. Of course, future optional assignments could impact that timeline, but Lodolo’s fate is largely in his own hands now that he’s getting his first big league look at a time when the rotation has such ample opportunity.
Wow reds putting together a nice rotation.
Greene was throwing some easy heat. It was pretty impressive.
I watched that start, and I was really blown away by his poise and execution. Greene has definitely been worth the wait and appears to have a very bright future
I was hoping that, when Mookie went on the block, that the Reds’ FO would talk themselves into thinking they should give up Greene+ for Betts.
Let’s see how these young’uns pan out. Could be gold, maybe lead
Have they gotten’ their prerequisite TMJ?
It’s about time a ceo or owner finally mouthed off whiny fans. Reds should spend less than the rays and give the fans something to really complain about. That way they can learn their lesson. I’d jack the price up on them too. They’re too stupid not to buy tickets make them pay more.
Always an exciting time when a rebuilding franchise puts a couple of young studs in the pitching rotation. I remember when the White Sox starting calling up the studs from the minors one-by-one. It was great! Rebuilds can be fun and if done correctly can have the franchise set up to compete at a high level for a lot of years to come.
Think the Reds might be willing to trade Mike Moustakis?
Willing? Yes, but would anyone want to trade for him?
If someone wanted him, he’d be gone already.
Interesting how 2 key members of the 2015 Royals are now both overpaid, underwhelming, unwanted, and untradeable. Talking about Moustakas and Hosmer of course.
A.J. Preller stepped in and way outbid Kansas City to get Hosmer done. All those years. All that money!
7 years later, they aren’t the players they used to be. Imagine that
@bobtillman The Padres would love to talk to you about Moustakas. They will take him off your hands if you correct 2 of A.J.Preller’s mistakes. You must take back Eric Hosmer and the dude from Korea that Preller signed last year to play 2B who was such a bust that I forgot his name.
Red looking to get those extra picks out of new agreement
I’m excited to finally see what Lodolo can do in the majors. If both he and Greene can stick there all season and perform well, the Reds offseason of divesting veteran pitchers will make more sense. I still don’t agree with them letting Miley go just to save $1M, as they could have easily traded him but it’s nice to see the future of the Reds promoted so early this year; hopefully they can contribute and help keep the Reds in the NL Central race. Baseball is better when more teams are competitive.
Miley was $10M, not $1M. And he had an awful September. My assumption is always that, if someone offered to trade for him, they’d have made the trade instead getting nothing back.
Just for discussion purposes, if the Cubs had the option of changing their mind, do you think they’d still have picked him up?
It was a $1 MM immediate bonus and a $10 MM salary. So the Reds could have kept him to trade, but would have still had to pay his bonus.
As a Cardinals fan, I like the Reds farm system. I saw Greene’s debut and I like what I saw. He has a big arm and he will only get better from here. I am looking forward to seeing Lodolo’s debut as well. Those 2 have the potential to be very, very lethal. Combine them with Mahle and if they can keep Castillo, the Reds could have one of the most exciting young rotations in all of baseball. The future does look bright for the Reds and their fans. I wish those 2 young men the best of luck, except for when they pitch against the Cardinals LOL.
And Brandon Williamson just was promoted to the top 100 MLb prospects with the graduation of Bart. Pitching future looks very bright in Cincy
The future is bright as long as the FO doesn’t figure out a way to hose it up.
Let me re-phrase that for you: “The future is bright UNTIL the FO figures out a way to hose it up.”
The Reds rotation has the potential to be very good, if only they had a couple big bats in their lineup. I bet Nick Castellanos and Jesse Winker could rake at GABP
I think we already know they are good hitters and ok players.
Where are all the “service time manipulation” geeks? Reds #1  pitching prospects in the rotation before Easter? Surely, Greene, Lodolo, Minor etc. can secure Krall a + 90 loss 2022 season, right? Why else would the Reds do it? Actually, Reds have a decent mix of talented kids & producing veterans. Their pitching staff could be competitive & their defense has improved.
Cardinals are doing that with Nolan Gorman
I think Gorman will be up in the majors before the end of the season, maybe taking over at 2nd base full time in 2023 and move Edman to shortstop. I get this feeling that DeJong could be in his last year as a Cardinal, especially if he doesn’t have a bounce back year like Mozeliak is predicting.
They changed the rules on service time in the new cba. Literally no point in waiting now.
I love what the Reds are doing. The big sports giant just ran yet another article today about the Reds tanking, and referenced trading Senzel, Saurez, Gray and not re-signing Castellanos.
Senzel is a 27 year old ‘that will finally reach his potential this year’ guy with a career OPS+ of 77, which is HORRIBLE. Saurez has a career OPS+ of 108 and carries negative defensive metrics (as an idea, Chris Johnson had 108 OPS+ in 4 of his first 6 seasons). Gray is a serviceable SP3, but it is quite possible all these young Reds starters all finish with better park adjusted ERA’s. They will likely only really miss Castellanos, but their OF is better than given credit.
It’s not just that the Reds got a couple of high-ceiling prospects and saved a bunch of money, but more importantly, they are letting their young talent get MLB experience.
Tanking is a joke in baseball anyway. It’s not like getting the #1 pick is going to net you a sure-fire star like the NFL or NBA (and even then it doesn’t always happen).
Good on ya Reds. If the Braves don’t win it all I hope you do and shut up all these ‘tanking’ conspiracists.
I like what you wrote but you made one mistake. They traded Winker not Senzel. Senzel is still playing CF for the Reds. Winker was who they traded to Seattle and he’s started off slow but it’s only been one week.
#FirePhil (what an idiot).
Moustakas to the Padres for Hosmer and Weathers. Hosmer’s contract is larger. Weathers would offset the contracts.
Well, that escalated quickly.