The Reds are planning to select top pitching prospect Chase Burns from Triple-A Louisville, reports C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic. He will start against the Yankees on Tuesday in his MLB debut.
Burns, 22, was the second overall pick in last year’s draft. He dominated for Wake Forest in his final year of college play, going 10-1 while striking out 191 batters across 100 innings and pitching to a 2.70 ERA. Coming into 2025, he was widely considered the top prospect in the Reds organization and a top 50 prospect in the game. If possible, the young right-hander has only improved his reputation over his first 13 professional starts. Armed with a fastball that hits triple-digit and one of the nastiest sliders in the minor leagues, Burns has put up a 1.77 ERA, a 36.8% strikeout rate, and a 6.85 strikeout-to-walk ratio between High-A, Double-A, and Triple-A. Although he has shot up through the system at a speed rarely seen, he has yet to ever look overmatched. So, after just two starts at Triple-A, he is already gearing up for his next challenge.
This might seem like an aggressive promotion, but Burns has done everything in his power to earn the opportunity. Meanwhile, the Reds are low on starting pitching depth. Wade Miley landed on the IL yesterday after just three appearances for Cincinnati. He joined Hunter Greene and Carson Spiers, as well as Rhett Lowder, Julian Aguiar, and Brandon Williamson, the three of whom have been out all season. To make matters worse, Nick Martinez has struggled badly in June, and Chase Petty, recalled earlier today, has taken the loss in all three games in which he’s appeared so far in his big league career. Thus, with an ailing big league rotation and Burns excelling in the minors, the Reds are going to give their top prospect a shot in the majors, less than a year after they drafted him. They will have to free up a space for Burns on the active and 40-man rosters prior to his debut.
For the flak the 2024 draft got, Burns will be the 6th draftee from last year to make the Majors, all of course within a year.
Who gave it flak? It was a very decent draft class.
It was more a case in comparison to the top 5 of the 2023 class. All of whom could have gone 1/1 in many drafts.
The 1/1 player in most drafts isn’t the best available player. It’s usually someone that’s willing to take a haircut so the team can load up on talent in later rounds. Skenes was obviously a 1/1 caliber player but Bazzana wasn’t the best prospect in the draft last year. There were multiple bats coming off of record setting NCAA years and Burns was elite. They would have gone just as high in 23 especially over the high school bats.
REVISIONIST HISTORY!!!!!
So many evaluators were saying it was a below average draft with some even saying that none of the top picks would have even been considered until ~10th overall if they were in the 2023 draft (which in hindsight a lot of 2023’s shine has worn off apart from some big hits up top and some preps tracking like solid contributors albeit still in the low minors)
I remember Baseball America did a poll of evaluators that said the 2024 was weak up top, had a really poor prep class, and had below-average collegiate depth
What are you talking about? Burnes, Caglione, and Condon were all highly graded amongst others.
Respectively
Go back and read FG, BA, and other sites’ coverage from that cycle. “Charlie Condon is a good prospect” and “the 2024 draft class is below average” aren’t mutually exclusive. Nobody was saying those guys you mentioned didn’t have good evaluations, but there was a lot more nitpicking with their profiles that caused writers to make crazy comparisons to 2023 that have proven to be incorrect thus far
Go look at the BA article I talked about in my last comment.
I would link it if this site didn’t block comments to links to sites other than BRef and MLBTR. Not a huge sample, but they gave the class a 47 on the 20-80 scale
If everyone can get and stay healthy, the Reds are going to have a really good young rotation for quite a while.
It seems like they are snake bit by injuries. Every year they lose key pieces for more than just a few games and it seems to decimate the pitching staff.
I feel like the Reds and the Nats have a ton of good young talent, I really don’t understand why they are struggling as much as they are? Nats are in a tough division and have a pretty bad bullpen, Reds I feel like have a great underrated rotation.
They have a 4 year window to get back into the playoffs, they’ll likely blow it by not building around it.
Gotta keep up with the Miz. I get it.
Will lowder pitch this yr or hes out til 2026?
Outlook is not good