The Cincinnati Reds officially reunited with Eugenio Suárez last week, adding the proven slugger to the lineup that the entire baseball world knew they needed. Whether or not he’ll play the position he’s played almost every day for the last ten years remains to be seen, but his bat will be in the lineup in some form or fashion most every time the Reds suit up.
The addition of Suárez wasn’t perfect, per se. Spencer Steer and Sal Stewart and Ke’Bryan Hayes and JJ Bleday will all see their paths to 700 PA impacted because of it, as this roster has beaucoup moving parts and nary a truly ‘established’ position player at one everyday spot outside of Elly De La Cruz. That’s perfectly fine, though, because a) said flexibility of the rest of the roster and b) the inevitability that some folks penciled-in now will miss some time for something.
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The same can be said for the starting rotation at the moment, really. The impact of full seasons from Chase Burns and Rhett Lowder (and Brandon Williamson and Julian Aguiar) should, in theory, have every bit the boost of impact as bringing in Suárez offensively. That’s four starting options already, and that’s on top of Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo, and Brady Singer – a cadre that’s the envy of every franchise in the sport right now.
The old rule of chucking the ball from the mound still holds true, regardless – you can never have too much pitching depth. Just last year, for instance, the Reds had every single one of those names within the organization as well and still needed Nick Martinez to throw 165.2 IP (and make 26 starts). They still needed to trade for Zack Littell at the deadline and hand him 10 starts. Chase Petty and Carson Spiers each started twice, and the club nutured the return of veteran Wade Miley into a trio of appearances (and a pair of starts himself).
It’s Miley, in particular, that prompted this post. This time a year ago he was a veteran familiar with the staff and the club, a guy working his way through some things – injuries, age, rust – and leaned into signing with a club where there was both familiarity and upside. He was a bargain-bin veteran, a reclamation project, a potential ‘flip’ or ‘lightning in a bottle’ candidate – he was every single catch-phrase we’ve come to learn as Reds fans, though this time he was precisely that without being someone on who they had to lean.
For years, a guy like that would’ve been brought in and been thrust into a key role as soon as physically possible, even if that was despite not being physically capable. Though things didn’t go swimmingly for Wade last year, the fact is that the Reds got him for depth, didn’t need him in any real urgency, and spent their money on a little lottery ticket that didn’t have to hit big for them to have a chance at the postseason.
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That’s the one real thing I do not yet see in Reds camp this year. They haven’t brought in anyone from outside the organization who has done it before, done it well, not done it recently, but maybe, just maybe, could be tweaked in a way that would unlock their ability to do it again. It wouldn’t need to be on Opening Day, per se. It wouldn’t need to be throwing 6 innings every fifth day right away, either. Ideally, it could be in a fashion akin to Martinez last year – a guy who can be a reliever and good at it, or slide into the rotation and chomp innings when the situation comes up.
Anyone who fits that role and is still on the market right now most definitely has their flaws. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be unsigned, nor would we be talking about them as if they were only really to be leaned upon in a break glass in case of emergency scenario – or, unless they came into camp and showed they’d figured out what had put them so down in the first place and threw their way right back into the discussion.
There is one name out there that has kept popping into my head that ticks a lot of these boxes, though.
He’s twice been an All Star, won a World Series, and twice finished in the Top 10 of Cy Young Award voting. He’s also had major elbow surgery, missed a year, and pitched to just a 5.10 ERA (5.62 FIP) with a trio of franchises in his most recent two seasons. Still just 31 years old, he also grew up a Reds fan in Reds Country, and even was part of Derek Johnson’s final recruiting class at Vanderbilt before Johnson moved to the pro ranks to coach – a class that included the likes of Carson Fulmer, Matt Olson, and Dansby Swanson, among others.
That guy is Lexington, Kentucky’s own Walker Buehler.
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Now, I do not know if his camp is holding out for a guaranteed spot in some team’s starting rotation. I do not know if he and his agent have priced themselves out of what remains of Cincinnati’s budget. I do also realize those ugly stats I’ve mentioned since he had TJ and missed the 2023 season, and that his average fastball velocity in 2025 (94.1 mph) was down from the upper 96 mph territory it sat during his heyday before surgery.
I also do not know if he’s willing to wait into the season to see what teams get smashed by the injury bug and suddenly need him more than they do now.
What I do know, though, is that he’s pretty much exactly the kind of guy that would be nice to have around if, say, Williamson and Aguiar – both coming off their own Tommy John surgeries – don’t come back exactly the way they were before just yet. He’d be the kind of guy you’d like Johnson to work with and maybe, just maybe, rediscover enough form to take innings off Burns and Lowder to keep them fresh down the stretch. And while you hope he’d come in off the heap and land running the way Dan Straily did back in the day, he’d come into the team this time in a way more like Miley in that if it simply didn’t work out both sides could move on without denting the roster too badly at all.
We’ve reached the point of the offseason where some team is going to do it, and rightfully so. It sure does make a lot of sense for that club to be the Reds.
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