BOLD: Reds Starting Rotation EXPANDS, Terry Francona and Derek Johnson IGNITE Pitching INNOVATION

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Terry Francona is thinking outside the box.

The Reds are taking six starting pictures north, but it's not what you think.

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On today's show a little bit later on, we'll tell you why there is no spot left in the

field that for grabs for the Reds roster in just a few minutes.

Well, I said how this new pitching plan could probably go wrong, but let's begin with

what the Reds are planning to do with their starting rotation.

Because Steve, you are right, this is outside the box.

This is actually something that we've talked about in the past.

I'll be it slightly tongue-in-cheek because we never thought it would happen.

The Reds are taking six starting pitchers.

It was reported by multiple Reds reporters on Tuesday evening-ish that all of Retlouder

Brian Williamson and Chase Burns have made the starting rotation on top of the top three.

But all of this being put together is very intriguing because they are not going to expect

six innings out of these guys every sixth day.

No, and this is not going to be a straight six-man rotation.

This actually kind of lands where you and I have always thought if they were to ever give

it a shot, where it would land.

That's where it landed.

Now, first of all, Terry may wake up tomorrow and read the headlines and be like, how much

Guinness did I have yesterday?

Here's how it's going to work.

The Reds are taking six pitchers north.

They are going to piggyback some combination of Chase Burns, Brennan Williamson and Retlouder.

Those three pitchers are all going to work together to cover innings because what this

means is there's one less spot in the bullpen.

So we're going to see games where Chase Burns starts Brennan Williamson finishes.

We're going to see games where Brennan Williamson starts Retlouder finishes and vice versa.

Those pieces are going to move around to cover innings.

Now, from a standpoint of reducing wear and tear on those three guys' arms early on,

this works brilliantly.

This keeps all three stretched out.

It keeps all three at the Big League level and it keeps all three facing Big League

hitters helping the Cincinnati Reds win baseball games.

The downside of it comes a little bit later, which we're going to get into in the second

segment of today's show because there are multiple possibilities of a downside.

But here's what I like, Jeff.

I like that Terry is trying to get the best arms in the rotation, even though they might

not all quite be ready to throw 100 pitches every time out, which is where he said he wants

everybody to be.

That's Terry Francoin's goal for the starting rotation for all five guys to hit opening

day ready to throw 100 pitches.

They are clearly not there based on coming off of injury based on some setbacks in spring

training based on just being careful with arms that haven't had a lot of wear and tear

on them for the previous couple of years in louder and Williamson.

So I like the idea of setting things up this way.

I'm not sure how long it can last, but I like them starting out this way, especially

when you look at the April schedule and know that early on, there are some off days built

in that are going to limit the need for a fifth starter, limit the need for guys to

throw a lot of innings early on.

Right, and I think that's the important part of this is that he's not saying that yes,

we are committed to if Rhett louder only goes for innings Brandon Williamson has to come

in and throw another four innings or something like that.

Or we must pitch chase burns and Brandon Williamson on the same day.

There's a little bit of this where they will communicate that strategy to the players.

They're just not outlining it right now.

That was even something that he had mentioned to reporters is that yes, the idea is that

these guys will be available for this plan, but we're not giving you all of our strategy

with this right now.

I have no doubt whatsoever that this strategy came from the mind of Derek Johnson.

This does not feel like a Tito frame cone type of plan.

This feels like something where he was given the idea and he signed off on it.

Because when you look at these three guys, Rhett louder has seemed

the best and most healthiest and most consistently like recovering of all three of them.

But they are still allowing for the possibility coming off of a year in which you faced multiple

different injuries and lost except for a couple of rehab starts in AAA in entire year.

They're allowing for the fact that some things might just not work out.

And so maybe they got to pull them in the fourth or something and they pull them in the fourth.

They put in Brandon Williamson for two, three, four innings, something like that.

But at the same time, they keep those guys on starting rotation routine schedules as well.

Because the one thing that we've heard consistently, you know, outside of the

deload and the range of motion things is chase burns and Brandon Williamson are still learning

the team of a starting pitcher.

And I think that this feeds into that and this will help them build that routine.

Let's let's be clear.

They said that about chase burns still learning the routine of a starting pitcher.

What they said about Brandon Williamson is that he has having a hard time

getting back into it, getting back to the five day, the five day work load.

And I think that's just a byproduct of Tommy John and being out for a year.

So this also lets the reds address that because what that really means to me is he's taking

a little bit of extra time to recover between starts.

And if you start, if you piggyback Brandon Williamson off of chase burns this week.

And then next week you piggyback him off of ret louder.

You give him an extra day.

You give him a six day routine versus a five day routine while he's still working his way back.

And let's be let's be clear, he's still working his way back coming back from this injury.

So I like this.

I like this in addressing where these pictures are at right now.

And instead of just simply saying we are going to shoehorn you into what we want you to do,

they're now saying we want to make sure we get the best guys on the mound every single day.

And we can do that if we're a little unorthodox.

And I love that.

And you're right.

I think this came from Derek Johnson.

I'm sure Derek Johnson walked into Tito's office and was like,

Hey, I got an idea boss.

And because if this was from the mind of Tito,

we would have seen this in Cleveland or we would have seen this in Boston.

We would have seen this somewhere along the way.

We haven't seen that before.

This is Derek trying to take his best guys north.

And I love it.

I love I love the strategy.

I love getting outside the box.

I love the potential for it modernizing the way we handle starting rotations.

Let's just see how this works.

Because if it works, other teams will adopt it.

That's the history of baseball.

When a team tries something new and it works,

everybody else starts doing it.

So this could be very interesting for the starting pictures.

Not only for the Cincinnati Res, but for baseball, if this pays off.

Because we had talked about the fact that all of the messaging surrounding chase burns

made it seem as though if he were to be on the opening day rotation,

his first start, which albeit won't be to the pirate series,

second series of the year.

But his first start would likely be like a four inning start.

We would not expect him to go six.

And he would have to be ultra efficient with his pitches to go five.

Because he's not throwing a hundred.

He's likely throwing 80 pitches from that first start.

So with this, I also kind of think,

he's not putting a timeline as how long they're going to do this.

Because it's going to be who shows that they can a,

stretch themselves out in a particular game at a consistent level,

and b, recover consistently from that start.

And that's going to be the key with all of this.

And that we probably will evaluate their performance.

If they are detrimental to the ball club, they'll send them down to AAA.

But if it's something where it's like, okay, they're pitching well,

but they're pitching three, maybe four innings.

And then the next starts three and maybe four.

And then the next starts three and maybe four.

I think at that point, it's if you're seeing more innings from one guy,

I think that guy takes the spot.

And then they send the guy who's not necessarily throwing as much down to Louisville.

The only other way I envisioned this playing out other than this

was if they did a plug-in play on the back two rotation spots,

where a couple guys were up for two turns through the rotation,

which is 10 days.

And that is also, coincidentally, the number of days you have to stay down if you get sent down.

And so if you sent a guy down for 10 days,

went two times through, brought that guy back up,

sent another guy down, they go two times through the rotation,

and you rotate those three guys that way.

They could end up there.

That could be the next evolution of this once all the guys are stretched out.

You still keep the guys.

And I know there's a segment of Reds Country out there,

a segment of the everydayers.

They're going to be in the comment sections, Jeff, saying,

well, aren't they still pitching in AAA?

You're not saving any wear and tear on their arm.

I've seen those comments.

It's true.

They would still be pitching in AAA,

but every pitcher that's ever pitched in AAA in the Major League Baseball

tell you it's different.

It's different on the amount of adrenaline you're pitching with.

It's different with the amount of wear and tear you're putting on your arm.

It's just different.

So while they would still be pitching,

it would be more like a bullpen in between kind of pitching

versus actually pitching at the Major League Baseball.

So there are still ways this could evolve.

I think this is a great starting point, Jeff.

And I'm excited to see where it goes from here.

The interesting part about this plan, though,

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My tongue got a little tight up there at the end Jeff.

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All right, Jeff let's keep talking about this because

while it's it's interesting it's unorthodox.

It's out of the box.

It's something new.

It does set up a potential for there to be some consequences

depending on how long this all plays out.

There's two things here, Jeff.

I think that are key potential problems doing this for a long period of time.

Potential problem number one is you are pitching all three of burns louder

and Williamson right out of the gate from opening day hoping to have a team

that goes deep into October.

Those guys are going to run out of innings somewhere along the way.

The other potential problem that I see here is that to do this

you are giving up a bullpen spot.

You're going from eight guys in the bullpen to seven guys in the bullpen.

Granted, Brandon Williamson's going to cover one day of those

one day one games worth of those innings.

But the other guys are going to have to fill the gap.

So the relief pictures will be throwing more.

Those are the two potential problems I see if you were to do this

for half a season, all of a season, extra wear and tear

both on those three starting pictures in the bullpen.

What I find intriguing about that is I think the alternative is

all right, you got a guy whether it's Williamson or Burns or louder

that maybe they are limited to four innings.

So then you're just admitting to yourself already.

All right, we got to cover five innings with this bullpen.

And so I think that Terry Francon and Derek Johnson probably

discussed this and was like, would we rather tax our bullpen

or would we rather start, not necessarily start the clock

as if it's some sort of service time thing,

but start the pitch count earlier on in the year

for our guys that we would use in the middle of the summer

to help alleviate the pitch counts on other guys

that are clearly on a pitch count for the season.

Because louder, Burns and Williamson should all be on pitch counts

based on how their career trajectory is right now.

This is not something where they should punt this and say,

whatever, Chase Burns is going to throw 200,

let us go through 200, Williams is going to throw 200,

like that's not going to be a thing.

So we were talking about this about a month ago by saying that at some point

you were going to start to see guys get skipped in the rotation every so often

just to manage their workload.

That feels like this might get changed up a little bit

because when you're using Williams in this early,

you don't have him fresh and ready to go.

This kind of feels like Timmy Steve,

like they're throwing all the cards on the table,

which sometimes when you've got a lot of good cards,

it's not a bad thing and there's a lot of talent in this rotation

but that does mean that everybody else kind of sees what you have

and for them to be exposed like this could open themselves up to more injury risk

and open themselves up to having to call upon Chase Petty,

it was a Franco-July Nagear.

Somebody like that who I initially didn't think we'd see very much of,

I'm wondering now if we see more of them.

Well, we're definitely going to see some starts from Chase Petty this year

and I'm pretty sure Julian Nagear makes an appearance as well.

I'm just counting on that.

I'm counting on that in the overall starts of this team for the year.

If this plays out through April and May and we get to the end of May

and two of these three starting pitchers have stretched out

and clearly established themselves as these are the guys you want

at the number four and five spot in the rotation,

I still would like to end up in a place where I talked about there in the first

segment where you start to shuffle them through to skip the turns

and then you keep that third guy getting his work in but going up and down

between Louisville and I think that stretches the other two

so that they have some innings left in the tank when we get to a postseason.

I think it can work out that way by also doing it that way where all three guys

eventually are covering six or seven innings in a start.

It alleviates some of that pressure off of the bullpen and if you've started to cycle them

through Louisville you get to bring up that extra reliever now from AAA

to eat some innings in the bullpen through the dog days.

So there's a lot of moving parts there.

It all just kind of depends I think on what Derek Johnson's vision for this is

long-term. How long he thinks this is going to play out?

Now Terry Francona talking to the media yesterday had no idea how long this was

going to pay out, saved to say I don't think it's going to go on for a long

time. So where along the way there's going to be a shift?

Do they know what that shift looks like already? I think they probably have an idea

and they're going to press Francona on this. The beatwriters are going to press Terry.

They're going to press Derek Johnson for an answer.

Are they willing to give it and show their whole hand early on?

I don't think they're going to be. I think they're going to him and Ha

and they're going to kind of all Shucks kick the dirt a little bit.

We'll figure it out when we get there but they have a plan.

They didn't roll this out without a fully formed plan.

I'm convinced of that. So I think they know how the end of this looks like

what the expiration date of this is but they're not going to tell us.

This feels like whenever you ask your parents about like,

hey, can I get that? And they'll say, oh, we'll see.

They know what the answer is. They just don't want to tell you right now.

And I feel like that's kind of where we are with this.

Let me ask you this because I kind of feel and I guess it's not really going to be a question.

I'm curious if you agree with me on this or not.

I envisioned a playoff series that included Chase Burns as a starting pitcher.

This feels like this now precludes that from happening.

I feel like Burns, Louder and Williamson will now be relief pitchers in the playoffs bar none.

50-50. Half doesn't pick them. Point flip.

I could see a scenario where Chase Burns.

If you manage it correctly through the dog days, he could still have some innings in his arm

to start in the first round of the playoffs.

You could see it. You could also see a scenario where you're right.

Two of those guys go to the bullpen and one of those guys don't make the roster

and are a injury slash tired replacement for when the Reds, as Jeff Passen said,

when that playoff series and move on to the next round.

So you have an extra guy sitting off there to the side because in between rounds of the playoffs,

you can change who's on the roster and you can also change who's on the roster.

If there's an injury, I believe Major League Baseball made that accommodation a year or two back.

So you would have that extra pitcher just sitting over there waiting in the wings

and you start plugging and playing parts in the postseason just like you did in the regular season.

So this creates a lot of interesting options.

I'm really kind of excited to see how this plays out, Jeff,

because there are a lot of there are a lot of literally moving parts to this

that will depend on how the Reds are performing, how all three guys are performing,

what's happening within the division, what's happening in the dog days during a playoff race.

This could be a lot of fun. This is an extra element to watch on top of all the regular baseball

things we watch for during the course of 162 game season. This is just this is a little bit of

intrigue in the pitcher's room now about who's going to be pushing who and who's performing well

and who has the most energy in their their arm right now and who's recovering better from their

previous round through the rotation. This could be a lot of fun. I want to see them reinvent the

wheel on this. This will be a lot of fun, but you're right. It like there's there's far more intrigue

with this decision than just with rolling with two of them knowing that two of them are probably

only throwing a four or five innings for the first two or three starts and taxing that bullpen more.

The other thing that we didn't mention with all of this and we're going to bury it at this point,

but Connor Phillips was alerted that he will make the opening day bullpen and there's only one spot left

now because they took one for the starting rotation. So there's only one bullpen spot left.

That's quite a few guys that are are fighting for that spot. However,

when you look at the roster, that's pretty much the only spot that's available, right Steve?

That's pretty much set and we're going to dig into who and what that looks like coming up next.

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All right, Steve, when it comes to this roster, as we mentioned, there's one spot left on the

pitching staff. There ain't no spots left on the on the field. Like, barring injury, we've pretty

much got everything set here. 25 of the 26 spots are spoken for when you consider everybody else

that we've heard of because along with Connor Phillips in this decision, where they said, okay,

we got six starting pitchers. Connor Phillips made the opening day roster. And oh, by the way,

Will Benson made the opening day roster too, although he's not a pitcher, but I guess,

Tara Franklin just wanted to put that in there. Will Benson made it. So this is intriguing to see

how everything has really shaped up. It is because it leaves a question that nobody has spoken to

yet. Tito hasn't talked about it. Nick Crawl hasn't talked about it, which is if Benson has made

the team, have they decided to send JJ Bladay to Triple A Louisville because the only other option

is you cut Nate low. And if you cut Nate low, you are carrying no position players on the bench.

All of the days off in field position players, all of the days off, all of the if anything happens

has to be covered by guys moving around on the field because if you bring Bladay, that leaves you

a bench of, I thought I had it in front of me, that leaves you a bench of Bladay, Benson, Myers,

and Trevino as your backup pitcher. So if you if you go that way, so I think what makes sense is

you send JJ Bladay down, have him as a spare part in Louisville and Nate low makes this team

as your backup first baseman, as your your your hitter off the bench that has a little bit of pop.

I think they've made the announcement without making the announcement.

Yeah, it's it's kind of one of those like, you know, which which name doesn't belong or which

name did we not say like the algebra problem that we all hate. What's the value of A? Well,

the value of A is Nathaniel low is they have not mentioned whether Nate low has made the roster yet,

but it makes sense that he does because without him, you're right. No, all of your Marta will be playing

time in the empty Spencer steer will be playing time in the infield. And then at some point,

you could have an outfield that is all left handed of JJ Bladay, well, Benson and TJ Friedel.

And I don't think they're going to do that. I think that the balance of this roster is begging for

Nate low to be on the bench. And I also think too that like Nick Crawl wants to celebrate that move.

He got lucky that Nate low was available and that he was going to take lead minimum

to be a Cincinnati red. A guy that has had a decent career, we talked about Nate low in the past,

that he's had a decent career. He just had a rough season last year. And the reds are going to

luck out extremely so by him being available to them for what they're getting him for. So when

you look around the diamond, you've got five outfielders. I'm counting Spencer Steers and

Outfielder because at this point, I expect him to play more left field than anything.

Did you got Spencer steer and left? Will Benson, I put and left, but he can play all three outfield

spots. TJ Friedel and Dave Myers in center, but again, Dave Myers can play all three outfield spots.

TJ Friedel's been playing a lot in the left field. We'll see him there as well on different days.

And though, well, we marty and right. I think the whole discussion of will he or won't he make it

has been completely overblown. I expect no, well, we marty on this opening day roster and would

be shocked otherwise. So then you look around the infield. I labeled a you, Hania Suarez is the

third baseman. He's clearly going to play more time at D.H. But just for this exercise, it makes

the most sense. Suarez and Hayes at third, Ellie de la Cruz at short, Matt McClain at second,

Sal Stewart and Nate low at first. And then your catchers or Tyler Stevenson and Jose Trevino.

Honestly, before they had Nathaniel low added to this roster, you could have made a case for

blood A and Benson to be here because you can move McClain to short if Ellie needs a day off.

You can move Sal Stewart to second or third. You can move Suarez the third if Hayes isn't playing

there and all those different things. And of course, Spencer steer can play all those spots.

No off your marty, you could play at third base in a pinch as well. But all of that being said,

I feel like Nate low is a must, must, must add. He's looked pretty good this spring,

but he also brings the kind of veteran panache that this bench is begging.

Yeah, if you look at Nate low spring, you know, slash line of 241, 353, 517, a couple home runs

in 12 games. He has something left in the tank, Jeff. You look at his, you know, last year,

you look at his two stops combined time in Washington and in Boston. You know, he hit

was 18 home runs. I had it for me. Sorry. Yeah, 18 home runs. He had 18 home runs last year.

That's a little pop off the bench that this team needs. I think that's the guy and I like the idea

of having one of Benson or Bode down in Louisville as a spare part. Tito says Benson's making the team,

so it's Bode. I think we know the roster. If you're watching on YouTube, Jeff had that graphic

up there with everybody in their spots, that's the team, I think. We're going to find out here

in a couple of days that this is the team. This is what opening day looks like in the city of

Cincinnati. This is your position player group for the 2026 Cincinnati Reds. And I think that

we pretty much know the opening day lineup as well, like the only thing that you can really shift

around is six through nine, but even nine, I just kind of feel like that's that's he brain. Hey,

so six through eight could shift around a little bit, but I don't think anybody would be shocked

whatever that order might be. We know who won through five is. We know who nine is. I'm excited

because this is not something that we've done in years past where we're like, yeah, we got a little

over a week till opening day, but we already know who the roster is going to be because you know

who does that? Good teams. Good teams don't have multiple handfuls of spots that are still open

as you break camp and you're like, who are they going to pick? And that's not the case for the

Reds anyway, like we came into camp knowing that there was a pretty good shot that they had their

roster and they knew who it was going to be. And they weren't going to be laboring until the final

moment to be like, golly, I mean, six one and a half dozen the other they have their roster. I'm

very excited to see how this is going to play out from now until opening day, it's just going to

be about who stays healthy. And that's going to be the key thing here is that everybody's got to

recover well and stuff like that. But I'm excited to see how this team goes, Steve. It's going to be

yeah. And just for fun, six through nine for me, I don't see if you disagree, but six through nine

for me is Steer, Marte, Stevenson, Keeper and Ace. I'm good with that. Like I could I could see us

of flipping of Stevenson and Marte, but Marte provides more upside to me like I think Marte

has an argument that if he's going, he could hit in the middle. But this team just has so many of

those guys that and I and I picked that because of what I picked that because of what Tito's already

told us, which is that Gino's going to bat forth and that South Stewart's going to hit fifth.

You know, he's already decided that. So I think that pushes Spencer steer to six. Then I go into

LV at seven, you know, and then catcher non-hitter in Keeper and Ace. So say eight nine.

Two and just two more words about Wil Benson. Like I'm really excited to see that he won this battle

with JJ Blade. There's a lot of folks that have been like, man, Blade had a really good spring. What

was it that they were seeing? And I honestly think it's the pop. It's it's more of a power equation

with Wil Benson and ensure he can play all three outfield spots. But I don't think that that was

enough for them to be like, well, yeah, all three outfield spots. Of course he makes it over Blade.

I think it's the pop and they are seeing something in his game that is slightly different from last

year that they want to see more of. The biggest challenge to him will be the contact rate. I wrote

about this over at since they read stock.com that his career contact rate is just below 68%.

JJ Blade is a little bit over 74%. So like if he does have problems with the swing and miss and he

strikes out a bunch, the Reds are going to be like, look, we got this dude that we know can make a lot

of contact and they can shift them around if need be because both guys have options. So you can kind

of play the option game with the two of them. I think that the Reds really set themselves up nicely

though by adding Blade and adding that depth. But I'm excited to see the Benson won that battle.

Yeah. And the other piece of it, I know you've talked about it a lot in prep. I can't remember if

it's made it into the show or not. But there is a statistic, a metric for basically the strength

of the guy they're facing, right? And Blade, Blade had easier, Blade faced easier pitching,

basically. That's how it boils down. Lower level minor league pitching. Yeah, because like

baseball reference rates them on a scale of one to 10, 10, being a major leagueer,

eight being a triple A guy, seven being a double A guy, Benson was above eight. I think last

I saw he's 8.2 and Blade was like 7.4. So there's almost a whole level difference between the two

opponents quality. So it's like, yeah, you still need to go and Blade has been going,

but they understand there's been a bit of a gap. And that is where we're going to wrap up

this edition of Lockdown Reds. Thanks as always for making Lockdown Reds. Your first

listen each and every day for the audio folks go make Lockdown MLB your second listen.

Sully's got you covered over there with major league baseball from a national perspective.

Mike Stanton, former Reds pitcher, has you covered over there of major league baseball from A

Players perspective. Check that out in the audio feeds for the video folks.

Stick around. We're going to send you over to Lockdown's first ever 24-7 National YouTube

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the rumors, the reports, the information to keep you locked on reds every single day.

What are you wearing? I meant to say something about that cardigan. Was that from Guinness?

Did you get that in Ireland? In this cardigan. Got this from Guinness in Ireland? Oh yeah.

Love it. Then I have a great lakes, great lakes brewing St. Patty's Day T-shirt underneath.

I'm just all St. Patty's. I'm so all leaned in because time for some Guinness.

Slamsha.