Cincinnati Reds Pitching "Issues" EXPLAINED | NL Central Championship REMAINS in Reach

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We've hit the heart of worry season in spring training,

but I'm here to tell you that everything is okay with the red starting rotation.

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Later on in today's show, I'll tell you why today is the reason why MLB reinstated Pete Rose and why a local cable company is stepping up.

In just a few minutes, we'll dive into whether we are too optimistic about Matt McLean's 2026 season,

but we'll begin with the starting rotation because everybody's worried.

Everybody's losing their minds, right?

When it comes to the Cincinnati Reds starting rotation, Hunter Green is out until July.

Brady Singer left a start yesterday with a blister issue.

Surely he'll be out for the rest of the year.

Chase Burns isn't stretched out, so obviously he's not going to be ready to go.

Brandon Williamson's coming off with Tommy John Surgery.

Relax. Let's just take a deep breath.

Because this is the point in spring training where we officially take all of our good feelings that we had early on in spring training,

and we crumble them up into a little tiny ball and throw it away.

Because everything is horrible.

We need to stop.

Everything is fine.

And a conversation with Chad Brennan the other day on ESPN 50 and 30 and he was losing his mind about the starting rotation.

And that's a sentiment that I hear lots of people talk about with the Reds as I'm out and about getting ready for opening day and getting excited to see this team build a division championship season in 2026.

But absolutely everyone is losing their minds right now.

I'm here to tell you it's okay.

Brady Singer did leave his start early on Wednesday with a blister.

But the good news is everything is all right.

In fact, Freddie B. Newvedi is because it was a split squad game.

Freddie B. Newvedi said nothing major, just a precaution.

It was something he was feeling.

He looked at his hand a couple of times and we wanted to make sure and get him out of there.

It didn't pop open.

He caught it early enough that hopefully they'll be okay, especially finishing up spring.

The last week we'd rather be safe than sorry and quote.

Good. That's exactly what they should have done.

The thing with Brady Singer in this whole reported blister issue is everyone immediately goes back to Nicoladolo.

They say, oh, boy, it's over.

Brady Singer season is done.

Let's look at it this way.

If he has Nicoladolo's blister, which is not the reported thing here because remember what happened to Nicoladolo.

The last time he had a blister, the blister popped open.

The skin was torn off.

It was like worst case scenario.

And he missed 23 days.

He hit the I L on August 4th.

He came back August 27th.

So when I think about this issue right here, let's say the worst has happened.

They shut him down.

He's not back for 23 days.

He misses two starts.

That's it.

The worst case scenario here with Brady Singer is that he misses two starts in the regular season.

He's backmarked or April 10th.

I keep doing that in prep.

I was trying to break it all down in my mind, look at calendars and all this other stuff.

But he would come back on April the 10th.

And that would be like I think like 14 or 15 games into the season.

I think there were a few off days in there.

But very likely he misses two starts.

And that is the worst case scenario.

It sounds like they caught it early enough.

So maybe he misses one start.

Maybe he doesn't miss any.

I was really trying to hang on to record today's episode to see if I could see the news and see if they had concrete news about what they expect from.

And I'm sure the moment that I post this, that concrete news will come out.

That's just how my luck is going recently.

But I don't think it's going to be all that bad.

Even if it's the worst case scenario, I don't expect him to miss much more than two starts into the season.

And then you look at Chase Burns.

Chase Burns only pitched two innings yesterday.

What?

What are we doing?

Slow down.

48 pitches is what he hit to.

And now you want to see him throw more than that at this point.

But they've already said that he's slightly behind schedule as far as his warm up.

That's why they're going to do the six man rotation plan.

And he can have a piggyback start whether it's with Brandon Williamson or it's with a red louder.

But I tend to believe that this was exactly what they wanted to see from him from the pitch count standpoint.

But Terry Francona said last year his first season managing the reds that his perfect plan for a pitcher in spring training is for them to be stretched out to 100 pitches by opening day.

He didn't say stretched out to six and he stretched out to seven innings, whatever said 100 pitches.

And likely those 100 pitches get you at least six innings because you're hopefully efficient enough in most of those innings to get there.

With chase burns 48 pitches on Wednesday was he wasn't super efficient with them in the first inning, which ended up costing him in the longevity when it comes to the number of outs he was able to get for the reds that day.

But when it comes to his timeline for opening day, I don't think that this was a negative in any way.

There's just isn't going to push him back. He's not out of the plan.

The plan is six man and then hopefully that works itself out rather quickly to a point where you send one of them down to triple A to get more stretched out and get ready to go.

And then hopefully, you know, hopefully this whole thing is resolved by May is what I sort of have earmarked.

I don't know how much longer they really want to push this type of an experiment because the idea is that you have five starters, you have eight bullpen guys.

They're gambling having less bullpen guys with this.

And I think that if we start to see somebody struggle, it's going to be evident that they need to go to Louisville anyway.

They're not going to have a piggyback situation where one guy throws four good innings.

And then one guy struggles through two innings and they just keep doing that on a regular basis because then they're hurting themselves.

So I think that this ultimate plan doesn't last very long, albeit I think it's an innovative one as is it is laid out and hopefully it plays out that way.

But this this feeds into what happened on Wednesday feeds into the worry that everybody has and I would I would implore you to relax to chill out just a little bit.

Right, this is the point in spring training where everybody starting to feel the season.

They're starting to feel the work that they've put into this point to get ready for the regular season.

And they're looking ahead at the schedule and say boy, this thing hadn't even started yet.

Oh, my.

And so there's a little bit of maintenance that needs to be done.

This happens every single year with every single team with every single player.

They get to a point in spring training where they're just like, you know, I need to work through something here, but it's usually around this point.

And it's usually close enough to opening day that us fans like to take it and go to lengths of concern that is unfounded.

Because I think right now everyone is doubting the reds ability to get where they want to go.

I'm not.

I think that the starting rotation is going to be fine.

They have the talent to whether the storm of missing hunter green until July.

And then when he comes back, it's going to be all systems go.

I really feel like there is no new worry that has me believing that the reds will not contend for the NL Central.

I still firmly believe that they are in contention to win the division.

And I do not downgrade the pitching staff to a level that I now say, yeah, they can't do that.

I think everything's going to be fine when it comes to that.

And I'm not worried about this again to rehash blister issue for Brady singer.

Probably will be some more concrete report by the time this podcast posts.

But as I recorded it before I was able to get that news.

But I still think worst case scenario he misses two starts.

And chase burns and the plan that Derek Johnson and Tito have when it comes to the starting rotation is still firmly within the realm of execution.

So calm down about the starting rotation.

I know that's hard to do in this day and age right.

Nobody's calm anymore.

Coming up next Matt McLean has had such a good spring that we now I think we're over hyping him a little bit.

But how good this season can be for Maddie Nick.

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All right, I have been so excited and quite frankly, I'm sure you have to about the way that Matt McLean has played this spring, but I think we I think we're going a little far now.

I think Matt McLean hype is reaching critical levels right.

I think about solo and the never mind, I'm not going to go there anyway, when you're talking about how hyped up everyone is for Matt McLean in 2026.

There's some of us that are like MVP right.

He's hitting 545 in spring training.

He's actually having more hits than else.

I don't think he's going to do that in the regular season.

Let's this is the episode where we ask for calm right let's calm down about Matt McLean look his importance to this team cannot be overstated, but I really think his hype is at this point.

Let's set some reasonable expectations for him in 2026 based on what he has done in regular season ball.

And some of the things that we are seeing with our eyes and some of the statistics of like plate discipline and all that other stuff, which we'll give him to in just a minute.

Let's set some reasonable expectations for Matt McLean this year slash line.

I'm expecting him to hit 260 have an on base percentage of 340 and slug 430.

So I'm not expecting a 500 slugging percentage.

I'm not expecting him to get on base 40% of the time.

And I'm not expecting him to hit 300.

I feel like all of those numbers are a little bit too high for him.

And if he does, great.

And I'll be happy to be wrong about that, but my reasonable expectations for him.

The slash line is 263 44 30.

2020 season.

I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to see him hit 20 homers and steal 20 bags.

I think he can easily be a 2020 guy.

So if you go 2020 with a 260 batting average 340 on base and 430 slugging, that's a pretty good year.

And I think that his glove and his fielding abilities can put him as a go glove finalist at second base.

I don't know if he can win it.

There's some really good gloves at second base in the national league right now.

But I think he can be a finalist.

And that is the kind of year that I would expect from him.

Let's be honest about what's going on in spring training 545 batting average guess what is batting average on balls and play is right now 545.

That's ridiculously high.

It's also ridiculously weird that his babbit and his batting average are exactly the same.

I think that is a spring training anomaly that works itself out if you play more games, but it's super weird.

Because typically it's higher or it's lower.

It's not the same.

And just for reference, last year his batting average on balls and play was 292.

And in 2023 when he was going nuts, it was 385.

So his batting average on balls and play right now is it's even more astronomically higher than it was in 2023 when he was going crazy.

So he's getting ridiculously lucky in that more often than not when he puts a ball in play, it is not being caught.

It's not being picked up and thrown to first base for now.

It's falling for a hit.

That's not going to continue.

You know what else is not going to continue is home or to fly ball ratio.

So to break that down if he hits a ball in the air, the amount of times that he hits a ball in the air that it goes over the wall.

Right now that's 42.9%.

His career average is 12%.

2023 when he was going crazy, it was 17%.

League average is somewhere around 12 to 13%.

But the point being if a player hits a ball in the air and 50% of the time, that's flying over the wall for a home run.

That's that's a video game.

I don't even know that video game numbers are that lucky.

He's at 42.9%.

So basically 43% of the time.

If he hits a ball in the air, it's going over the wall for a home run.

That is not going to continue.

I love Matt McClain and the numbers that we're seeing right now is so much fun.

Think about where we were at the beginning of spring train.

There were people that were just like, he has no push for speed on my field.

I don't know why my act of what that fake accent was.

But yeah, like there were people that were like, he doesn't have any business being on the field right now.

And right and and now that's all shifted and everybody's just like, should we sign them for the rest of his life and how many MVPs is he going to win?

So let's let's find the happy medium there because he is going to be a key member of this ball club.

If you were to put a C on somebody's chest, it would be Matt McClain.

But let's slow down and realize there's reasonable expectations to have of him.

Now, I will say this.

There is something that I think translates to the regular season.

What he is doing right now in spring training and that is plate discipline.

And I love what I'm seeing there.

I mean, we've talked a lot about the fact that he has kind of evolved his swing into something where he can kind of stay back.

He can poke that low and away curve ball into right field or at least fell it off and continue the at bad.

But he's also laying off of bad pitches right now in spring training his chase rate.

The amount of pitches that he swings at that is outside the strike zone is only at 17%.

Taken to account the fact that for his two years in Major League Baseball, he's swung at 25% of pitches outside the zone.

So he's at 8% less than his career average right now.

He's really seeing the ball well.

But not only that, his contact rate is 90.4%.

If he is swinging at a pitch, he is missing it less than 10% of the time.

That is crazy.

His career average contact rate is 74%.

16% higher right now in spring training.

I think I buy that.

Now, I will say this too.

Part of that is he's seen a lot of pitches in the heart of the zone.

According to Statcast, in spring training right now, he is seeing 35% of pitches in the heart of the strike zone.

Compared to just 28% for the rest of his career.

So that's a lot of pitches right there where you'll want him if you're a hitter.

But to his credit, he a missing him.

97% right now.

When he sees a pitch in the middle of his own, he's swinging at 97%.

He's not missing him.

He knows that he can hit him and he's swinging at him and he's making contact with him.

To sum it all up, all of the numbers, all of the eye tests, everything is telling you that Matt McClain is seeing the ball super well right now.

And that translates.

That's what Joey Vato tried to do every spring training was.

He would show up to Arizona every single year and go, I just want to see the ball.

Matt McClain seeing it right now.

So yeah, I think that there's something to this.

I'm not expecting them to hit 300, but I'm definitely expecting a much better year than we saw from Matt McClain in 2025.

Coming up next, today is the reason that Major League Baseball reinstated Pete Rose and a local cable provider announced plans to televised reds games for everybody in the area.

It's time for this week's MLB top 100 highlight that is brought to you by MLB the show 26th, the latest from the beloved video game franchise.

Each week we're highlighting the stars of MLB's top 100 players list as giving you by locked on the elite names that you'll be playing with and building your franchise around going head to head in MLB the show.

Today we're spotlighting Andrew Abbott and his ranking in the top 100 for the Cincinnati Reds.

Coming in at number 90, I was happy to see that he made the top 100 list at a great year last year.

And I think with another great year in 2026, we will just see him climb up the rankings because folks outside the Cincinnati don't know how good that Andrew Abbott can be.

He's going to show Boston on opening day. I have no doubts about that when it comes to your favorite players like Andrew Abbott and so much more you can play with all of them on MLB the show 26.

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And it's tournament time and Fandall is the place to go when you're ready to put in your college basketball parlays because they got a profit boost on those college basketball parlays right now.

Oh, and by the way, great time to put in your MLB futures bet as we are one week away from opening day right now I'm looking at Ellie that La Cruz because Ellie is healthy.

We've seen the power we have seen the speed we've seen the awesome star power that he brings to the diamond every single day all throughout spring training and he is ready to go off in a major way in 2026.

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Check out the Fandall app today Fandall play your game.

I invite you to continue the conversation with us after the show you can follow me at Jeff car with three Fs on Twitter and on tech talking you follow the show at lockdown reds on every social media platform.

You can also follow Steve at S off and Baker with two Fs Steve will be back with us tomorrow a little bit of a scheduling conflict.

We're trying to wait on news and all this other stuff so it happens he lives in a white like six hours back so sometimes we have a little bit of weirdness when it comes to scheduling recordings and that.

But he'll be back tomorrow.

Alright, so there were a couple of things one really weird and one really awesome that happened here recently on Thursday and I'm recording this Thursday March 19.

Major League Baseball announced a partnership with the prediction market a brand called polymarket.

Now make no mistake about it we talk about you know some wagering on different baseball games and things like that especially when it comes to prop bets and all that I just mentioned the fact that I'm taking the over on L.A.

Day La Cruz a season home run total of 23 and a half.

I like things like that there's these other things called prediction markets and they try to take.

It's not even really like a sports book it's like a life book you can put a wager on anything.

I think that's weird but major league baseball has decided that it has its official prediction market called polymarket it'll be the exclusive prediction market.

For MLB and it'll be the only platform allowed to use team logos and marks and and and all that stuff this was reported by front office sports dot com.

This was the reason and and they haven't come out and said this of course they haven't come out and said this but if you're looking for a reason why Pete rose was reinstated this is a major league baseball is in the business of making money off of gambling whatever that might be if it sports gambling if it's

life gambling whatever it might. It's very odd and I think what happened was whenever they were discussing this kind of a partnership there was some guy sent in the corner of the room is like.

How can we say this all with a straight face that we're doing all of this and we have banned guys for life from the game.

I mean she was Joe is also reinstated so if you're a white sucks fan you're scratching your head if you're a Cleveland guardians fan are you scratching your head about Luis Garcia and about oh my gosh I just lost the name of the closer guys it's really really good.

Yeah him wow my brain is not what it used to be but manual class a that's it are you scratching your head about a manual class a like how how can major league baseball police.

Gambling within its players roster but also with a straight face except a check from gambling companies.

I'm sorry I just I don't understand it and this is why Pete was reinstated major league baseball doesn't care if he makes the Hall of Fame major league baseball cares if they're their narrative is consistent or not.

I just I don't understand the optics of this to me or it key.

I don't know where you stand on this maybe you don't care but I think that it's odd.

That we see less than a year ago today he peat rose gets reinstated.

And now all of a sudden major league baseball is just like yes bring in money from prediction markets.

I think those are weird I don't know but let's end on a happy note because all the fiber announced a multi year partnership multi your agreement.

Rather to broadcast Cincinnati Reds games this will go live on March 25th and it'll be channel 24 if you have all the fiber here in the area of Cincinnati but they will they have officially reached a long term agreement so.

It doesn't actually say how many years but it's a long term agreement with major league baseball to broadcast Cincinnati Reds games so.

If you are not a streaming person if you don't have streaming apps and all that other stuff and whenever we talked about the fact that you know now you can get MLB dot TV and watch the reds and all this other stuff you like but I don't do stream.

Get ultra fiber free ad wish that they were giving me some money and be nice if ultra fiber were given locked on red some money but.

If you are someone who has ultra fiber you can now watch reds games on channel 24 it also will have pre and post game coverage you can catch it all on channel 24 the channel will be live on March 25th.

I do think and and to kind of bring it all together with the streaming apps and all this other stuff but when it comes to the televising of baseball games where you're getting to a point where it's going to be easier to watch them it's it's taking its time right.

You know moving like a herd of turtles as it were but I think that we are getting to a spot where it's going to be easier to consume baseball games like I've been jealous.

Of the NHL because I love the NHL deal with ESPN where you can pretty much watch every NHL game through the ESPN app except for you know local blue jackets games or whatever but when it comes to that deal I wanted something like that for the reds and for you know for major league baseball as a whole but specifically for the reds I wanted to be easier I mean in years past you had to have so many different things.

And you still kind of have to have like you know reds dot TV peacock all these other things if you're streaming but at least if you have cable now it makes more sense if you have cable if you have all the fiber channel 24's where you watch local reds games they'll be on NBC a couple of different times this year I think they're going to be on fox some this year.

I'm not sure what games ESPN is televising but should be on ESPN to but also ESPN is getting to the point to starting next season not this year but next season where reds dot TV or MLB dot excuse me MLB dot TV as a whole will be available on the ESPN app and so you can kind of get all your sports in one spot there.

I feel like there's been this weird roller coaster of cord cutting because like probably about 10 years ago it was a wise thing to start cord cutting you can actually save money we've got to a point where that's tipped it kind of feels like you're paying more.

You know to cut the cord and all this other stuff and especially if you're a sports fan especially if you're a baseball fan and a reds fan felt like you had to have like nine different apps or these different subscription levels to other apps because like I watched I watched the fandal sports network through prime last year.

But even that was so wonky and and hopefully it's not as wonky this year I love the experience of being able to watch the game but listen to the radio broadcast switch between broadcast you get john say that you get Tommy throw you get Jeff branley get Chris well she can kind of get all of the analysis in one place.

But I also like that it's easier to get to and it feels like we're getting to that point all the fibers making it easier for everybody here in the area.

I think that direct TV is also doing something like this I think I saw that theirs is channel 661 for the season so so it's not to make it seem as though this was an ultra fiber it's not it's just I know that.

Ultra fiber signed a multi year deal direct TV is not announced anything like that yet see if that comes about but that's good news for folks that have their cable March 25th is when this all goes live and that is where we'll in today's podcast thanks so much for everybody for checking out today's lockdown reds podcast make sure that you subscribe going to be with you every single day talking about these Cincinnati reds leading up the opening day awesome thing coming up here on Monday we've got our division.

Preview I sit down with the other host and the national essential and we all kind of sort of looked at the brewers and said all right there the division champs until they're knocked off but I'm going to tell them why they cannot ignore the reds this year because they're going to be contending for this division big I believe a day one through 162 going to be a lot of fun we're going to be with you all throughout right here on lock down reds so make sure you subscribe follow us on social media lock down reds and you can follow me at Jeff car.

With three S and follow Steve at S often Baker with two S and make sure you check out locked on MLB if you're watching here on YouTube and hang on we'll send you to our first ever national 24 seven streaming channel for locked on covering all the biggest sports stories.

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