The Cincinnati Reds’ approach at the baseball trade deadline was as quiet as it could be, which stands out in a bold way when you pull up the NL Wild Card standings. The teams behind the Reds in the standings were all aggressive sellers. Two of the teams ahead of the Reds traded away impact players. And the Reds were stuck in the middle.
The Reds traded Nathaniel Lowe to the Cleveland Guardians for a A-ball pitcher Alejando Rivera and replaced Lowe by calling up Héctor Rodríguez from Triple-A. The Reds also traded reliever Caleb Ferguson for international bonus pool money, effectively giving up on a free agent signing who didn’t work out this season.
The Reds are six games out of a playoff spot and entered deadline day yesterday with seven players on expiring contracts. Around MLB over the last few years, teams in their position have been willing to trade away those types of players in bulk. The 2024 Blue Jays made eight deals at the deadline and won the American League the following season, the St. Louis Cardinals have been sellers in recent seasons when they weren’t playoff contenders, the 2025 Arizona Diamondbacks traded two All-Star hitters last year to help set up a resurgent 2026, and the 2024 Rays started their turnaround with bold, aggressive sales at that deadline.
Many of these trades from teams like the Blue Jays, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Orioles, and Rays didn’t pan out for the selling team because the prospects failed to develop into impact big leaguers. But there’s value in taking chances on “flier” prospects and making a lot of trades. Sometimes an off-the-radar prospect turns into a success story like Rodríguez, whom the Reds acquired for Tyler Naquin back in 2022.
Who knows what the 19-year-old Rivera turns out to be for the Reds? There’s a better chance of being successful when a team takes multiple shots at acquiring that type of young prospect. It’s what a lot of teams around the Reds in the standings did.
The Cardinals (55-57) traded away two rental pitchers as well as an exciting outfielder in Lars Nootbaar. The Nationals (55-59) traded away slugging first baseman Luis Garcia and All-Star pitcher Foster Griffin. The Giants, Mets, and Rockies made most of their top players available. Even the Marlins (58-55), who are 1.5 games out of a playoff spot, traded away four players.
An issue for the Reds was that a lot of their players on the final years of their contracts, most notably Eugenio Suárez, have had disappointing seasons and didn’t generate interest on the trade market. Historically, catchers in the final years of their contract like Tyler Stephenson will get a low-level prospect in return. While he was emotional about the possibility of being traded the day before the deadline, the Reds ended up holding on to him when the market didn’t materialize.
The most valuable veteran piece to deal would have been Brady Singer. But because of the Reds’ lack of pitching depth and reliance on young starters, trading him would have ripped the rug out from under the 2026 Reds and potentially tanked their season. The Reds can also offer Singer the qualifying offer at the end of the season and keep him for 2027.
On paper, most of the Reds’ best trade candidates were hurt, including Spencer Steer, Tony Santillan, Graham Ashcraft, and Nick Lodolo. Those four players have multiple years of team control and had a better chance of landing an impact return, but none were tradable due to the uncertainty about their situations.
By basically standing pat at the deadline, the Reds keep alive the unlikely chance that the team goes on a run over the final two months of the season and makes things interesting. Reds President of Baseball Operations Nick Krall discussed the value of having the veteran presences of Singer and Stephenson down the stretch this season. “Brady Singer is one of the veteran leaders on our starting pitching staff, and Tyler is the same way,” he said. “It’s really important to have those guys around this club. It’s really important to have bullpen guys who can lock down wins for a young group. A couple of those guys are going to be free agents at the end of the year, but we feel we’re still excited about the group we have.”
The price the Reds pay for keeping alive some hope in 2026 is that they didn’t add enough help to the farm system at the trade deadline. They could have used that help to set up moves to add players who could improve the team in 2027, flipping some of those prospects for a big league catcher, an outfielder, or a reliever who’d play a key role next year. The 2027 Reds still have multiple needs on paper, and their inactivity at the trade deadline raises the question of how the team will fill all of them before the next season’s Opening Day.
In the end, it goes down as another forgettable deadline day for the Reds. Outside of 2022 and 2025, that’s been a trend for this team lately. In their good years they haven’t gone all in, and in their down years they haven’t done enough to set up their next contending team for more success.
Charlie Goldsmith has covered the Reds and Bengals since 2020, and his newsletter on the teams can be found at charlieschalkboard.substack.com.
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