2025 Reds Mid-Season Analysis — Starting Rotation

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The All-Star break is a good time to step back and take stock of how the season is playing out. So far, we’ve evaluated the 2025 Reds’ overall offense and taken an in-depth look at each position player’s performance (read about the infielders here and the outfielders here).

Now, it’s time for the arms, kicking things off with the starting pitchers.

For much of the first half, the rotation has been a strength for the Reds. Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, and Nick Lodolo now have a few years of MLB experience under their belts, and they’re supplemented by the veteran presence of Brady Singer and Nick Martinez. As a result, the starting staff has seen more continuity than in previous years. The 2024 Reds had only three pitchers eclipse 100 innings. The 2025 club has already matched that in the first half.

Lodolo, Singer, and Martinez have each made 19 starts, while Abbott has made 16 after beginning the season on the IL with left shoulder soreness. Greene has been sidelined for a significant portion of the first half with groin and lower back injuries, but he’s looked the part of an ace in his 11 starts. Prized prospects Chase Burns and Chase Petty also made their MLB debuts in the first half, while Carson Spiers and Wade Miley made cameo appearances.

The starting staff has amassed 18.4 fWAR (sixth in MLB), with a collective 3.88 ERA that ranks 12th in baseball and sixth in the National League. When adjusting for park factors (using ERA-), the Reds rotation ranks eigth in MLB and fifth in the NL. Their biggest strengths have been throwing strikes and limiting hard contact. Reds starting pitchers sport the fifth-lowest walk rate (7.1%) and third-lowest hard-hit rate (39.8%) among all MLB rotations.

The ERA estimators are slightly less impressed with the Reds rotation, but they mostly back up the solid first half. Reds starters rank 14th in FIP (4.03), 17th in xFIP (4.14), and 14th in SIERA (4.04).

If there are any critiques of Cincinnati’s rotation, it’s a pedestrian strikeout rate and rock-bottom ground-ball rate. The Reds are smack dab in the middle of league with a 21.9% strikeout rate, although Greene’s absence has undoubtedly hurt that number. Only the A’s and Twins rotations have a lower ground-ball rate than the Reds (35.5%). That can present problems when half of your games are in Great American Ball Park, and a 10.7% home-run-to-flyball ratio could point to possible regression in the second half (league average for starting pitchers is 12.0%). On the flip side, the rotation also has the third-lowest hard-hit rate on balls hit in the air (42.5% vs. a league average of 44.6%), which is likely helping with home run suppression.

TLDR: It’s hard to complain about the Reds’ rotation in the first half, especially considering their ace has spent considerable time on the shelf.

Now, let’s take a closer look at each member individually. We’ll cover each pitcher who’s made at least four starts for the Reds this season. The number in parenthesis after the player’s name is his current age. The indicated 2025 WAR is the average of FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference, with fractions resolved in the player’s favor.

Andrew Abbott (26, 2.8 WAR)

Abbott is now in his third big-league season, and it’s shaping up to be his best. The left-hander had a delayed start to the year, building up slowly as he recovered from a shoulder strain that ended his 2024 campaign in late August. He started his 2025 season with a five-inning, one-run outing on April 12, and it’s only gotten better from there. Abbott enters the unofficial halfway mark with a sparkling 2.07 ERA, third-lowest among all pitchers with at least 90 innings and lowest by a Reds hurler in the first half since Gary Nolan in 1972. For his efforts, Abbott was also named an NL All-Star, becoming the first Reds lefty starting pitcher to earn a spot in the Midsummer Classic since John Smiley in 1995.

After seeing his strikeout rate drop precipitously in 2024 (19.5%, 22nd percentile), Abbott has raised it to just above league average (22.5%) in 2025. His whiff and chase rates have also spiked. In addition to earning more swings and misses, Abbott’s walk rate has dropped from 8.9% (35th percentile) in 2024 to an excellent 6.5% (78th percentile). He remains difficult to square up, with a hard-hit rate (33.0%) ranking in the 89th percentile. As FanGraphs’ Jake Mailhot discussed in a must-read piece, Abbott has raised his arm angle by three degrees and it’s helped his fastball become more difficult to make solid contact against.

Typically, a higher arm angle results in more ride, or vertical movement, for a four-seamer, causing it to fight gravity and drop less. However, Abbott’s four-seamer actually has more horizontal movement than a typical pitcher with his arm angle. Raising his arm angle, contrary to conventional wisdom, has given his four-seamer even more arm-side action. In other words, it has created more deception and helped him miss more barrels against the right-handed hitters who gave him problems in the past.

Righties have an average exit velocity of 89.4 mph against Abbott’s fastball in 2025, down from 91.5 mph in 2024. Their xwOBA against the pitch has dropped from .377 to .280. Abbott has also gained more drop on his changeup and added a cutter — about 4 mph slower than his four-seamer — to his repertoire to aid his efforts against right-handers. After allowing a .338 wOBA (.318 xwOBA) against righty hitters in his first two seasons, Abbott has held them to a .271 wOBA (.284 xwOBA) this season. His performance against left-handed hitters, meanwhile, has remained strong (.282 wOBA, .315 xwOBA).

If there are any red flags in Abbott’s first half, it’s that he’s once again outperforming his expected metrics. Granted, there’s no shame in not being able to maintain a 2.07 ERA. Few pitchers do it over long stretches. His xERA (3.12), FIP (3.51), xFIP (4.12), and SIERA (4.03), while all career bests in their own right, are more than a full run higher than his actual ERA. That’s largely because his strikeout rate is right around average and he has a low HR/FB (8.0%) despite being an extreme flyball pitcher. But if he can continue to miss barrels like he did in the first half, perhaps he’ll keep mitigating home runs even if his HR/FB screams for regression.

What to expect in the second half? Abbott’s career to date has been defined by strong starts (career 2.71 ERA, 4.19 FIP in the first half) before fading in down the stretch (career 4.80 ERA, 4.77 FIP in the second half). Even if he doesn’t continue to outpitch his peripheral numbers, he’s a solid MLB starter who’s getting better. Abbott has seemingly made legitimate strides in getting right-handed hitters out. The question is whether his body can hold up for an entire season, something that hasn’t happened to this point in his career.

Hunter Greene (25, 1.9 WAR)

After a spectacular 2024 season that saw him earn his first All-Star bid and finish eighth in NL Cy Young voting, Greene came into the 2025 campaign as an established ace. The 25-year-old picked up right where he left off to begin the season. In his 11 starts, Greene has a 2.72 ERA backed up by excellent peripheral metrics (2.94 xERA, 3.40 FIP, 3.36 xFIP, 3.08 SIERA). He’s sporting a 90th-percentile strikeout rate (30.8%) and a career low walk rate of 5.9% (82nd percentile). His slider, with 2 mph of extra velocity, has a ridiculous 48.8% whiff rate.

The problem is Greene has only pitched 59.2 innings. He left his start on May 8 with a right groin strain and was placed on the injured list the following day. Fortunately, Greene spent only the minimum time on the IL, returning on May 23. But he re-aggravated the injury in his third start back, reporting back and hip soreness this time as well. Greene was scheduled to make a rehab appearance with Triple-A Louisville on July 8, but the start was scrapped after he again felt discomfort in his groin.

Could the injury be related to Greene’s velocity increase? His fastball has averaged 99.3 mph this season, up from 97.6 mph in 2024. His slider had a similar jump, from 86.8 to 89.1 mph. On the surface, more velocity is good. Did Greene really need it? Maybe not. He dialed his velocity back in 2024 (from 98.3 in 2023) and had the best season of his career. If throwing closer to maximum effort was putting Greene’s body under too much strain, that’s not ideal. This is, of course, just speculation. The Reds and Greene have been mum on whether there’s a connection between the velocity uptick and the groin injury, but it’ll be interesting to monitor his velocity once he gets back on the mound.

What to expect in the second half? Hopefully, a return from the injured list at some point. Greene is back at the Reds’ spring training complex in Arizona to continue his recovery and currently has no timetable to return, according to the Enquirer’s Pat Brennan. The Reds’ starting rotation has held up admirably without its ace, but getting a healthy Greene back will be pivotal to any playoff aspirations.

Nick Lodolo (27, 2.2 WAR)

Coming into 2025, Nick Lodolo’s big-league career had been hampered by injuries. He missed two months with a lower back strain in 2022, made only seven starts in 2023 due to calf tenosynovitis, and had four separate stints on the IL in 2024 that limited him to 21 starts. In 2025, however, Lodolo has had a clean bill of health for the first time as a big-leaguer (feel free to knock on the nearest piece of wood).

After underperforming his expected metrics in 2024, Lodolo has seen positive regression this season. He carries a 3.38 ERA through 106.2 innings, this time outperforming his peripherals (3.97 xERA, 4.02 FIP, 3.88 xFIP, 3.75 SIERA). The formula has been different for Lodolo this year, however. His strikeout and whiff rates have fallen for the second season in a row to a career-worst 21.9% (47th percentile) and 24.3% (43rd), respectively. His ground-ball rate is also down for the second straight year. Lodolo has occasionally been prone to the long ball — he gave up 10 home runs in a six-start stretch from June 6 to July 5 — though his HR/FB is right at league average. He’s also tied for the MLB lead in hit batters (11), continuing a problem that has plagued him throughout his career. Since 2022, only Charlie Morton has hit more batters (56) than Lodolo (55) — and Morton has thrown 200 more innings than Lodolo in that span.

Lodolo has partially offset these issues by posting the best walk rate (5.0%) of his career, putting him in the 93rd percentile among all MLB pitchers. He’s also throwing the ball in the strike zone at a career best 53.9% clip, per Statcast. His Location+ is exactly league average (100), which represents an improvement over last season (97), and he’s seen strong gains with his sinker and changeup command. And as the season rolls along, Lodolo has also started to see the strikeouts tick up toward his career norm. Since mid-May, his strikeout rate sits at just under 25%, which is comfortably above league average and closer to his career mark (25.7%).

What to expect in the second half? Despite some bumps in the road, Lodolo turned in a solid first half of 2025. Most importantly, he’s stayed healthy. The peripherals point toward some possible regression, but if Lodolo can maintain his improved control (ideally cutting down on the HBP) and continue to miss bats like he has the last two months, there’s no reason to expect a significant dip in performance. Health-wise, Lodolo faces the same question as Abbott and Greene: can he hold up for an entire season? We’re about to find out.

Brady Singer (28, 1.3 WAR)

During the offseason, the Reds sought a reliable innings-eater in the rotation after another injury-filled season in 2024. Just before Thanksgiving, they got their man, acquiring Singer from the Royals for infielder Jonathan India and outfielder Joey Wiemer. Only 15 pitchers have thrown more innings since 2020 than Singer (785.1), who peaked at 179.2 innings across 32 starts last season. Establishing himself as a back-of-the-rotation arm, the six-year veteran has oscillated between good and bad seasons for most of his career and landed somewhere in the middle in his first year with the Reds.

In 19 starts and exactly 100 innings, Singer has a 4.32 ERA that is backed up by his peripherals (4.40 xERA, 4.02 FIP, 4.36 xFIP, 4.34 SIERA). With below-average stuff (95 Stuff+), Singer has middling strikeout rate (46th percentile) and well below average whiff rate (38th percentile). He relies more on control and command, which have been hit and miss. Singer’s 99 Location+ is a tick below league average, and he has a career worst 9.3% walk rate, issuing at least one free pass in 18 of his 19 starts.

For much of his career, Singer has also limited damage by generating ground balls at a high clip (47.5%). But his ground-ball rate, too, has plummeted with the Reds to 35.7%. The culprit is his sinker, which has lost drop while gaining horizontal movement. The pitch had yielded a ground ball about half the time it was put into play for Singer before this year. In 2025, it has a dismal 29.3% ground-ball rate. Fortunately, Singer has kept the ball in the yard for the most part, though his 9.2% HR/FB points toward potential trouble.

What to expect in the second half? More of the same. Singer is who he is: a back-end rotation arm who could give the Reds six or seven strong innings or get knocked out of the game in the fourth or fifth inning on any given day. The worsening walk and ground-ball rates are cause for some concern, although there’s hope for improvement in both areas given his career averages.

Nick Martinez (34, 1.3 WAR)

The Reds signed Martinez to a two-year, $26 million deal before the 2024 season. He proved a strong investment, moving back and forth between the rotation (16 starts) and bullpen (26 appearances) seamlessly en route to a career-best 3.4 fWAR. Unsurprisingly, Martinez exercised the opt-out clause in his contract. The Reds chose to give him a $21 million qualifying offer to keep him away from free agency, which he accepted.

Other than a pair of relief appearances in late June, Martinez has served in a starting role in 2025, leading the Reds with 111 innings pitched. Martinez’s performance has dipped across the board, but he’s still been a serviceable member of the rotation (see his WAR above). The right-hander entered the break with a 4.78 ERA, inflated by a 10-run outing against the Marlins on July 8. The peripherals look a little better, even if they’re not flashy (4.08 xERA, 4.14 FIP, 4.48 xFIP, 4.50 SIERA).

Without overwhelming stuff (the changeup is his only pitch with an above-average Stuff+), Martinez relies on strong command and a “kitchen sink” approach with six pitches, all of which he throws at least 10% of the time. Martinez has a 16.7% strikeout rate in 2025, which is down from 20.4% in 2024 and puts him in the 13th percentile among all pitchers. But Martinez has displayed excellent command of all his pitches with a 108 Location+, which ranks 11th among all qualified pitchers. This has helped Martinez continue to do two things quite well: limit free passes (5.5% walk rate, 88th percentile) and prevent solid contact (36.3% hard-hit rate, 79th percentile).

What to expect in the second half? Martinez should see some positive ERA regression in the second half as he gets further removed from the blow-up outing against Miami. He’ll always be prone to those types of starts if his command escapes him, but Martinez provides a strong floor with his ability to throw strikes. When he’s on, Martinez is capable of shutting down an opponent the way he did on June 27, when he took a no-hit bid into the ninth inning against the Padres. It’s possible Martinez transitions back to a long-relief or swing role when Greene returns from the IL if the Reds choose to keep Chase Burns in the rotation. With Burns facing a likely innings limit, though, Martinez should remain a key piece of the rotation down the stretch. Should the Reds sell at the deadline in two weeks, Martinez could be their most enticing trade chip with his contract set to expire at the end of the year.

Chase Burns (22, 0.0 WAR)

Last July, the Reds selected the flame-throwing Burns with the second overall pick in the draft. He didn’t make his professional debut until this year, but he quickly proved why he was highly regarded. Starting in High-A Dayton and working his way to Triple-A Louisville by early June, Burns overpowered his minor-league opponents, posting a 1.77 ERA and 36.8% strikeout rate in 13 starts across three levels. When 38-year-old Wade Miley went down with an flexor strain after just two starts, the Reds promoted Burns to make his MLB debut against the Yankees on June 24.

Burns immediately looked the part of the top pitching prospect in baseball, striking out the first five Yankees hitters he faced. He finished his debut with eight strikeouts and no walks, while allowing three runs in five innings. The next outing was decidedly bumpier. With Burns likely tipping his pitches in second start, the Red Sox teed off on the rookie in Fenway Park, knocking him from the game in the first inning. Burns bounced back over his next two outings against the Phillies and Rockies, however, allowing three runs on six hits and striking out 17 batters across 10.2 innings.

The stuff is unquestionably MLB caliber for Burns. He has a 110 Stuff+ through four starts, tied for 10th-best in baseball among starting pitchers with 10 or more innings this season. Burns has struck out 33.8% of hitters, the highest strikeout rate ever for a Reds pitcher through four career starts. His four-seam fastball averages 98.1 mph (95th percentile) with significant ride, keeping it up in the zone where hitters frequently swing underneath it. Burns pairs it with a devastating 90-mph slider (43.5% whiff rate) that gets above average vertical and horizontal movement. Burns occasionally flashes a changeup, a pitch he’ll need to continue developing to get left-handed hitters out at the big-league level.

Burns has issued nine walks in his last three starts, finding that big-league hitters are more discerning and don’t chase pitches out of the zone as often. But this doesn’t appear to be a long-term concern for Burns, who walked only 5.4% of batters he faced in the minors.

What to expect in the second half? Burns is getting an extended stay in the majors as Greene continues to nurse the groin injury. The 22-year-old has the stuff of a top-end MLB pitcher already, which gives him a strong foundation to build from. He’s going to pile up strikeouts, and his history of strong control points to his walk rate coming down over time. There’s work to do for Burns to get left-handed hitters out consistently at the big-league level, but overall, he appears ready for the majors. The biggest question for Burns is how much he’ll pitch in the second half. He threw 100 innings in his senior season at Wake Forest and did not pitch after he was drafted last July. Including his time in the minors, Burns is already up to 82 innings so far this season. The Reds will undoubtedly be careful with their promising young arm and may look to limit his workload down the stretch.