{"id":840490,"date":"2026-08-01T14:01:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T14:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/840490\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T14:01:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T14:01:44","slug":"reds-getting-significant-interest-in-hunter-greene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/840490\/","title":{"rendered":"Reds Getting Significant Interest In Hunter Greene"},"content":{"rendered":"

TODAY: The Reds \u201care now telling teams that\u2026Greene is no longer available,\u201d USA Today\u2019s Bob Nightengale<\/a> writes.\u00a0 This may close the door on the possibility of Greene being moved at least by the deadline.<\/p>\n

JULY 31: The Reds are drawing substantial interest in right-hander Hunter Greene<\/a>, per reports from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic<\/a>, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com<\/a> and Buster Olney of ESPN<\/a>. That\u2019s not surprising given the combination of their seller status, Greene\u2019s dominant results when healthy, and the right-hander\u2019s club friendly contract. Robust interest hardly means a trade will actually come together, but controllable starting pitching is typically the most in-demand commodity this time of year. It\u2019s at least somewhat notable that Feinsand and Olney both suggest there\u2019s an actual chance he\u2019ll move; WEEI\u2019s Rob Bradford reported<\/a> this week that the Reds have effectively told teams who\u2019ve inquired on shortstop Elly De La Cruz<\/a> to not even waste their time trying. If nothing else, it seems there\u2019s at least a softer stance on Greene.<\/p>\n

Greene, 27 next week, was the No. 2 overall pick back in 2017. He debuted with a pair of solid enough seasons in 2022-23, showing big ability to miss bats but also major susceptibility to home runs (237 2\/3 innings, 4.62 ERA, 30.7% strikeout rate, 9.3% walk rate, 1.63 HR\/9). The Reds were encouraged enough by his blazing heater, power slider and bat-missing ability that they inked Greene to a six-year, $53MM extension early in the 2023 season. The results for the rest of the season weren\u2019t great, but it proved to be well timed; Greene stepped to the front of the Cincinnati rotation in 2024 and looked every bit the part of a high-end starter.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Greene broke out with 150 1\/3 innings of 2.75 ERA ball. He fanned 27.7% of opponents against a 9.3% walk rate and saw his HR\/9 mark plummet to 0.72. Greene had scrapped his original changeup for a new split change, but it was primarily improved results on that bread-and-butter fastball\/slider combo that paved the road to his breakout. Greene\u2019s 2025 ERA was a nearly identical 2.76 but came with better rate stats: 31.4% strikeout rate and 6.2% walk rate. His 15.4% swinging-strike rate in \u201925 was fourth-highest among all pitchers who tossed at least 100 innings, trailing only Tarik Skubal<\/a>, Dylan Cease<\/a> and Logan Gilbert<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The major caveat with Greene is that he simply hasn\u2019t been able to stay healthy at the rate the Reds (or another team) would prefer. He had Tommy John surgery as a prospect in 2019 and has missed time in the majors due to a shoulder strain, multiple groin strains and a hip issue. He reported to spring training seemingly healthy this year but quickly ran into elbow pain that eventually prompted surgery to remove loose bodies. He only returned to the Reds\u2019 active roster for his season debut earlier this month.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a boom-or-bust return for Greene. He was rocked for eight runs in 3 1\/3 innings in his first start back on July 4. The 6\u20195\u2033, 240-pound righty bounced back with dominant results in his next two outings (13 innings, three runs, seven hits, one walk, 19 strikeouts) and was then knocked around for six runs over 5 1\/3 innings against the Cardinals in his most recent start. Greene\u2019s 7.06 ERA in four starts is an eyesore, but his 30.9% strikeout rate and 7.4% walk rate are excellent. He\u2019s been dogged by a .345 average on balls in play and an almost impossibly low 44.4% strand rate. Both should regress substantially; metrics like SIERA (3.22) and FIP (3.20) are far more encouraging than his baseline earned run average.<\/p>\n

Obviously, there are real workload concerns with Greene. He\u2019s never topped 26 starts or 150 1\/3 innings in a season. That said, the right-hander\u2019s contract is affordable enough that he\u2019s been a bargain in recent seasons even while shouldering limited workloads. Greene is making $8MM this season. There\u2019s about $2.45MM of that sum yet to be paid out. His salary will jump to $15MM in 2027 and $16MM in 2028. The Reds hold a club option on him for the 2029 season that\u2019s valued at $21MM and comes with a $2MM buyout.<\/p>\n

In total, Greene is owed $35.45MM for the remainder of this season and two more guaranteed years after the fact. If that option is picked up, the sum would jump to $54.45MM for three-plus seasons. Given Greene\u2019s per-inning results dating back to that 2024 breakout, that\u2019s still a bargain rate. He\u2019ll need to throw more innings to truly live up to the final few years of the deal, but arms of Greene\u2019s raw talent don\u2019t come around too often on the trade market \u2014 certainly not when they\u2019re priced at this level and with this much remaining club control.<\/p>\n

It stands to reason that just about any contender would have interest in Greene \u2014 as would any team that\u2019s out of the running in 2026 but aiming to contend in 2027. Speculatively speaking, the Rays, Braves, White Sox, D-backs, Phillies, Rangers, Padres, Nationals, Orioles, Twins, Blue Jays, Giants, Royals, Mets and A\u2019s are among the many, many teams that could try to entice the Reds. They won\u2019t all show the same level of aggression, but Greene\u2019s results (when healthy) would improve literally any rotation in the sport \u2014 and virtually any team in the game could afford his salary in subsequent seasons.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also true of his incumbent team, however. The Reds have just a $128.64MM payroll this year, as seen in MLBTR\u2019s newly rolled out Payroll Tracker<\/a>. The luxury tax isn\u2019t even on Cincinnati\u2019s radar, and they only have $29.75MM in guaranteed contracts on next year\u2019s books. A modest $2.5MM of that is allocated to Greene\u2019s recently extended rotation-mate, Chase Burns<\/a>, who signed a seven-year extension guaranteeing him $105MM earlier this month.<\/p>\n

With Burns, Greene and the arb-eligible Andrew Abbott<\/a> in place for up to three more seasons, the Reds have to feel good about the foundation of their rotation moving forward. Between De La Cruz and Sal Stewart<\/a>, they have a pair of homegrown, middle-of-the-order bats around which to build the rotation. The supporting cast isn\u2019t nearly as solid, however, and if the Reds feel they can get multiple MLB-ready bats in return for Greene, perhaps that\u2019d be enough to push them to consider pulling the trigger on a difficult trade decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TODAY: The Reds \u201care now telling teams that\u2026Greene is no longer available,\u201d USA Today\u2019s Bob Nightengale writes.\u00a0 This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":840491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,14260,42500,462,82],"class_list":["post-840490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-elly-de-la-cruz","tag-hunter-greene","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}