Rhett Lowder to Debut for Cincinnati Reds on Friday

[Music] sometimes the roster necessitates a change of plan but what are the pitfalls that the Reds have just open themselves up to we'll discuss that on today's lock on reds you are locked on reds your daily Cincinnati Reds podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day welcome in to lockon red we are live today we are your daily source for all things Cincinnati Reds I'm Stephen offenbaker he's Jeff Carr we have a combined 12 years of experience covering the Cincinnati Reds we love baseball we love this team even though it really doesn't ever love us back but we've taken our love for the game our love of this team and we have turned it into information for you locked on reds is part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day and on today's podcast yeah we know the Reds played a game last night and yeah we know they blew yet another lead and it's really annoying and we're going to get into that in a little bit but on today's show Rett louder he is a coming up we're going to be talking about the Reds number one 2023 draft pick who is going to make his major league debut tomorrow against the Brewers looks like he's going in game two of the double headers for the red legs we're going to talk about his arrival and what to expect from him and what it means for the Reds to be calling him up so early we're also going to be asking the question Jeff can dve David Bell do no wrong because it sure feels like as far as this front office is concerned David Bell can do no wrong or he's got some really really good dirt on somebody and of course we're gonna be taking everybody's questions and comments because we're live here today on lock on reds this is what can happen when I am in the Eastern Time Zone sir uh we can do a morning time live which is great so we're going to get into all of those things today before we get started shout out to the sponsor of today's episode is brought to you by Game Time download the game time app create an account and use the code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase terms apply download game time today what time is it it's game time all right Jeff you know what else it's time for it is time to talk about Rett louder the Red's 2023 number one draft pick who you and I sat in a Dugout with and talked baseball uh the beginning of this season in Dayton and here we are talking about his major League debut tomorrow as the Reds face the Milwaukee Brewers in a double header so you know we hear from the Reds all the time that they're not going to adjust a prospect's timeline based on Big League need um and I think they had to throw that out the window because nobody could have possibly anticipated that every single member of the starting rotation from opening day would be unavailable to pitch here at the end of August everybody from opening day and quite frankly if you even expand it to what we were talking about in the offseason the the number six guy the number seven guy the number eight guy uh they're all they're all out too like this is a crazy scenario for this team in that they are so depleted in the starting staff and I am so pumped I want to start this I want to start it off by saying I am so pumped to see Rhett louder pitching this Friday it's going to be a lot of fun because this dude is part of the future this dude is being looked upon to be part a key part of the starting rotation moving forward so I'm excited about that but I do also want to temper it because there are a couple of questions I have about this now because we are opening ret louder up to the Jose barrero territory here but I think there is definitely some differences between the two guys other than the fact that one was a position player the other's PCT well you're just talking about from a standpoint of age right early early in his minorly career I I think there are some differences you know when when Jose barrero came up you know we all looked around and we're like well he's not ready for this like this is this is early I don't know that I don't have that same feeling for ret louer if you look at his if you look at what he's done spread across three levels of the minor leagues this season Jeff um he's he's really doing a number uh three three levels combined at age 22 Jeff he started 22 games 108 Innings pitched 113 strikeouts 24 for walks he is doing an amazing job that breaks down to those numbers we love uh strikeouts per nine at 9.4 walks per nine Jeffrey two two that's a very nice number very very tidy number but I just I do want to be cognizant of that and we were kind of discussing before the show began like what can we expect from a workload standpoint uh because in his his last year at Wake Forest he threw a certain number of innings so we cannot reasonably expect them to just Trot him out every fth day the rest of the season and expect him to go six Innings every time and the workload is getting up there the pitch number is getting up there so the Reds definitely need to treat this with a little bit more kid gloves I think we've been hearing this last couple of years with how young the pitching staff has been so I don't think it'll come as a shock to Red's fans but we're not talking about a guy that can make a whole bunch of starts here this is really a emergency situation like for one moment before we get back into our Rett louder analysis consider who's not here number one Frankie Montas he's going to be pitching for the other team in this series I think either game one or game two well it looks like maybe he lines up for Saturday the chat is telling me Jeff that that he may be the guy on Saturday for the Brewers so we will see him this weekend then uh hunter green uh nielo Andrew abbit Graham Ashcraft they're all on the injured list every single one of them then you go even deeper you say okay well Brandon Williamson was your number six guy he's been on the injured list all season uh Conor Phillips might have been your seven guy he's been he's had a very very very very very bad year command wise although his most recent start shows glimmers of hope because he did not allow walk he's been allowing a lot of walks at Triple A this season lion Richardson made and before you move on from Conor Phillips it would be a disservice to Conor Phillips to bring him to the big leagues this year he's he's clearly been TR trying to work something out and he is not ready he is nowhere near ready for prime time it would be a tremendous disservice to ask him to come up and get his brains bashed in at the big league level while he's still trying to fix things correct and then you look at lion Richardson who made starts last year he has been moved to the bullpen in Triple A so if you're getting moved to the bullpen in Triple A don't believe that the starting the starting staff in major leagues are going to be calling you anytime soon and there's been a number of other guys that have started games for the for the bats that I just am not interested in so the depth is gone and Rett louder was basically it that was what I I talked about early on this week Steve um I I saw that they were reporting he could have been up as early as Wednesday and he wasn't obviously he's going to be pitching on Friday uh but I thought the only reason that there was anybody that was saying that at all is that they were just looking at the Red's organizational depth threat and be like well who's going to pitch somebody's got to pitch I I guess it's going to be R louder and I think that's what crawl did yeah I think they wrestled with this decision because that news leaked uh early before any conver and I can tell you that it it leaked before there were any conversations in Louisville I'll tell you how I know that Jeff because for the third time guys I've been trying to get Rett louder on this show all season I've had three three interviews scheduled with him during the course of this season and every time we get a confirmed interview he gets promoted I was to sit down with him on Friday uh when he made his after he made his last start for Louisville and instead he's going to be pitching at the big league level so again that's not happened apparently I'm his good luck charm I schedule an interview he gets promoted um but they've been talking about this all week and I think they were really uh questioning whether it was the right move or not uh ultimately ultimately the the need outweighed any of the negatives that could possibly be involved in bringing him up I will say this Jee you talked about what he has left on his arm over the course of uh his three levels this season he has 108 Innings on his arm last year at wake 2023 he threw 120 Innings it's realistic to me that he could possibly make four more starts on top of the 108 Innings that he has right now uh after that I think that they should shut him down because Big League innings are different than minor league Innings and minor league innings are different than his college Innings so he's already approaching I would say probably the wear and tear on his arm that he had the previous season season in college and you want to try and stretch out stretch him out a little bit more each year so I I think for starts Max is what we could expect if he even stays up now if this is a true desperation move you know they may start him a game and send him back down I'm not quite sure what the long-term plan for the him is the the remainder of this year because the Reds haven't said yet but uh either way it would not Shock me it would not Shock me if he's here to finish out the season and make four starts and it would not Shock me if he makes a start and go back down to Louisville I think that he is probably making at least two we have not heard other than the good news that we heard about hunter green we have not heard a timeline for his return in this current season uh we definitely heard that Nicolo is not coming back we definitely know that Graham ashcraft's not coming back Brandon Williamson began a rehab assignment but I got to believe he's going to be down there for a few more weeks um and then we haven't heard anything about Andrew Abbott either and how quickly he could be back so we may be looking at Rett louder for at least one more start p this who knows could be getting to that three or four before you just answered you just answered Williamson and green car's asking Jeff uh for statuses Williams MC green and also sud sud's any day now right he's throwing rehab Innings right now do I have that right yeah he has he has been pitching in Louisville uh for some rehab outings and things like that it's interesting because I saw a great video and we'll get into this in the offseason because the automatic balls and strike system really intrigues me the way that they are beginning to employ it but I saw a video of him throwing he is uh doing some rehab down there so he should be back here pretty soon um but yeah I I I I think that we are seeing Rett loudy here for a couple of starts what does that mean what can we expect from Rett louder what's his pitch mix what is his you know where does he fall within the future uh Ambitions of this rotation we'll discuss that coming up next it's time to take a water break here in the episode but you know what I I I got something even better because liquid IV hydrates you just as good as two bottles of water that's right I'm going to drink one glass of water with liquid IV and I'm going to get twice the hydration liquid IV's got all these great flavors too that enhance your water you literally turn your water into Super water because all you do is you pour a packet into a glass of water just like I'm doing right here Stir It Up nice and good ah and take a nice sip that by the way is their awesome flavor popsicle firecracker you got to check it out today you can get 20% off your first order of liquid IV when you go to liquid iv.com and use promo code MLB at checkout again that's 20% off your first order when you shot better hydration today using the promo code MLB at liquid iv.com you can take the guesswork out of buying MLB tickets with game time Jeff and I have talked about this app over and over again we love this app we use it all the time we've been telling you today there's lots of questions that the Reds can answer the remainder of this season and if you want to see them answer those questions with your own eyes use the game time app to buy your tickets the game time app has all in pricing when you get on there you're going to know exactly how much you're going to pay for the seat that you're buying and if you're not familiar with the view from that seat they have that in the app as well you can see what it's going to look look like from your seat so Jeff and I we head down to the banks uh we find a good spot we grab a couple beverages grab a little bit to eat and then as it gets close to time for the first pitch we jump on the game time app we find great deals on our tickets and then we head on into the ballpark if you want to get in on this action just download the game time app create an account and use the code locked on MLB and you're going to get $20 off your first purchase that's even in addition to the savings that you already have just by using the app terms do apply again create your account and redeem the code lock on MLB for $20 off your first purchase download game time today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed thank you for making lockdown RS your first listen today and every day for your second listen after we're done here today make sure you check out lockdown MLB is Paul Sullivan AKA Sully has you covered every single day for the league Wide News and notes and everything big happening in Major League Baseball he also sprinkles in his tra trademark wit and humor in there as well that's locked on MLB every single day on YouTube or on your favorite podcasting app part of the locked on podcast Network your team every single day and speaking of everyday shout out to our every dayers out there thank you for joining us on this live show and jumping in the comments section see a lot of folks down in the comments that we usually do great to see you along with us here today um coming up on our next locked on reds podcast we are going to look at some more things that these Reds can answer throughout the rest of the season because there are questions that need answering before the off season begins and I think Steve and I are of the opinion that we need a miracle on Miracle on Miracle for this team to get back in the postseason the way that they're the way that they've been losing we we'll talk more about this loss with Oakland coming up here in a few minutes um because we need to keep talking about Rhett louder because Rhett louder is Happy before we before we get into that I told you people were going to notice I was wearing my glasses today Jeff uh fast faces digging the glasses Duo today then John hush checks in it says today's episode's obviously sponsored by Lens Crafters yeah you know I traveled 36 hours I'm on I'm in I'm in Ohio guys um traveled 36 hours with my contacts in that was not a smart play so we're doing the glasses look today they still haven't got that hyper loop from Hawaii to Cincinnati belt bro I am waiting for the Concord to come back if I could get here in like five hours that would be great need some sort of fast travel system here I I they do it in video games all the time we should be able to do it in real life anyway uh let's get back to Rett louder because I am very excited to see him pitch we talked about you know the the worries and the and the the consternation that I have a little bit with the quick callup but I know this and Carrie Reiner had said it and I lost the comment he is a very mature player and with that we're talking about a pitcher this is something that you and I really got a good sense for when we talked to him in the Dugout and Dayton last year and that is that he that was this year this year I talked to him last year and this year yeah anyway time is is a flat circle um but I really get the sense that he is a cerebral pitcher he has great command because all throughout and he told us all throughout his career even going back to high school he has never been a hard thrower he has had to shape pitches he has had to locate pitches he has had to you know outthink hitters and stuff like that for his entire career up to this point so he has a really good Baseline and a really good understanding of how to get outs when and putting that in perspective you know when you compare him to a guy like hunter green you know hunter green came up throwing gas right out of the gate and until you reach a certain level in professional baseball all you have to do is throw that gas uh and the opposing hitters just can't catch up with it they can't do it in high school they can't do it in college they can't do it in the low Miners and then only once you start getting close to the majors you have to start to figure out how to pitch a little bit rett's been figuring out how to pitch since high school and and I like that and because of that he has a pitch mix that is very enticing at least for me because we said all offseason we want people who get ground balls on this pitching staff rat louder gets ground balls he's got four pitches that he use a four seamer a slider those are his two main pitches and then he mixes in a sinker and a change up and the change up can sometimes be a swing and Miss pitch but it's mostly his his sort of like off the beaten path type pitch whenever he's and his other stuff a lot his big swing and Miss pitches are his for seamer and his slider but he doesn't throw them as strikeout pitches he throws them as just out pitches people will hit them on the ground he will not you know really force the issue trying to nibble at the corners of the zone and run up his pitch count I think that that is something that we can expect for him moving forward now the question will be what do Major League hitters do with the pitches that he fills up the strike zone with that be an interesting thing to see but I do not expect to see him walking guys and I do not expect to see a lot of you know fly balls that Great American Ballpark can then you know do its whole gravity well thing and just pull it out of the field and into into the stands for a homer yeah the nice thing about those four pitches Jeff is they're all big league ready there none of his pitches right now are Works in progress um he's he throws what he throws and that's a nice change of pace uh of of late we've had a lot of great pitchers come up but that all needed to work on something all needed to add a pitch to get something different and with Rett you you you get what you get and uh that seems to be pretty good you know I saw some comparisons earlier this year I I think it was right after they drafted Chase Burns but there were a lot of comparisons trying to compare ret louder Chase Burns to Paul SK and that is an unfair comparison I I want I want us to not get caught up in that again we did this with hunter green we did this with nicolao you know we continue to to Heap all of this expectation on these rookie pitchers when they come up and we forget that they're rookies and they're facing the best baseball players in the world and there's going to be an adjustment period there's going to be times where they struggle and there's going to be times where they're great and Paul skin kind of just destroyed that model right he just came up and obliterated everybody and that is not the normal it's the same like what the Reds got last year out of all the position players coming up and all of them performing well uh that doesn't happen that's a that's an outlier that's that's not the normal what is normal is for them to come up and make adjustments and have to get better and I think that's what we'll see with ret louder he'll have periods of being really really good he'll have periods where he needs to figure out why guys can hit a pitch that they haven't been able to hit before and he'll have to make adjustments but as you say talking to him I have all of the confidence in the world that he's smart enough to figure that out he's G to be able to look at the film he's going to be able to talk with DK Johnson and the coaching staff and he's going to be able to make the adjustments that he needs to make but if you're expecting him to come up and go 4 and0 with a sub2 ER that's an unrealistic expectation I think yeah and I I think what we can expect he is a high floor type pitcher I don't think we're going to see him just get absolutely clobbered and and see a ton of like bad outings and oh boy get this guy back down to Triple A because he doesn't know what he's doing up here I think he's going to show very quickly that he belongs in the major leagues the question will be where is his ceiling because I also don't necessarily see him as like a guy that's going to challenge hunter green to be an ace of the staff like I see Chase Burns maybe doing one day in a couple of years but I also don't see him being a guy that you're you're just like yeah whatever throw him every fifth day and he'll eat up a bunch of innings I think I see him somewhere in the middle of this rotation honestly a a Andrew Abbott who doesn't give up a lot of walks that kind of a pitcher and I really think that that is going to be a guy that we can really hang our hats on for the next couple of years there's a reason that we have seen and and this will be our first taste of him in the major leagues but we have seen a lot of people saying that the rotation of the future and quite frankly the future is basically next year but the rotation of the future for this team is green Lolo Abbott um ret louder and Chase Burns and ret louder is going to show us why beginning this Friday well that's a pretty rotation on paper Jeff um I'm kind of looking forward to see how that's going to look next year and if that's the the opening day rotation uh boy that's going to be a fun team to watch but who's going to be guiding that team Jeff uh there are questions surrounding if David Bell should be fired or not or we're gonna ask the question if David Bell can do no wrong because as recently as last week Nick crawl has said David Bell he's doing a good job we're gonna get into David Bell's performance coming up next and the best way to enhance your baseball watching experience the rest of the way is with prize picks America's number one daily fantasy sports app it's so easy to use it's so easy to see why they are the number one app because you can literally turn $10 into $1,000 with just four picks in your entry correct because they've got a lot of great boosts and a lot of great modifiers that make it easier to increase your payouts and all you got to do is you pick your favorite players like ell De La Cruz and Tyler Stevenson you click more or less on your favorite stats like hits homers RBI total bases and more and you see your winnings roll in download the prize pick app today and use the code locked on MLB and you'll get $50 instantly when you play $5 that's code locked on MLB on priz picks and you get $50 instantly when you play $5 you don't even have to win you just get that 50 bucks with the code locked on MLB prize picks run your game you can catch every pitch of the Reds Hometown broadcast with SiriusXM just download the sxm app and search the word Reds also if you haven't checked it out yet go over to Cincinnati Red talk.com check out the written form of coverage of the Reds Jeff's writing over there James rine lots of folks popping in and out covering the Reds in written form great stuff there if you haven't checked it out yet please do so all right f David Bell he's doing a good job says Nick cwl um I don't know that I necessarily agree with that assessment David Bell he's a bum fire him fire him yesterday get Barry Lin Kicking and Screaming drag him out of the B's booth and put him in the Dugout I don't know if I'm there yet either what do you think should David Bell be fired should he be fired immediately should he be fired at the end of the season what do you think I know for a fact and all the reporting has has pointed to this and Nick craw's comments and all this other stuff no for a fact he's not getting fired after this year and for me the question is could they do something so bad between now and the end of the season that that changes and I don't know that the answer is no like I don't even know that if they lost every game between now and the end of the season if they would fire him because they've already come up with their excuse this team's too hurt they've done with they've dealt with too many injuries no Matt mlan no CES no starting rotation for a very long time I mean it's not been very long but it feels very long uh you know they're going to come up with all their excuses as to why they did not succeed this year and that for me that for you that for most Reds fans is super annoying because it feels as though the goalposts are different for him because I I compare this to comments that we've heard from other teams and actions that we've seen from other teams the Seattle Mariners Steve in June were 10 games ahead of the AL West they collapsed they are now in second place the Astros are actually some I think like five or six games ahead of them in first place what did the Mariners do they fired their manager the Texas Rangers won the World Series last year and they are awful this year they are nowhere near the playoffs they are nowhere near the division they're done and their GM what did he come in come on record and say we've got to rethink what we're doing for this team for next year it's very clear whatever we did this year not working we got to change now they didn't fire anybody yet but I got to believe that means that changes are coming after the season is over meanwhile Nick crawl is telling us that David Bell is doing a solid job that uh you know the Reds have really developed Ed De La Cruz and hunter green and he said that under the context of talking about David Bell's job it feels as though the Reds have different standards for their managerial staff than other teams do coach D checks in in the comment section and say saying something that I said on a show maybe four weeks ago Jeff you'll probably remember this uh if David Bell leaves the dug out it will not be by firing it will be by promotion uh coach D says promote Bell and give him some kind of title and go out and get a good baseball guy like David Ross I agree with this 100% um that's and then that's who I would go get also by the way I would love to see them give David Ross a shot here in Cincinnati it's not going to be Barry Lin gang he doesn't want to be the manager if at any time Barry Lin strolls Across The Concourse to the Castellini suite and says hey guys I want to be the manager it would happen that day Barry lkin doesn't want to do it so I would go get David Ross I would promote David Bell to assistant general manager and that's how I would get it done because the cinis are not going to fire him he's not going to be fired uh this is the only scenario I could see a coaching change with this team but I don't see them really doing it let me ask you this Jeff I think you and I are in agreement that it's not going to happen David Bell's not going to get fired from this organization if you look at his time here in Cincinnati should he be fired let's let's not let's not do let's not do it as if will they we know they won't should they would it make has he performed poorly enough and is it a needle mover enough to fire the coaching staff it's interesting because I think if you'd ask me this question before last offseason I would say he shouldn't have been fired but he shouldn't get a contract extension he should be like one of those guys that's it's like yes you performed out your contract thank you we're going to find somebody else but they gave him three years last off season at least the reports are that he got three years extended onto his contract so I I I don't think and I think the most annoying thing about David Bell and the reason that there is such a camp on him like there's the camp of people that like David Bell has has definitely shrunk this year but there's still a camp of people that like him and a camp of people that hate him and it's because he is right in the middle he is not bad but he's not good either and I think that he has proven to us that he is the perfect kind of manager that you can give all of the blame and none of the credit to he is the perfect kind of manager that shows that this is a player driven game and what your roster is and and I know Sparky Anderson said this 50 years ago that it's all about the players on the field and not about the guy that's that's telling them to do what they do but he is never going to be that guy that adds wins to your win total but I also don't think that he's going to be that guy that costs you losses either and that's what makes him so annoying is that the evaluation on him is he is perfectly in the middle and there's nothing wrong with them but there's also nothing that is substantial and exceptional about him either you know who spun me around on this was our buddy Mo Edgar one of the times we had him on where you know he basically asked the question well you fired David Bell who are you going to go get who are they going to replace him with is it a David Ross type guy I think he could be a bit of a needle mover but the the answer is it's more than likely they go get another David Bell they go get another guy that likes the analytics that will also just kind of roll with whatever the front office throws at him and just kind of does their thing day in and day out and that's that's why it doesn't move the needle for me so you know David Bell here David Bell promoted is unless it's a a a drastic change in philosophy I don't think that it really matters uh this front office is going to cling to The Narrative of uh well all the guys coming back from injury is the offseason overhaul we've been looking for right same like the guys coming back from injury that's our offseason acquisition the guys the trade deadline guy coming back that's our acquisition so I I think they're going to treat the overhaul the same way but but we'll see time will tell thanks to everybody who is in the comments section you guys made it a great show with us always appreciate you joining us for some Reds talk make sure that you're subscribed if you're not already Subs subribe make sure you hit that subscribe button and we've even got the lockon Reds insiders that you can check out if you text Insider to 513 594 or 59 513 597 0944 then we will talk Reds all the time texting back and forth about it uh four a free 14-day trial $4.99 a month after those 14 days again that's text the word Insider to 513 597 0944 but for Steve and myself you can always trust that we will be locked on reds every single day you're going to get a phone call from Matt mlan calling him injury PR get on the field prove me wrong