
CRISIS: Cincinnati Reds Playoff Math ENDS HOPE as Nick Krall’s STRATEGY BACKFIRES
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Cincinnati Reds stare down elimination with just six losses left before postseason hopes are officially dashed. Can the front office’s questionable decision-making and Nick Krall’s loyalty to underperformers like Ke'Bryan Hayes and TJ Friedl be justified, or is it time to play the prospects and embrace a true youth movement at Great American Ball Park?
Steve and Jeff break down the Reds’ fading playoff chances, calling for more starts from unproven players such as Noelvi Marte and Edwin Arroyo over veterans stuck in deep slumps. Spotlighting Andrew Abbott’s late-season struggles and Chase Burns’ bizarre usage pattern, they question Terry Francona’s lineup choices and the impact of coaching changes. The episode wraps up with a fan-favorite “Start, Bench, Cut” segment, weighing the futures of Matt McLain, Hayes, and Friedl in Cincinnati. Will the Reds finally pivot or just keep spinning their wheels?
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00:00 2026 Reds Elimination Talk
10:12 Weekend Starters & Pitching
23:32 Start, Bench, Cut Debate
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Locked On Reds - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Reds — CRISIS: Cincinnati Reds Playoff Math ENDS HOPE as Nick Krall’s STRATEGY BACKFIRES. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
This is the Lock-On Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. It's Halloween time that the Disneyland Resort and Minis begun to grow up delights and spine tingling fun. Come see what becomes of Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park when Halloween takes hold. Halloween time, August 21st through October 31st, visit Disneyland.com or contact your travel advisory for important details. The new Ice Pumpkin Cream Matcha or the new Ice Pumpkin Cream Shaken Espresso. You can find your favorite taste of fall only at Starbucks.
What will come as a surprise to nobody but Nick Crawl? The Reds are just six losses away from being eliminated officially in the 2026 baseball season. You are Locked On Reds. You're daily Cincinnati Reds Podcasts. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, my name is Jeff Carr. He is Steve Offenbaker and on today's Lockdown Reds Podcast. A little bit later on we're going to play a little game, a start bench cut with a couple of guys that I think every Reds fan wants to cut. Say why. That's probably not going to happen for all three of them a little bit later on in the show. And just a few minutes we'll jump into the probable starters for this weekend. I one of them is a bit of a surprise. We'll get to that in just a few minutes. We'll start with the fact that the elimination number, the anti magic number.
I was trying to come up with a term for this one. I'm sure there is one. The next one. For the red legs, to be eliminated from the wild card post season contention. I mean, that's the only chance they got. They've been eliminated from the division long ago. And mathematically, they still have some time. But we all know what that means. And quite frankly, Steve, it seems like by the time the Cubs roll into town for the final home series of the season, we're going to be talking about another year of no play. And we're going to be talking about the playoff baseball and Cincinnati. Yeah, I don't know. I have feelings. I don't know where to begin with those. But you look at this and it just, I think it puts the, just kind of the punctuation mark on what this year has been for us. And we have tried, right? We have tried to find the silver linings and tried to find, you know, and there's still some good things to talk about.
And we'll get into some of that here in a little bit. But overall, I find myself feeling relieved. If that's believable, like just that thank God that's done. And they can begin to focus on next year already. Because really, I think that's what we're all doing. We're all looking at who can play right now to give us a clue for next year. Who do we think will not be around here next year? Who will they fire between now and next year? We're kind of all in that focus except for the guys that are, you know, on the field. They're still worrying about this year. That kind of feels like it brings it to a, well, it's okay to start looking towards next year now. Yeah, I mean, as it stands right now, we've seen more of Jose Trevino on the mound than Hunter Green. So I hate that fact. But yeah, six games for Jose Trevino on the mound and five games for Hunter Green. So there's that on their bingo card, by the way. Did anybody have that?
If you did, wow, like I need to talk to you about a lot of things. But when it comes to this team, like it's just fallen apart just so much. Ever since May 1st, because at the end of April, we all felt so good about them. We thought we knew where they were going. The expectations were high going into April. They delivered on April. And then they stopped. And then it was done. And the season was over. You know, stop the count. Whatever that might be. But that's not how this works. And we are now looking at midway through the month of September. The reds are not only not even close to the playoffs. They're talking about. I mean, because if you think about it, if the reds lose three and the right teams win three, the Dodger series is over. Yeah. Sorry, the brewers series. But yeah, the brewers series.
They're going to be done before they get to the Dodgers series. Look, if they're not done by the time they get to the Dodger series, so three in Milwaukee, they're coming home for four against the Dodgers. If they're not done by that series, they will be done after that series. There will be eliminated before they get to the Cubs. That's just the way that that's going to go. I just wonder, you know, does it change how? Tito's doing things right now. Do you think that that matters at all? We'll be fine. Because you and I were talking during show prep about the fact that Matt McLean is still getting run out there. Keep Ryan Hayes is getting run out there. Guys are getting run out. DJ Friddle is getting run out there. And when we do our, our little game here in a minute, that actually will be a combination that we do. But I just, I don't know why you're not playing those guys every day. Why is Edwin Aroyo back with Louisville? Why is he not on this roster playing every day to see if he can maybe figure some things out or at least have a good batch of film to work with in the off season to figure out why the pieces aren't falling together to figure out why his defense didn't travel with him up from Louisville.
Play that guy every day. What's he going to learn? Like just play him every day. Bring back to Milwaukee, Marta. Bring him back. Run him out there. Let him play. Let him back. Let's see what happens. Yeah, the, all the different like, you know, hot take mantras and the lines that teams have throughout the seasons. Like, why not us, you know, believe, believe in the, in the championship chase, all this other stuff. At this point, the motto for the Cincinnati Reds should be why not we're going to play no, why not we're going to play Edwin Aroyo why not Carlos or hey he led off the other day. Why not, you know, Carlos or hey, Hector Rodriguez, Juan Brito, they should call up Edwin Aroyo, no, I'll be marty, just put these guys in the lineup at this point. The only two guys that have an argument to not be removed from the lineup at all. And even in some cases, you might say to protect them from themselves is Ellie and Sal.
Ellie and Sal are the only guys and Tyler Stevenson, whether he's D.H. or catcher, that's your third guy. There you go. You got three guys. A third of the lineup that you can say these guys need to be playing every day. The rest of them. Let's start seeing what everybody else has because they're going to be playing the game. Everybody else has because even as I was talking to you, like one Brito, just look at the tiny sample size has done pretty well with what he has hit so far. Hector Rodriguez has shown some nice things. Carlos or hey has barely been here. So I haven't yet made a really big thought about him. All in all, like the rest of this season is just figuring out more tape, more resume, more evaluation on guys for next year, whatever next year might be. There is no reason to consistently play these guys that we have seen so much of as I was telling you in prep.
What will baseball historians think of the 2026 Reds where they gave 165 combined games to key Brian Hayes and TJ Freedle and they produced exactly 20 combined runs bad at it. What are we missing by keeping those guys off the field? It's truly a no lose situation for the Reds. Not from that. For all of these young players, for all of these people, there's no repercussion, there's no, there's no bad that can come of this Jeff. You know, I'm looking at some of the, I'm looking at some of the performances over the last week and that Dodger series was pretty much a stinker. But you talk about maybe Ellie and Sour are still the two guys that you run out there. I want Sour in the lineup because I want him to finish out his rookie of the year campaign strong. If you're going to put Sour in the lineup, I want Ellie hitting in front of him to give him some opportunities to drive in some runs.
And then beyond that, honestly, I want A.U. Hania Sour as batting behind South Stewart because Gino's had some pop in his bat lately. Over the last two weeks, he's got four home runs, the slash line of 204 381 469. So I want those guys batting in a group together so that Sour gets some pitches to hit. He's got somebody to drive in and there's quasi protection behind him so that the other team has to kind of pitch to him. So beyond that, give me all the rookies. I don't need to see any of those other guys any more Jeff. I wouldn't hurt my feelings if I have seen TJ Friedo's final bat as a member of this team. Cool. It wouldn't hurt my feeling if key Brian Hayes doesn't play again because we know what he's going to do. He's going to do nothing with his 20 what is his OPS plus 28 right now something 27. Sorry, I gave him too much credit. I don't even know. I don't even know how you get an OPS plus that low having played in 80 games.
You know, you know, you know, how the man has two more doubles than you would I do. He has 202 at bats. He has two doubles. It boggles my mind. Why run those guys out there still play the kids? Let the kids play it for those of you of a certain age go, you know, the bad news bears. Let the kids play. Just put them out there. I didn't think we'd get to that point in the season, but we are because that playoff elimination number of six is in the rearview mirror. And that stickers on the rearview mirror of things in mirror are larger than they are closer than they appear. I coming up next, probably starters for this weekend. One of them is going to surprise you because it surprises me. You've waited all off season for this and now it's time to make every NFL week count because Fando is making this your most rewarding season ever.
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All right Steve when it comes to this weekend, we're going to see Andrew Abbott tonight in Milwaukee. We're also going to see Brady Singer on Saturday and we're going to see Chase Burns on the set. And I I know I know why it's not a surprise, but I'm still surprised. They haven't shut this guy down that they're going to continue this dumb plan where he's going to go out there. He's going to throw 40 pitches and it's going to be against the Brewers, which probably means instead of three. And he's going to be two innings. And by the way, I think that's against Jacob Mizorowski, although it's lined up as TBD, there's a chance that they hold Ms. if they've already won the first two games, whatever that might be. The whole point is I just think it's weird that we continue to roll chase Burns out there every five days just to get you know a nice handway. And then you're going to throw a nice handway to the crowd and throw a couple of pitches and then all right, you're done. But that was your three for this series. How you feeling about the pitching staff this weekend? You know, with Burns, why not just start him.
Let him have the start. Let him have the start. And then he pitches one more start in that final Cubs series at home. Two starts, two more starts. This series once in the Cubs. Done. Just stop messing with him. Like just are they waiting to be eliminated from the playoffs mathematically before they shut him down? Maybe I don't know that would be ridiculous. I don't know. But what I know is that thing that they did in the Dodgers series was the dumbest thing. It's on brand. It was very. It was very crawl. And I am to I do not believe for a hot second that that was Tito and Matt Tracy. That came from the front office. Like you're going to keep starting him, but he's only pitching this much because we want to say he made it to the end. Like you've done the math. We've looked at the analytics and this will help. Give me just give me a break. I just I cannot.
I will say this. I will say this. I will say this. I will say this. I will say this. The Andrew Abbott start though. Let's talk about that for a minute. That's actually pretty interesting to me, Jeff. For last season, Andrew Abbott told us that at the end of the year he lost his legs. He ran out of steam. He didn't have much juice. He didn't have much left in the tank. And his last few starts. Have kind of looked that way. Like history was repeating itself. He did a lot of things for the rest of his life. He did a lot of things for the rest of his life. Look at his last couple starts. His last time out Jeff, he went for innings. He gave up one earned run. But only for innings the start before that. Three innings. Seven earned runs. A lot of pitches. He's fighting through a lot of pitches. I would love to see him come out and have a good start. I'm not saying. win this game. All of them saying is I would like a start from Andrew Abbott to keep the
reds in the ball the ball game until we get to the bullpen. I would like to give me six. Go five or six innings, three runs or less, decent start. Show me that there's still a little something in the tank because it's worrisome to me that if two seasons in a row 28 is the max because that means if the reds do put together a good season, Andrew Abbott is starting to show an inability to get you through an entire season healthy and then have something left for the playoffs. And that's going to have to be managed if that is a truism. If this really is his max is 28 starts, then you're going to have to find a way to make him have something left for the post. So I would love to see a good start from Andrew Abbott. And then you've got Brady Singer going who, you know, he's just going to do Brady, he's going to be Brady Singer and go out there and do Brady Singer things. And I find myself more and more hoping that the reds find a way to bring him back just as, you know, Mr. Consistency, Mr. Reliable number three starter, maybe in this rotation next
year, if there is a next year. So, you know, these these last few starts for a couple of these guys for for Andrew Abbott for retlouder still being run out there every fifth day for these guys, these starts still kind of matter just in showing us their long term viability if this team ever is a playoffs. I think it's interesting with Andrew Abbott and the fact that he's kind of showing this with you again because he's now going to set a career high with his next start supposing, you know, there's not some sort of evil cheese curd that like jumps up and bite them and causes them to not pitch on on Friday evening, but it'll be his 30th start. We're talking about getting up there in the career highs for our innings as well. The longevity is there. These are guys that floats around the four and a half ERA mark, which is a quality start, but at the end of the day, that's a fine picture. That's not a great picture. Can he be that guy that jumps up and gets up under 4.2? Maybe
I mean, he's 27 years old. We're starting to get into that prime era where it's like you know who you are and you're really doing your thing. So maybe next year, we really see that happen or is this who just who he is? Because at this point, I kind of feel like we've seen Andrew Abbott. I don't know that there's another level to him. That's not a complaint. That's just an observation. I think that we have seen the best of Andrew Abbott. And I like the fact that he's on this team, but I think if you're sitting here and saying, well, he's got to be a guy who's ERA is in the threes, you're going to be disappointed because that's just not who he is. He can be that guy. I mean, can he be that guy all the way through 30 stars? We can see the first half. So he can be that guy in 21 starts. He can be that guy in 25 starts and he could be that guy in 29 starts. So the question is, is this a product of maybe
he pushed harder earlier in the year than he would have if everybody had been healthy? What are the outliers here? I know that he had a 2.870 ERA in 29 starts last year. So it can be done. For me, I want him really, I so badly want him to be a number two guy, a number two starter. He's never going to be a true ace. I don't think. But I want him to be a number two guy. And in fact, he is going to be a number two guy next season in the absence of Hunter Green and the continued failures of Nicoladolo. So I need him to, I need him to be much more that guy that he was in 20 in his 2025 season where closer to the closer to three than four. That's what I need from him. And can he do that? Well, he has done that. Can he repeat it? Is the question, I need him to finish strong, Jeff. I'm watching him with particular interest and needing him to finish strong over these last couple of weeks of baseball. What I wonder a lot about him is that his pitch mix and
all that stuff seems to have changed or exactly how he attacks hitters has to have changed because he has more walks this season that he's ever allowed. At least the rate of walks is higher than it's ever been. And his strikeout rate is lower than it has ever been. And so I'm hoping that that part of his game is an aberration is a blip in the radar because if it is not, then we will continue to see more of this. We need to get, we need him to get back to where he was in 2025, where his strikeout rate was above eight and his walk rate was 2.3, which was pristine. I mean, if he can keep, if he can get back to that next year, then we are talking about number two starter stuff. But this four, this walk rate over a walk rate per nine over four is just not going to get it done. Let me ask you this. Could there be something to his statistics this season and the fact that he's working with Matt Tracy instead
of Derek Johnson? I'd have to look specifically as to how that splits up. You're not wrong. I mean, you can't, you can't discount that for sure. You know, maybe there's just different, you know, a different voice in his ear this year has led to some of these changes in results. Be interesting to see what next season looks like. Just wondering out loud. Do a, do like a almost an exit interview type segment talking about Andrew Rabbit for that point. I don't have to go back and look and see. But yeah, that, I think it's interesting because we marked down Andrew Rabbit as we know who he is. But I think we have to define what that is. And this season it's not been as good as it was last year. And so what does he bring to the table for 2027? We know he's going to be a part of the rotation. But is it going to be what we saw in 2025 or what we saw in 2026? I only got a couple more starts left. Probably looking about three starts for Andrew Rabbit and his first one comes here tonight. All right, coming up, we're going to play a rousing
rendition of start, bitch, cut. If you've made it all the way to the end of the show yesterday, we kind of tinkered around with this. And I said it would be a segment. And here it is. We're doing that coming up next. A big thank you to our friends at Amazon for this limited break. This back to school season spin less on your kids with Amazon. We all know how crazy the back to school shopping experience can be. It starts with a few items on your list and suddenly your shopping for supplies for clothes for lunch gear for tech and about 10 other things that you didn't even see coming. It all adds up fast. When you're buying supplies and find yourself asking how much can a calculator really cost and it becomes more expensive every time you check the items in your cart keep growing your list. I wasn't expecting math to start costing me money before school even began. It feels like there's a life lesson and there's somewhere about addition and subtraction. But anyway, you want to save money on these things head over to Amazon because they're going to
help you get it done. Remember that with Amazon's low back to school prices, you can spend less on your kids because every dollar that you don't spend on them is a dollar that you haven't spent on them. Shop back to school right now at Amazon and spend less on your kids. If you can't watch us here on YouTube, we are on every single audio podcasting platform around. That's also where the everyday or club lives ad free locked on reds over there in the audio is $5 a month, $50 a year. The link for that's down in the show description. All right, Jeff, start, bench, cut. That's what we're going to do. I previewed it there a little bit yesterday and up top in the first segment. We're going to start with the one that's on the screen folks. Matt McLean, Keeb Ryan Hayes, TJ Friedle. Now we can do this with what we would do and what we think the reds would do. I'm going to go first because this is my jam.
And it's exactly in the order that I would do it. Out of these three guys, I would continue to start Matt McLean because I am trying so hard to not give up on him, Jeff. I really am. You're trying really hard. But he's got to get it together. But I would start him. I would bench Keeb Ryan Hayes because God help us with that contract. And we already know what he's going to bring to the table. So I'm benching him. And then our man, TJ Friedle, who is clearly a nice guy who was a lot of fun, Captain Chaos, button disrupting, doing all the things. But those days are over. And I'm sad to say that I think TJ Friedle's baseball days are probably almost over. I'm cut in TJ Friedle. I think he gets a like one of those minor league invites to spring training type deals next year, somewhere else. It's not going to be here. The reds right now, Steve, when you kind of sort this out on fan graphs and you say, all right, for players that have at least 200 played appearances, they have two of the bottom three of WRC plus, which is a stat that is
pretty much the same thing as OPS plus, all inclusive hitting stat. Keeb Ryan Hayes is the worst by far from any player in the league at 25 WRC plus. TJ Friedle is the third worst in the league. There's only one other player in the 30s that's Carlos Narvaya's and he's already played for two different teams this year. I think he's in AAA right now. And he has somehow Keeb Ryan Hayes and TJ Friedle continue to be on a Major League roster. I have a hard time arguing with your point here. The point of the game is you have to put one player in each category. I would put them all in cut. But yeah, if you got to choose one to start, one to bench, one to cut, McLean to start, Hayes to bench, Friedle to cut. I think if the reds get a new front office regime, it's they decide to cut all three because the only reason these guys are still here is loyalty
within the current leadership structure. Nick Crawl traded for Keeb Ryan Hayes. He doesn't want to admit defeat. And TJ Friedle had this amazing story of being an undrafted rookie that made his all the way, made himself all the way into a lead off hitter and everyday center of field. And the reds just don't want to get rid of those stories. And then Matt McLean has 2023 still propping himself up that one season that happened almost four years ago. And he's still talking about, well, it could be that guy. We've seen a thousand played appearances to tell us otherwise. We're going to ignore those and still look at 2023. They bring in a new front office, all three of these guys are gone. But as it stands right now, I think that's exactly how the reds play that. Okay, let's do another one. Let's do another one. Start bench cut. A.U. Haney, Oswara's J.J. Blade. Who's the third one we will put in this group?
This is the well, we're not too obvious. Oh, I put him in there. That could be fun. We'll do those three. Okay, go ahead. We're not too. Yeah, because I mean, all three of these guys have been interesting. J.J. Blade was a guy that we didn't really have a lot of expectations coming into the season. And then he burst onto the scene with an amazing month. And he's not been that good since the calendar turned from May. I want to look at those stats. Probably be a subject in a later episode. I think out of those three, what I would do and what the reds would do are different. What I would do is I would start a Euhenio Suarez. I would bench Noelle Vimarte and I would cut J.J. Blade. What the reds are going to do is the exact opposite of that.
They're going to start J.J. Blade. They're going to bench Noelle Vimarte and they're going to cut which in this case would just be to say not pick up his mutual option in a Euhenio Suarez. So for me, this funny, because I think I would out of that group of three, I would start Noelle Vimarte. I would bench A Euhenio Suarez. And I would cut J.J. Blade. Because J.J. Blade's numbers are doing exactly what this guy right here, if you're watching on YouTube, said they were going to do and you all yelled at me and called me crazy. I've got the receipts to prove it. Go look at his stat since the trade deadline, folks. Yeah. Well, honestly, it's not even since the trade deadline. It's literally since June 1st. I was trying to be nice, but yeah, tell the people how they were wrong. From June 1st through the last game in LA. So September 9th, he's played 88 ball games.
He has a 182 batting average in 88 ball games. He has a 299 on base percentage in 88 ball games. And he has a 339 slugging percentage in 88 ball games. I don't know why people like he will have a double. We have our outfielder. You've been saying, get a power hitting outfielder. There he is. We got him. Why would you want to trade him? That's why I wanted to trade him. His month of May is doing all of the heavy lifting this season. His month of May was phenomenal. And then the three games in April. But those 30 games are doing the heavy lifting. The next 88 games are the reason that his season numbers aren't better. I mean, his season numbers, at least, according to baseball reference, they got him at a 1.3 war, which seems fine. And I'm pretty sure like 0.7 of that, maybe even 0.8 is the first 30 games of the
season. Like I think we've got to understand who JJ Blade is. He had a nice hot stretch. This is what we do with the roster. This is why the Reds are in this position. They don't know how to evaluate things. They take hot stretches and expect that for eternity. So I met McLean still here. He had a hot whatever that was 80 something ball games in 2023 and boom, that's who he is. Well, his last 1000 played appearances tell you differently. Aristides Aquino was here forever because of his month of August and September. And when he first got called up. And I think that we've got to understand how guys go. And I swear we heard this a whole bunch with Ellie De La Cruz when he first came up. He went crazy his first couple of weeks and everybody's like, well, he's going to be Aristides Aquino. He's going to flame out. You know what we haven't heard about JJ Blade is how he's like Aristides Aquino and he's going to flame out. What's he doing?
There we go. Let's end on a fun one. We're about to get out of here. It is week one of college football folks and let's do a fun one just because I want to watch Jeff fall out of his share. Brian Kelly. Well, first week don't count last week. That's that first week don't count. This was week zero before that. This is what we play now. Don't count Ohio State played ball state. That doesn't count. Yeah, they called that senior. All right, start bench cut Brian Kelly. Scott Satterfield Luke fickle go. Oh gosh, starting Luke fickle and the rest of them can do whatever. Brian sickle will bend. Brian Kelly will bend. But Satterfield are you in his family? I was ready for the last year. I'm so proud to be here. May have my family. That was a mean flight from Notre Dame to LSU.
Somebody we were talking about this the other day about Joe Barrow. You realize how long Joe Barrow has been a Bengals quarterback. There's been two coaches at LSU since Joe Barrow left LSU. Oh, no, no, no, no, let's get out of here. That's going to do it for this edition of locked on reds. Check out more in our locked on college shows. There's a lot more. We're going to be back in your feeds next week. Lord willing, gathering up all of the news and notes, the rumors and the reports, the information to keep you locked on reds every single day. The official schedule calls it week two. I'm stupid. They didn't play anybody. I mean, I don't know why we don't just call the first two weeks preseason. Like why isn't that considered the preseason? It is. It's what it is. It's the preseason. I'm Galen co-founder of Brooklyn Solar Works. With my chase sink, business premiere card, I get unlimited 2.5% cashback on purchases of $5,000 or more.
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