Red Reposter – Matt McLain, Trade Deadline Addition™ Edition

Wednesday links!

The origins of Red Reporter dot com date back nearly 20 years at this juncture, and I’m pretty sure a half-second after the first thought of it came the joke about the Cincinnati Reds eschewing the chance to make a big splash at the July 31st trade deadline because one of their own hurt players was going to be ready to go at the same time.

It’ll be just like a trade!

Well, as the Baseball Gods would have it, the 2024 season is shaping up nicely to provide the Reds with just such an opportunity to welcome a plus-hitter to the lineup who has not been (and will not be) a part of their lineup until early August. Should everything continue to go well, that’s what Matt McLain will be to this iteration of the club, as manager David Bell gave updates on him and some of the other key pieces currently missing from the Reds active roster.

The Enquirer’s Charlie Goldsmith helped relay the news, noting that TJ Friedl is much, much closer to a return than his fellow injured 3+ WAR peer.

That McLain is not already chalked up to an entirely forfeited season is a plus, obviously, and he would, in theory, provide a great boost to a Reds club who’s seen a lot of decimation in their position-player ranks already. Thing is, he missed the last half of last year, too, and a subsequent oblique issue flared up for him in spring training this year before the shoulder injury that wiped him out for the first four months of 2024. That means he’s fought through three major injuries since he last really faced any big league pitching, and the dude was merely a rookie in 2023 in the first place.

How good can we really expect him to be when he’s back swinging a bat in August? And given where he plays (and who else is coming back off suspension in July), can we really just put his name in pen on the infield over any of the other options the Reds will have at that point?

I’m down the rabbit hole here a bit, to be fair. For one, the rest of the season has to play out aside from McLain’s rehab, and who the heck knows what that’ll bring injury and performance-wise to the rest of the Reds. That said, there’s a part of me that thinks even when McLain is ‘back’ as early as August he’s going to need a lot more ramp-up time than the typical two to three week injury guy.

What I’m saying is that the Reds, who just started the 2024 season, need to still be trying to buy, buy, buy at the deadline regardless of where their promising shortstop stands.

In other injury news, The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans discussed the recoveries and pending returns of both Ian Gibaut and Nick Lodolo, suggesting that all the options for the Reds in their rotation/bullpen are still currently on the table.

You can go ahead and bump Carson Spiers off the bullpen list after his 81 pitch outing last night, but that means the Reds still need to find another roster spot to get both Lodolo and Gibaut back active. Andrew Abbott, Graham Ashcraft, Hunter Greene, Alexis Diaz, and Fernando Cruz are the other currently active arms with options, though it’s hard to see any of those guys getting sent down given the filth they possess and the roles they currently fill. Quite the conundrum!

In prospect news, FanGraphs released their Top 40 Reds prospects list, and let’s just say it’s a list that’s listed quite differently than every other list of its ilk. They’ve got four rookie-leaguers among the top 13 in the system while they absolutely abhor poor Sal Stewart. Huh.

Finally, Tejay Antone gave a presser yesterday about the need for a third major surgery on his right elbow, and I’ve got to say it was pretty moving. The dude’s as motivated as any I’ve seen, and I can’t imagine that after all he’s been through. He’s also optimistic as all hell, and has every intention of getting back to throwing the filthy, filthy gas he threw when he busted onto the scene for real back in 2021.