The Cincinnati Reds odds and the rules dictated had them entering the day with the 7th selection, but none of that really matters because the draft lottery allows for luck to get involved. In 2024 the Reds beat the odds and wound up with the 2nd overall pick despite being projected in the teens. This year Cincinnati did not improve their projected spot as they wound up with the 9th overall pick this year.
The Reds have had picks in the previous two drafts. Back in 2023 they selected Rhett Lowder with the 7th overall pick out of Wake Forest. This past summer they selected Chase Burns with the 2nd overall pick – also out of Wake Forest.
Cincinnati has only had the #9 overall pick once. It came back in 1994 and that year they selected C.J. Nitkowski – a left-handed pitcher out of St. Johns. He would play for the Reds for half of one season, in 1995, before being traded at the trade deadline to the Detroit Tigers for David Wells. Nitkowski would pitch in parts of 10 big league seasons, throwing 479.0 innings with a 5.37 ERA and a -1.0 WAR (Baseball Reference version) for his career.
The Reds have been doing fairly well with Top 10 picks for a while now. Going back to 2004, here’s the list of picks they made in years where they were selecting in the Top 10:
- Homer Bailey
- Drew Stubbs
- Yonder Alonso
- Mike Leake
- Nick Senzel
- Hunter Greene
- Jonathan India
- Nick Lodolo
- Rhett Lowder
- Chase Burns
They certainly haven’t been great. There’s not a star player in there, but Hunter Greene just put up a star caliber season in 2024 and he’s got plenty of time to add to that and become a star. But there are plenty of good big leaguers in there, even if flawed ones. Cincinnati has gotten every day players/quality starting pitchers from most of their picks and most teams can’t say that. With that said, other teams can certainly point to having drafted a superstar in that time frame, too, and the Reds absolutely can’t.
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