Reds starter Julian Aguiar underwent Tommy John surgery

The latest blow to an ever-thinning starting rotation.

This time one year ago I doubt the Cincinnati Reds envisioned they’d need to turn to Julian Aguiar for 31.2 big league innings during the 2024 regular season. They set out in free agency and eventually landed both Nick Martinez and Frankie Montas, two veteran arms to bolster a young corps including Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Andrew Abbott, and Graham Ashcraft.

Brandon Williamson was in the fold! So, too, were Connor Phillips and Carson Spiers! Lyon Richardson finally looked healthy, and there was a good chance Rhett Lowder was going to pitch his way into the discussion, too.

Aguiar had potential, of course, but there was so much depth ahead of him that it was easy - obvious, even - that the Reds weren’t counting on him for 2024.

Boy, how plans changed.

Aguiar ended up getting 7 starts down the stretch as injuries, trades, and yips decimated the depth ahead of him. It’s an excellent lesson that even when you think you’ve got more pitching than you’d even need, you’re going to still need more - it’s like gathering firewood, really.

With Montas now gone, Martinez set to opt into free agency, Williamson befelled by a torn UCL, and each of Lodolo, Abbott, and Ashcraft coming off injuries that had them on the 60-day IL to end the season, the once-proud pitching depth of the Reds is now a serious question mark. That makes the news that Aguiar required Tommy John surgery himself yesterday that much tougher to stomach.

MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon had the news.

The timing of the respective Tommy John surgeries of Aguiar and Williamson mean they’re almost 100% out for the entirety of the 2025 season, with only the slightest of chances that they might be available by the time the Reds reach the World Series. These injuries just take a year, at minimum, to get over.

In a perfect, 2012 regular season kind of way, the Reds could have a half-decent rotation in-house for 2025 with no additional action. Perfect health, and perfect recoveries from existing issues, don’t really ever happen in modern baseball however, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that an offseason that already needed to address the team’s putrid offense and defense now needs to address its starting rotation, too. Someone is going to have to eat innings, and someone else is going to have to be ready to chomp them when the guy in front of him inevitably faces a spell on the injured list.

Julian Aguiar filled that latter role admirably in 2024. The Reds now need to find someone just as capable, if not more, for that spot in 2025.