When the Reds landed Brock Burke in that odd three-team deal, he looked like the kind of arm you file away as useful depth and move on. Gavin Lux had already slipped from the lofty expectations that once followed him as a top prospect, and Josh Lowe felt like a pure upside gamble. Burke, by comparison, seemed destined to be a plain middle reliever.
That would have been a fair read at the time. Burke’s path had already been bumpy: he stalled out as a starter, battled injuries, then didn’t stick with the Texas Rangers after frustrations boiled over in 2024 and he broke his hand. The Los Angeles Angels picked him up, and even there he arrived as more of a reclamation project than a sure thing.
Instead, Burke kept trending up. He posted a 3.54 ERA over 20⅓ innings after joining the Angels in 2024, then backed that up with a 3.36 ERA across 61⅔ innings in 2025. With Cincinnati in 2026, he has taken another step forward and become one of Terry Francona’s most trusted bullpen options.
The numbers tell the story. Burke owns a 2.73 ERA in 56 innings for the Reds, and he was not moved at the trade deadline. More importantly, he has grown into a true leverage arm, holding opposing hitters to a .032 batting average against in high-leverage situations this season.
That kind of production matters even more because the Reds’ bullpen has been one of the team’s biggest issues in 2026. The relief corps sits 25th in the majors with a 4.42 ERA and has cost the club 0.3 fWAR.
If Cincinnati wants to be positioned to contend in 2027, fixing that group has to be a winter priority. Some pieces already look like part of the answer.
Tejay Antone has been excellent with a 2.25 ERA and deserves more NL Comeback Player of the Year attention than he’s getting. Emilio Pagan, after a rough start, has been outstanding since returning from the IL with a 1.59 ERA, and his early-season struggles might make his $10 million player option for 2027 look more appealing than another trip to the market.
But Burke is the piece that helps everything fit. Bringing him back would give the Reds a left-handed setup arm to pair with a right-handed option in Pagan, with Antone as part of that same late-inning backbone. That gives Cincinnati the kind of foundation a bullpen needs to actually shorten games.
Once the back end is in place, the rest becomes much more manageable. The Reds would still need a couple of dependable middle-inning arms, but the path from weakness to strength starts with keeping Burke in the fold.
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Cincinnati also brought first baseman Michael Toglia onto the active roster from Triple-A Louisville, while reliever Zach McCambley was optioned back to Louisville to make the moves work. Lodolo is set to step into Hunter Greenes rotation spot, and with Greene now on the shelf, the Reds are once again adjusting on the fly as they try to keep enough pitching in place to stay on track. [Read more 🡒]