Nick Krall didn’t exactly slam the door on Nick Lodolo’s future, but he didn’t open it wide, either.
At the 2026 GM meetings in Las Vegas, the Reds’ president of baseball operations was asked on day three about Lodolo and where things stand with the left-hander. Krall’s answer made the situation pretty clear: the club still wants to see Lodolo healthy and effective before anything else comes into focus.
“Obviously, Nick had some struggles with blisters this year,” Krall said in a recent interview. “It started at the end of spring training and just kind of worked all the way through the season.”
That injury history is impossible to ignore. Lodolo has already landed on the IL eight times in five seasons with Cincinnati, and blisters have been responsible for half of those trips.
The latest season was another reminder of how hard it’s been for him to stay on the mound. He made 21 starts in 2026, seven fewer than in 2025, when he also finished the year on the IL.
The frustrating part for the Reds is that Lodolo has shown exactly why they’d want to keep believing in him. In 2025, he put together his healthiest and most productive big league season to date, setting career highs with 156.2 innings and 156 strikeouts while posting a 3.33 ERA and 1.08 WHIP across 28 starts.
This past season was a different story. His walk rate climbed to 3.81 BB/9, his WHIP jumped to 1.48, and his ERA rose to nearly 5.00.
His strikeout rate also fell to 6.87 K/9, continuing a downward trend that started after he reached the majors. The source of the trouble was tied to discomfort in his left index finger, which made it difficult for him to keep his high-spin efficiency and sharp secondary pitches where they needed to be through the spring and summer.
“So, you know, we want to get him back on track, get him back to where he can be a dominant pitcher in the big leagues, like he’s shown flashes of over the last couple of years. So getting him back to where he needs to get to is a first-and-foremost priority.”
That’s the heart of it for Cincinnati. Krall wants Lodolo healthy and consistent first, and only then will the next conversation really matter. If he gets there, Lodolo could still have value as a trade piece, especially as a left-handed starter with the kind of upside that could make him a team’s No. 2 pitcher.
But the uncertainty around his health and production makes the long-term picture cloudy. Lodolo becomes an unrestricted free agent after the upcoming season, and with the Reds heading into what looks like another rebuild, it’s hard to see a clean path to a re-signing.
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