The Reds passed on a chance to cash in at the deadline, and JJ Bleday may be the one who makes that decision sting.
Cincinnati had more than enough trade pieces to work with if it wanted to be aggressive. Even in the rental market alone, the club had assets it could have flipped to restock the system. And if the Reds had been willing to dangle other controllable players who might not fit neatly into the long-term core, they might have brought back an even bigger return.
Instead, Nick Krall mostly held his ground. Nathaniel Lowe and Caleb Ferguson were moved, but the haul was modest: Alejandro Rivera, a lottery-ticket-type arm, plus some international bonus pool money. The sense was that Cincinnati was wary of creating a roster hole it would have trouble patching later.
There was likely a middle path available. The Reds could have dealt their best-value chips while keeping lesser pieces around as placeholders until the offseason. One player who fit that kind of conversation was Bleday, especially in a market where bats were scarce and outfield help was in demand.
Bleday is under team control through 2028, so Cincinnati did not have to move him. But waiting until the offseason does not guarantee the same kind of return.
The pressure changes. Teams are no longer making panic moves to save a playoff push, and they can also weigh free-agent alternatives, which cuts into the Reds’ leverage.
The bigger issue is that Bleday himself could keep dragging down his value. If he keeps stumbling, the league may decide the early-season version was the outlier, not the norm.
That possibility looked remote when he first forced his way into the picture. Signed to a minor league free agent deal over the winter, Bleday didn’t break camp with the club. He crushed the ball in Louisville, earned a call-up, and then from that promotion through May 31 he hit .303/.398/.642 with nine homers in 128 plate appearances.
That stretch is what made him look like a deadline prize. But the momentum hasn’t held.
Since the calendar flipped to August, Bleday is hitting just .132/.267/.237, a .504 OPS. If that keeps up, the shine comes off fast.
Even before August, the warning signs were there. He went cold in June and put up a .611 OPS, then bounced back in July without really getting back to that early-season level, finishing the month with a .745 OPS that may be closer to his actual ceiling.
And there’s a reason Bleday had to rebuild his value in the first place. The Athletics cut him loose for a reason, and he settled for a minor league deal because of it.
He came into 2026 with a career .702 OPS after posting a .698 mark last season, numbers that point to slightly below-average offense. His defense has been in that same range, too.
If the slump continues, the Reds may look back and see a player whose hot start inflated his market at exactly the right time - and who then came back down to the profile that got him here in the first place. That is the risk Cincinnati is living with now.
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