Luke Holman is back on the mound, back in the spotlight, and back to looking like the arm the Reds thought they were getting.
The 2024 Competitive Balance Round B pick entered the Arizona Fall League with a lot of buzz and not much recent workload behind it. A standout season at Louisiana State pushed him onto MLB Pipeline’s Draft rankings as a Top 50 prospect in July, and the profile was easy to buy: stuff, projection and feel for pitching, the kind of college right-hander who can move fast.
But injury knocked him off the track almost as soon as his pro career began. He made it through only nine innings early in the 2025 season before Tommy John surgery on his elbow, then logged just 6 2/3 more innings in the Arizona Complex League this summer.
The Reds also played it cautious with a minor groin issue, choosing to shut him down instead of sending him to a full-season affiliate to finish the year. That’s part of why this fall feels less like a tune-up and more like the real beginning.
“In a way, for sure,” Holman said after a strong start for Scottsdale on Tuesday night. “I feel better than I ever have. My weight is up, everything feels good, so I’d say so.”
He said Cincinnati let him know about a month before the season ended that he’d be headed to the desert, and the assignment was always going to happen even if he’d reached a full-season club.
“I was excited to compete against this good talent,” Holman said.
For Holman, the road here started long before LSU. He was a highly regarded high school arm in eastern Pennsylvania, with top-five-round potential and a strong commitment to Alabama.
At that stage, he knew his prep mix - mostly fastball and curveball - wasn’t ready for the pro game. The Blue Jays still took a shot on him in the 20th round, but he chose college and went to Alabama, where he pitched in relief as a freshman and then emerged as a starter as a sophomore.
His stock kept climbing from there. He looked like Team USA’s best starter the summer after that sophomore season, then transferred to LSU and took another step forward as a junior, finishing in the top five in the SEC in a number of pitching categories. Then the elbow surgery hit, and all of that progress got put on hold.
“It was a setback, for sure,” Holman said. “But I think it happened at a good time.
My velo was kind of going down. My velo’s back now and I think all of my pitches are better than they were pre-TJ, so I think it was a blessing in disguise to get it done early in my career.”
That confidence showed in Scottsdale. Holman ran his four-seam fastball at 91-93 mph and touched 95, then paired it with a curve, slider and splitter to throw three hitless innings. He walked one and struck out six, and each pitch in the mix produced at least one strikeout: two on the four-seamer, two on the curve, one on the slider and one on the splitter.
“I try to mix around a little bit, make the hitters look for something I’m not going to throw,” Holman said. “I think getting ahead with my fastball really helped me a lot.
I was able to put them away with my curveball, slider, splitter whenever I wanted to. But getting ahead was the big thing.”
The only hiccup was the curveball command. Holman said he still wasn’t consistently landing it where he wanted, which is hardly a surprise after so much time away from regular mound work.
“It took me a while. I still don’t think I got it throughout the whole outing,” Holman said.
“In the third, I tried to just land one for a strike and I couldn’t do it. That’s something I’ll work on in my bullpen, but the slider and splitter showed up today, and the fastball as well.”
Even with those finer points still coming back, Holman sees the bigger picture. He knows the Fall League is a bridge to what he hopes will be a healthy 2027 season, when he can finally show the Reds what he can do over a full year.
“I’m excited,” Holman said. “Just staying healthy, I’m excited about.
Just playing baseball again. I’m happy to be out here and competing.”
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