Brady Singer just gave the Reds every reason to scrap asinine qualifying offer idea

There were rumors just before the August 3 trade deadline passed that the Cincinnati Reds were contemplating extending a qualifying offer to starting pitcher Brady Singer. The notion was foolish to begin with, but now the idea sounds utterly insane.

Singer was absolutely shelled by the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday afternoon at Great American Ball Park. The right-hander couldn't even make it out of the fourth inning and gave up seven runs on nine hits. Singer walked four batters and didn't even record a strikeout. It was easily his worst start of the 2026 season.

But Singer's been trending in a bad direction for quite some time. In fact, he's gone 1-3 in his last seven starts and has an eye-popping 9.17 ERA during that span. He's walked 20 batters over 34⅓ frames during that seven-game stretch while also allowing 50 base hits.

Reds should slam the door on any Brady Singer qualifying offer talk

Rumors are exactly that — gossip, hearsay, and scuttlebutt. But given the Reds' use of the QO during the 2024-25 with Nick Martinez, fans have every reason to believe those pre-deadline rumors were accurate. This year's QO is estimated to be worth $23 million, which would be an asinine amount of money to pay for a middle-of-the-rotation starter who currently owns a 5.57 ERA.

A qualifying offer should never be used as a negotiating tool. It was created to compensate the organization if the player decided to forgo a guaranteed payday in search of something bigger. Cincinnati was the benefactor of the QO in 2021 after Nick Castellanos signed a five-year, $100 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Castellanos' free agency came with draft compensation attached, and the Reds then used the compensatory pick to select Sal Stewart during the 2022 MLB Draft. That's the way it's supposed to work.

Sometimes — when you're talking about a borderline case like Martinez — a player will use it as a means to secure a hefty sum and then enter free agency the following offseason. A record four players accepted the QO last offseason, showing that most players reject the one-year deal in search of a larger contract.

If the Reds want to entertain the idea of re-signing Singer during the offseason, that's plausible. But after his second-half collapse, there's no way Cincinnati can even consider handing him a qualifying offer.

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