Chase Burns is making one Reds decision feel painfully obvious already

The Cincinnati Reds haven't jumped on the extension bandwagon as much as fans would've liked to see. In some cases, they've already missed the boat, as Elly De La Cruz has proven. In other instances, like with Matt McLain, they may've dodged a bullet. There are still plenty of young players worthy of extensions on the roster, but Chase Burns has pushed to the front of the line.

Burns has been a revelation, emerging as a true ace with a 1.87 ERA through his first nine starts. There was always the expectation that the 23-year-old phenom would get to this point eventually, but few expected it would come this soon.

The right-hander's high-octane fastball has averaged 98.3 miles per hour this season, and it's done most of the heavy lifting. Burns relies on it 55% of the time, and with a .217 batting average against, it's hard to blame him.

The slider has been an even bigger weapon for him. He goes to it 38% of the time, and it has produced a ridiculous .133 batting average and an eye-popping 49% whiff rate.

That's about the extent of his repertoire at this point in time. His changeup is an afterthought, utilized just 7% of the time, but he's still developing. If he can unlock that third pitch, he'll have a weapon to neutralize lefties and can leap to the next stratosphere.

Extending Chase Burns now will save the Reds money down the road

Looking at the youngster, it's easy to see that he's under team control through 2031, and think that it's way too early to have this discussion. He doesn't arbitration until 2029, so he'll be dirt cheap until then.

The flip side to this is that if his performance continues on this trajectory, he'll get very expensive fast, even in arbitration. Look no further than Tarik Skubal's record-setting $32 million arbitration award for what can happen. Now that the precedent has been set, expect these big awards for ace-caliber starters to continue.

An extension would be designed to control the growth while Burns is under team control, paying small amounts during the bought-out pre-arb years while keeping the arbitration raises reasonable. From there, the Reds could buy out a couple of free-agent years to keep him in the fold longer term.

That's not to say there isn't risk. Hunter Greene's barrage of injury-plagued seasons helps fans to see the downsides. Greene's deal is still relatively cheap overall, and while a team on a tight budget like the Reds will be hurt as his salary balloons, it's still better than an open-market deal.

Make no mistake, given the state of the market and the right-hander's ceiling, he's the first Reds youngster that needs to be extended beyond a shadow of a doubt.

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