Reds avoid painful bullpen decision after sudden injury changes plans

Caleb Ferguson is expected to open the 2026 season on the injured list, and that just made Terry Francona's upcoming bullpen decision a lot easier. What looked like a minor camp question was shaping up to be a big roster decision: were the Reds actually willing to roll with three left-handed relievers on Opening Day? With Ferguson on set to land on the 15-day IL, they won't have to make that call.

According to Cincinnati reporter Mike Petraglia, Francona revealed on that Ferguson will miss the start of the season with a right oblique injury and will stay with the team in Arizona. He's scheduled to have another MRI when the team returns to Cincinnati to start the season.

Sam Moll had been making the bullpen battle a lot more annoying for the Reds than they probably expected. Moll has been excellent this spring, posting a 0.00 ERA over six appearances with seven strikeouts in six innings while allowing just one hit. That kind of line is hard to ignore on its own. It gets even harder to explain away when the guy doing it is also out of options.

Sam Moll will readily replace Caleb Ferguson in the Reds bullpen

On paper, carrying three lefties in a bullpen could've felt like a luxury roster spot, especially for a team that may've needed flexibility elsewhere. Most clubs do not exactly build relief groups like they are trying to collect every left-handed matchup arm they can find. There’s usually a balance to hit.

Managers want late-inning weapons, matchup versatility, and enough right-handed coverage to avoid getting boxed in. Moll was making things complicated because he hadn't just pitching well enough to keep around in theory. He's pitching well enough to make cutting him feel reckless.

Because he is out of options, the Reds do not get to hide behind the spring-training trick of sending a useful arm to Triple-A and calling it depth. If Moll doesn’t make the club, the Reds would have to designate him for assignment, which is the sort of move that can make a team look silly in a hurry if another club scoops him up immediately. And one probably will. 

The bigger issue for Cincinnati is that Moll is doing exactly what a fringe bullpen arm has to do when the odds are stacked against him. That doesn’t automatically mean he is a lock, though Ferguson's injury now makes his presence on the Opening Day roster seem very likely.

At some point, if a guy keeps shoving and the only reason to move on is positional aesthetics, that starts to sound less like way too much overthinking. And Reds fans know how that usually ends.