Reds' farm system raises a huge red flag for the 2027 season

The Cincinnati Reds' farm system has taken quite a tumble since the start of the season, falling from No. 12 to No. 23 in MLB Pipeline's rankings from preseason to the latest update in August. While that might seem to be a cause for alarm, and it is, the situation is more nuanced.

Part of the reason for the fall has been prospect graduations. For example, Sal Stewart was pushing the system up at the start of 2026, and now he's become the NL Rookie of the Year favorite. That's the pipeline working as designed.

Stewart isn't alone, though he is the most successful of the bunch. Other promising young Reds like Edwin Arroyo have graduated from prospect status as well, which inevitably is going to lead to a decline as younger, more volatile prospects take center stage down on the farm. With a little time, we'll see that next generation of players, like Justin Lebron, prop the system back up.

However, the real cause for concern isn't the ranking or the relative rawness of Cincinnati's most promising youngsters. Instead, it has everything to do with how those youngsters are allocated.

The Reds love their athletic shortstop prospects and have made selecting such players in the draft a top priority. A quick look at the club's top-30 shows us how that's impacted the system, as four of the top 10 highest-rated youngsters are shortstops.

Going another layer deeper shows where the real issue lies. Of those top-10 youngsters, nine are position players, and only 19-year-old Aaron Watson represents a future building block on the mound.

The Reds are going to need rotation help in 2027, and the farm system doesn't leave them many options

Chase Burns has emerged as a true ace atop the Reds' rotation, making the loss of Hunter Greene significantly less damaging. Greene will miss all of the 2027 season after undergoing his second Tommy John surgery, and while Burns fills his vacancy at the head of the unit, there's another problem at play.

Depth is going to be an issue that the Reds need to contend with. In addition to Burns, you can feel pretty good about Andrew Abbott and Nick Lodolo behind him, despite the pair's 2026 struggles.

But Brady Singer is a free agent, and without Greene, there are precious few options to fill out the back-end, much less provide reinforcements in the event of an injury.

The Reds have arms from the last wave of top prospects like Rhett Lowder, Chase Petty, and Julian Aguiar, but all of them come with question marks. It's too early to write them off; however, the hit rate on prospects tells us that, of that cohort, hitting on Burns and having the rest flame out is what the law of averages would predict.

As a result, you might feel comfortable reserving that trio as your sixth, seventh, and eighth starters, but not as the No. 4 or No. 5 to fill out the back end of the rotation.

That brings us back to Watson. The promising young right-hander was Cincinnati's second-round pick a year ago and went on to make his pro debut this season. He pitched well in the Arizona Complex League, logging 27⅔ innings with a 3.58 ERA and 29% K-rate.

However, he was promoted to Single-A Daytona and struggled in a small sample. He's allowed 15 runs (12 earned) over 10⅓ innings while walking seven batters.

Clearly, it's not time to write off the 6-foot-5 hurler, but given that he just graduated high school last year and hasn't mastered A-Ball, he's a long way off from being anything close to resembling a finished product.

In a perfect world, the Reds would find a veteran in free agency to fill the fourth starter role. Bringing back Singer or reuniting with Nick Martinez would be ideal. From there, they'd have two or three budding young arms in the top-10 of the system, ready to duke it out in spring training for the fifth and final rotation spot.

While what happens in free agency is anyone's guess, the Reds are missing the quality internal options waiting in the wings of the upper minors to fill the void. With a pressing need on the horizon, that creates a situation where it's likely that they will go into 2027 with a weakness in the starting rotation.

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