Jeremy Rauch on Cincinnati Reds Possibly Trading Hunter greene

Where is this train going right now with the Reds? Can you just hope that the core for carry you to a bounce back season next year? Can is that the plan? Hope is not a plan. We know that right? Like so if you hope that's going to happen, I would say it's not going to putting everything on Ellie and Sal and Chase and Hunter and even a guy like Spencer Steer possibly all these guys around them and hoping that it's going to work. We've already seen it's not going to work and Ellie gets banged up. It is a massive loss for this team. It's already happened this year. It's just a lot of pressure to put on those guys. And so to me you want to find ways to make this overall roster better now and not just by moving a couple of arms at the deadline that gets you some guy that's going to be, you know, show up in single a and and maybe like crawl his way through the organization to eventually get here and a couple of years you need to say crawl. Nice job. You need something that is a much bigger splash than that. And we talked about it on the show that this is the Brewers model. You don't hang on to all these pieces that you feel like maybe one day it might work out. It's not working out for the Reds. If the best thing they ever get out of Ellie Dela Cruz's career in Cincinnati is an 83 win season where they back their way into the playoffs. It is a massive failure for this organization who has seen way too many failures over the last three decades plus now. And so how do you flip it quick to make sure that a guy like Ellie sees a little more success before he's gone to LA or to the Yankees in a few years? I mean, it sounds crazy, but it's happening, right? Like it's happening. So how do you please fix it? Yes, it is. Unless 2027 changes everything. How do you somehow get something truly productive out of his window? To me, you have to do something drastic. And that means to me trading someone like Hunter Green who his upside is a Cy Young potential. He's an all-star. He's your ace. That's his upside. His downside is unfortunately a little bit like Joe Burrow. He can't stay on the field. He can't stay healthy. So some team out there is going to be very intrigued by bolstering the rotation to have almost an unbeatable rotation. Potentially, whoever it might be, maybe the Dodgers or the Yankees, whatever, but get something large back in return that can help you in the immediate future next year or the following year. Can you get that from a contender that would want Hunter that that's my it's because it's hard to do that because those teams want those guys. I think I think that you can and I go back to moves that this team has made in years past that have gotten them guys like Spencer Steer, right? Like that's what you're looking for. And do you trust Nick Kroll to evaluate talent? I don't know. We can maybe debate that if you guys want. I realize there's a lot of question marks around that's how well can he evaluate these guys? But certainly if you're making a trade, you're getting like an evaluation bump an evaluation bonus for a guy who can evaluate always that well, you're going to get much better pieces back than trying to draft the right guys and maybe not developing them that well. Again, a la Spencer Steer. He's been a really good piece of this organization. Can you find a guy or two like that to come in and help this team right now? There is no center fielder in the future of this organization. Catcher is maybe a couple of years off. We don't know yet. They don't have a leadoff hitter. Like there are so many gaps right now and the Matt McLean project has not worked. You've now put him in center. You've now moved him to center field when the only reason he should be on the field is for his defense at second base. Yeah, and so there's just so many question marks man. You have to do something major to turn this thing in a hurry before it's too late and Ellie's gone and you wasted it.