A major blow to the bullpen as Graham Ashcraft lands on the 60-day IL

During the offseason, the Cincinnati Reds made six moves to address the bullpen. They paid closer Emilio Pagán, brought in two experienced relievers with playoff experience in Caleb Ferguson and Pierce Johnson, traded an every day player in Gavin Lux for veteran lefty Brock Burke, reworked Sam Moll’s contract to keep him on the 40-man roster and took a flier in a trade on Kyle Nicolas.

It was the most that the Reds have done in years to solidify their bullpen.

And now, it’s May 29, and the depth feels like it’s already gone. The bullpen hasn’t been good enough in May, and life just got a lot harder when the team’s best reliever so far, Graham Ashcraft, landed on the 60-day IL with an acute strain in his UCL.

With Pagán and Ashcraft on the IL and with Ferguson just returning from an oblique injury that kept him out for two months, the Reds’ bullpen looks thin.

Looking back, how does Nick Krall view what the Reds did to address the bullpen during the winter?

“You’re always looking to do as much as you can,” Krall said. “We weren’t planning on guys to get hurt. Hopefully, we can get some of our younger players to continue to develop and take some of those roles.”

The story of Pagán’s season so far has been the hamstring injury that looked like it limited him before he went on the IL and that eventually turned into a strain that has him out for a while. He has a follow-up MRI coming up, and the expected timeline hasn’t been deemed significant enough for Pagán to move to the 60-day IL (the initial four-to-eight week timeline has him returning sometime between late June and July).

Johnson has a 3.27 ERA and has been a durable and dependable middle reliever. Burke and Moll have been good. Ferguson is just coming back from an injury (I wrote about him earlier today, at this link).

Injuries happen to every bullpen in the league. There’s something else, something more unexpected, that the Reds are missing in the bullpen right now.

The hope in February was that if anything happened to the Reds’ back-end relievers, then one-or-two of Connor Phillips, Luis Mey, Zach Maxwell and Kyle Nicolas would be ready for a big role at the back of the bullpen. They each have terrific stuff, and Phillips and Maxwell in particular had the profile of potential future closers.

But now, Maxwell is the only one of these guys in the big leagues, and Maxwell has struggled in both of his big league appearances this year.

The group isn’t panning out in 2026.

“We’ve shown a lot of guys with upside,” Krall said. “We’ve had some issues throwing strikes. That’s been our biggest challenge. Trying to get guys who can throw consistent strikes with stuff.”

Last September, Phillips was one of the Reds’ go-to relievers in must-win games. He wasn’t effective in the big leagues this year. Mey and Maxwell both had a run as a leverage reliever on the 2025 Reds, but they haven’t been consistent enough yet to earn a role like that in 2026. Nicolas, like everyone else in this group, has struggled with command.

That group of four pitchers represented the youth, upside and depth in the Reds’ bullpen entering the season. But they’re not ready yet to fill big roles. The search for upside has come up empty two months into the season, and that’s crushing the Reds right now.

As a result, the Reds are missing the number of dynamic late-game options that they need.

“Everybody doesn’t always figure it out,” Terry Francona said. “If you get a few guys to, it helps.”

Krall said, “We’re trying to get guys to throw quality strikes up here.”

It could be worse for the Reds’ bullpen — as far as UCL injuries go, Ashcraft has a pretty fortunate scenario. He’s waiting to get a second opinion back on the imaging of his elbow. If that checks out, then he’s expected to get a PRP injection on Tuesday.

“It can go one of two ways,” Ashcraft said. “Either you have to under the knife and get Tommy John surgery and miss a year and a half. Or, you get a PRP injection and potentially be out for two or two and a half months.”

It sounds like he’ll still have a chance to make an impact in the bullpen down the stretch this year.

But still, in every high-leverage game until he’s back, the Reds will miss having Ashcraft.

In 2025, he was their seventh-inning reliever all season. He opened this season in that role. Then, when Pagán went on the IL and Tony Santillan started struggling, Ashcraft emerged as the go-to guy in the bullpen. Francona discussed the unique skill set that Ashcraft provided as he had tools to get good lefties and righties out. The Reds can’t really replace that skill set right now.

“Graham did some things that were really unique for us,” Francona said. “We may not have somebody to do that right now… There’s not one person down there who’s not going to be important. We’ve been in our bullpen a lot.”

Burke has closer to even splits and feels like the Reds’ best reliever right now.

There’s no way around the fact that the Reds desperately need Tony Santillan to get going. Francona has kept pitching him in critical spots. This bullpen won’t work without Santillan returning to form.

Moll is effective versus lefties. Ferguson had to shake off some rust during his rehab assignment, but he looked good in his Reds debut on Wednesday and is a veteran who knows what he’s doing. Johnson has been a nice middle relief presence.

That’s the top-half of the bullpen. Francona has to be sure that he doesn’t wear those guys out.

“You want good pitchers pitching a lot but not too much,” Francona said. “It’s been a hard balance.”

Maxwell has huge stuff but hasn’t put it together this season. Tejay Antone is throwing strikes, but Francona hasn’t been using him in high-leverage situations.

The new face in the Reds bullpen, taking Ashcraft’s roster spot, is Yunior Marte.

“Big stuff,” Krall said. “With a couple of adjustments, he has a chance to pitch toward the back of the bullpen.”

Marte is out of options, which takes away some of the roster flexibility in the Reds’ bullpen.

“We wanted to get who we thought would be the best guy up here to see if we could stabilize this thing,” Krall said. “It’s one day at a time. It’s great to have Caleb Ferguson back. Hopefully, we can start to stabilize the back end and also the front.”

Marte, 31 years old, has pitched in 102 big league games split between 2022 and 2024. Last season, he pitched in Japan. Marte had a tough start to the season in Triple-A but has been lock down over the last couple of weeks.

“Big arm (with) some inconsistencies is probably fair to say,” Francona said. “Sometimes with relievers, if you can get them on a roll, we’ve all seen it. He has the stuff. We’ll do the best we can.”