The Cincinnati Reds have promoted RHP Chase Petty to AAA Louisville

The righty will finish the season with the Bats.

You may recall that the offseason between the 2021 and 2022 Major League Baseball seasons was a contentious one. The previous Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the league and the players expired at the end of November with no revised update yet reached, and the players were effectively locked out from December 2nd until an agreement was finally reached on March 10th.

That pushed the start of the season back by over a week. While transactions were in an effective freeze for the four months of negotiations, it didn’t take the Cincinnati Reds long to continue their latest reboot, resurface, rebuild - on March 13th, just days after they were allowed to resume trade talks, they dealt former ace Sonny Gray to the Minnesota Twins with the revised Opening Day less than four weeks away.

Sonny, you may have noticed, has kept right on trucking. He’s pitched to a 3.22 ERA (130 ERA+) in 458.1 IP between Minnesota and St. Louis since the Reds dealt him away, filing away a runner-up finish in the 2023 AL Cy Young Award race, an All Star bid, a new $75 million contract, 9.7 bWAR, and 11.0 fWAR along the way. The Reds reportedly pursued a reunion with the ace last winter when he was a free agent, finally, but talks didn’t advance as well as those with the Cardinals, and now he’s across the division to torment the Reds when he can.

What the Reds do not have anymore is Sonny Gray. What they got in return for him was, at the time, an 18 year old former 1st round pick in right-hander Chase Petty, who at 21 years of age is still currently younger than current rookie phenom Rhett Lowder. Petty’s not too far behind Lowder anymore, either, as today the Reds promoted Petty from AA Chattanooga to AAA Louisville to finish out the Bats season.

For the season, Petty owns a 4.39 ERA and 1.35 WHIP in 127.0 IP, with a 123/56 K/BB against AA competition - numbers that are respectable, yet hardly overwhelming. It’s what he’s been up to after a very rocky beginning of the season (17 ER in 16.0 IP in his first 4 GS of the year) that’s warranted both a) his promotion and b) us being excited about him.

In the 22 games he’s started since that awful stretch, he’s pitched to a 3.65 ERA while allowing opponents to post just a .654 OPS against him. More recently, he’s run off a 9 game stretch of 3.14 ERA ball in which time opponents posted a meager .544 OPS against him. Over his last pair of starts he’s logged 7.0 IP in each, fanning 15 in those 14.0 IP while allowing just 3 ER.

The Bats have just 10 games remaining on their 2024 regular season schedule, and since they didn’t win the International League West first-half title (and have the worst record in that division in the second half), they won’t be playing any postseason ball again this year. Still, that means it’s likely we’ll see Petty pitch twice for the Bats to wrap his 2024 campaign, putting him in prime position to be a contributor to the big league club at some juncture during the 2025 season.