Every spring, someone tries to get cute with an Opening Day roster projection. This year, the big winner is MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon who really went there: a projected Cincinnati Reds bullpen that includes Chase Burns — not as an emergency April cameo, but as a planned swingman role to replace what Nick Martinez used to do. That idea skips over the most obvious reality of how teams treat premium young arms.
If the Reds believe Burns is one of their five best starters right now, he’s not opening the year in the bullpen to play long-relief roulette. And if the Reds don’t think he’s ready — or they want him building workload, and staying on a starter routine — then he’s not “learning on the job” in the majors out of the pen. He’s going to Triple-A, where the organization can control his schedule and actually develop him like a starter.
Reds’ Chase Burns bullpen buzz feels like a lazy roster shortcut
That’s why the “Burns in the bullpen” projection reads like a halfway compromise that doesn’t really serve anyone. Sheldon’s projection has the rotation set as Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo, Brady Singer, and Rhett Lowder, with Lowder framed as the fifth-starter competition winner after losing 2025 to a pile of injuries. Cool. The Reds will need depth over six months. But that doesn’t mean you stash your highest-upside arm in low-leverage innings just to recreate Martinez’s job description.
And the logic behind it is pretty simple. Burns could fill a swing role because he finished last season in the bullpen after coming off the IL. But that’s not a blueprint, it’s a temporary solution that made sense in that specific moment.
The Reds have plenty of real bullpen candidates already (Emilio Pagán closing, plus Tony Santillan, Pierce Johnson, Caleb Ferguson, Brock Burke, Graham Ashcraft, Connor Phillips, etc.). What they don’t have is a reason to blur Burns’ identity.
If Burns forces the issue this spring, it’ll be because he looks like a starter who belongs. If he doesn’t, Cincinnati will do the sensible thing: send him down, keep him on schedule, and let the rotation door open naturally when the season inevitably gets messy.