The Cincinnati Reds 5th spot in the rotation is open for the taking, so to speak. But two guys entered the spring well ahead of everyone else – Chase Burns and Rhett Lowder. Both guys were 1st round picks, taken 2nd and 7th overall, with Burns being taken in 2024 and Lowder in 2023. Behind them is a handful of guys ranging from some big league experience to no big league experience. In that latter group is Jose Franco, but so far he’s been making the most of his opportunities out in Goodyear, Arizona.
Franco was the RedsMinorLeagues.com Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2025. Between stops in Double-A Chattanooga and Triple-A Louisville he threw 110.0 innings with a 3.11 ERA, 54 walks, and 118 strikeouts. During the offseason he turned 25-years-old and was also added to the Cincinnati Reds 40-man roster in order to keep other teams from selecting him in the Rule 5 draft. During his career he’s missed two years, with the 2020 minor league season being cancelled and then the 2023 season when he was recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Listed at 6′ 2″ and 257 lbs. in 2025, the right-handed starter from Venezuela is now listed at 238 lbs. Still a guy with a strong frame, it seems he’s slimmed down at some point over the last year or year and a half. When it comes to his spot on the depth chart entering the spring he’s probably a bit of a ways down it when it comes to being a starter. He only has 51.1 innings in Triple-A under his belt and while they were quality innings they weren’t dominant ones, either. His stuff is good, showing three average to above-average pitches – but nothing truly stands out as a wipeout kind of offering.
With that said, he’s been wiping out opposing batters so far this spring. On Friday afternoon he pitched the final two innings of the game against the Los Angeles Angels and didn’t give up a hit, walked no one, did hit one batter, and he struck out five. In his first outing he did allow a run in his inning of work, but had two more strikeouts in that game. He’s struck out seven of the 13 hitters that he’s faced out in Goodyear so far without a walk.
In 2025 he spent parts of June, July, August, and September in Triple-A where we have Statcast to track all of the pitching, batting, running, and fielding data. During that time he was averaging 95.3 MPH with his fastball. In his two outings this spring he’s averaging 96.8 MPH on his fastball. It’s fair to point out that he’s not being asked to throw four, five, or six innings yet and when he was pitching in Louisville he was being asked to do that. But it’s also fair to point out that pitchers tend to max out their velocity in July, not February. It’s not just the fastball velocity that’s up, either, as his change up and slider are both up from last summer.
Last year in Triple-A he topped out at 98.0 MPH, so it’s not like it’s unheard of for Jose Franco to be pumping gas into the mid-to-upper 90’s. But increasing the lower end range of his fastball velocity would be an improvement as generally speaking the data shows that faster a pitch is the less hitters can handle it (there are always outliers, but overall that’s what the data tells us). Can he sustain that when he needs to throw 90-100 pitches in a game instead of 20-40 like he’s done in the first two outings? We’re going to have to wait and see, but this feels like it’s a good development thus far.
As for a spot in the rotation out of spring training, it’s probably still a long shot. But if he continues to pitch well and get results it could put him into the conversation about a spot in the bullpen as a multi-inning reliever, or put him higher up on the list of guys who can come up from Triple-A if and when the Reds need a starter during the 2026 season.