Rhett Lowder’s injury could have cost the Reds a draft pick

Rhett Lowder did not pitch in Major League Baseball in 2025. He was dealing with an elbow injury when spring training began and was a little bit behind and wound up on the injured list. Lowder began rehab in the minor leagues the first week of May, and he made four starts between the complex level, High-A with Dayton, and Triple-A with Louisville. But in that 4th start with the Bats he injured his oblique while warming up in the 2nd inning and then missed the next 16 weeks. He returned for one more start on September 13th, throwing two innings for Louisville, but was then shut down again and he didn’t get back on the mound until after the season was over.

All of that may have wound up costing the Cincinnati Reds a draft pick. Or at least it could have. In the last collective bargaining agreement the players association pushed for several changes aimed at trying to prevent teams from playing service time games to “get an extra year of control” out of a player simply by keeping them in the minor leagues for a few weeks in their first season, which would then delay their free agency by a full year.

One of those additions was the Prospect Promotion Incentive (sometimes called PPI). What this does is it potentially rewards a team who has a player up all year who meets certain criteria and performs at an incredibly high level. A player must be a rookie (fewer than 130 career MLB at-bats, less than 50 MLB innings pitched, or have fewer than 45 days on an active MLB roster), be a top 100 prospect in the preseason on two lists out of the ones published by Baseball America, ESPN, and MLB.com, and the player must win the Rookie of the Year award or finish in the top three of an MVP or Cy Young award before they become arbitration eligible. If a player does any of those things their team gets a draft pick following the 1st round.

Those rules work out for most players. But there are a few exceptions and that’s where Lowder’s injury comes into play. Since Lowder spent the entire year on the MLB roster but was injured, he accrued service time. Even though he is still a rookie by definition, the PPI guidelines exclude him for the Rookie of the Year winner portion of earning a draft pick because he has more than 60 days of big league service time now.

Lowder, who is heading into spring training battling for a spot in the rotation with Chase Burns and a handful of others, can’t reward the Reds with a draft pick even if he is the 2026 Rookie of the Year due to the amount of service time he gained while on the injured list. He would still be eligible to gain the Reds a draft pick if he were to finish int he top three of the Cy Young or MVP voting in the 2026 or 2027 seasons.

Sal Stewart currently would be PPI eligible for 2026. He would still need to spend nearly the entire season in MLB to retain that, and win the Rookie of the Year award. He is not the only player in the organization who is eligible, though. Catcher Alfredo Duno would also be eligible, but the 2025 Florida State League MVP is almost assuredly not going to spend the entire season in the big leagues. He’s never player in High-A, not on the 40-man roster, and at this point he’s not even in big league camp.