Lyon Richardson missed all of the 2022 season as he recovered from Tommy John surgery. He was back in time for instructional league after the regular season, but was limited to short stints as he worked his way back. His recovery went well and he looked good in instructional league and that led to the Cincinnati Reds adding him to the 40-man roster in November of 2022 to protect him from the Rule 5 draft.
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When the regular season began in 2023, the Reds sent Richardson to Daytona to pitch in the Florida State League. With the weather not exactly being predictable and necessarily warm at the other levels of the system, a month with the Tortugas was in order. Richardson’s innings and pitch counts were limited, but he dominated in his three starts, allowing a run on five hits and a walk in 9.0 innings while striking out 18 of the 33 batters he faced.
The final week of April saw Cincinnati promote him from Single-A up to Double-A where he joined the Chattanooga Lookouts rotation. For the most part he didn’t skip a beat outside of his walk rate going up. He made 15 starts with the Lookouts and never allowed more than two runs in a start – though he was limited to no more than 4.0 innings and threw just 46.0 innings in those 15 starts.
Richardson was promoted to Triple-A Louisville at the end of July and threw 3.0 shutout innings with five strikeouts against Indianapolis in his debut. Things got better for him with his next start as he was called up for his big league debut on August 6th. The game wasn’t his best as he allowed four runs in 3.0 innings before returning to Triple-A. He’s make two starts for Louisville before getting called back up to Cincinnati where he would start the second game of doubleheaders against the Angels and the Cubs, allowing five earned runs in a combined 9.0 innings in those two starts before Seattle scored seven runs against him on September 6th. He was sent back to Triple-A after that and Durham torched him for seven runs in 0.2 innings on the 12th and then four more runs in 0.2 innings on the 17th before he finished out his season with 3.0 hitless innings against Iowa.
For all 2023 Season Reviews and Scouting Reports – click here (these will come out during the week throughout the offseason).
Lyon Richardson Scouting Report
Position: Right-handed pitcher | B/T: R/R
Height: 6′ 2″ | Weight: 207 lbs | Acquired: 2nd Round (2018 Draft)
Born: January 18, 2000
Fastball | Richardson shows above-average to plus velocity. He averaged 96.6 MPH this season with his 4-seamer.
Slider | An average offering that he only throws to right-handed hitters that works in the mid-80’s.
Curve | Another average breaking ball in his arsenal, it works in the upper 70’s.
Change Up | His best offering, it’s an above-average to plus pitch that works in the upper 80’s that he goes to often.
For a very large part of the 2023 season, Lyon Richardson was dominant. Coming off of Tommy John surgery he was limited in both his pitch count and his innings limit. The only games he pitched beyond the 4th inning where in his three big league starts during his second call up. It’s tough to say whether he faded down the stretch or whether he simply wasn’t quite ready for Triple-A and big league time, but he did struggle once August rolled around and he began to see more advanced hitters.
Richardson clearly has the stuff to pitch at the highest level. He’s got four or five different offerings (five if we count the 4-seamer and 2-seamer as different looks) and they’re all at least average pitches. What he’s got to do is throw more strikes. Between Triple-A and the big leagues he walked 30 batters in 31.0 innings.
While his walk rate was better in Double-A, he still battled some inconsistency with his control while with Chattanooga. In 2024, a year further removed from Tommy John surgery and with a season under his belt post-surgery, it will be worth keeping on eye on as to how consistent he is and whether his control can improve. Along with that, he’s going to have to show that he can pitch deeper into games. While the club was limiting him in his usage and there wasn’t much he could do about those limitations, he didn’t pitch into the 5th inning in any of his 24 minor league starts during the 2023 season and didn’t complete the 5th inning in any of his three big league games in which he did pitch into the 5th.
Cincinnati is likely to give him time to continue to develop as a starter. He lost a year in 2020 when the minor league season was cancelled and then he lost another year due to injury. He’ll be 24-years-old when spring training begins, so there’s still plenty of time to let things play out as a starter. If they don’t work then there’s plenty in his profile that suggests he could be a high-leverage reliever, but that’s probably not something the club explores in the immediate future.
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Interesting Stat on Lyon Richardson
His ERA in his first 19 starts across three levels was 1.86. His ERA in his final nine starts of the year – all between Triple-A and MLB – was 9.96.