The Reds have signed first baseman/outfielder Shelley Duncan and catcher Lou Marson to minor league deals, tweets Baseball America’s Matt Eddy. As Eddy points out, each was released by other organizations in Spring Training (Marson by the Phillies, Duncan by the D’Backs).
Duncan, 34, appeared in 20 games for the Rays in 2014, totaling 64 plate appearances and a .182/.297/.309 batting line with a pair of homers. The brother of former Cardinals slugger Chris Duncan and son of renowned pitching coach Dave Duncan, Shelley has seen action in parts of seven big league seasons with the Yankees, Indians and Rays. He was a very useful bench bat for the Tribe in 2010-11 and hit exactly 11 Major League homers in three consecutive seasons from 2010-12.
Marson, 27, was Cleveland’s backup catcher for much of the time that Duncan was filling a reserve role there. He’s a career .219/.309/.299 hitter that has been excellent at throwing out base-stealers in his career (31 percent) but struggled in terms of pitch framing. The former fourth-round pick was once one of the Phillies’ top prospects and one of the Top 100 in the game, per Baseball America — a standing which Philadelphia leveraged when it included Marson as one of four players sent to Cleveland in the 2009 Cliff Lee trade.
