The Reds announced this afternoon that they’ve placed closer Raisel Iglesias on the 10-day disabled list due to soreness in his left (non-throwing) biceps. Fellow righty Austin Brice is also headed to the DL thanks to an upper back injury. In their place, the Reds activated righties Michael Lorenzen and Tanner Rainey from the disabled list. The announcement didn’t include any expected timeline for either player’s absence.
Iglesias, 28, struggled with his control early in the season but has corrected that issue lately and looked to be in excellent form since late April. He did issue a pair of runs and suffer his second blown save in his most recent appearance, but he’s gone 10 outings without issuing a walk and pitched to a 1.74 ERA with 12 strikeouts in that time. Overall in 21 2/3 innings this season, he’s notched a 2.08 ERA with 11.2 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 1.25 HR/9 and a 36.2 percent ground-ball rate.
Brice, meanwhile, has been scored upon in four of his past past five appearances, causing his ERA to balloon up to 4.67 despite largely promising K/BB and ground-ball tendencies. In 25 innings of relief this season, he’s averaged 9.4 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9 with a 50.7 percent ground-ball rate. He’s been too prone to the long ball, though, already serving up four homers on the season. That’s been an ongoing trend for Brice in the big leagues, as he’s yielded a dozen big flies in just 71 2/3 frames at the game’s top level.
[Related: Cincinnati Reds depth chart | MLB closer depth chart at Roster Resource]
It’s not yet clear who’ll step into the ninth inning for the Reds with Iglesias out of action. For all of the Reds’ flaws, they actually have several high-quality options in the ’pen, where Amir Garrett, Jared Hughes and Dylan Floro have all worked to a sub-2.00 ERA in 2018. Garrett has very arguably been the team’s most dominant relief arm, averaging better than 10 strikeouts per nine innings and notching a 1.67 ERA in his 27 frames this far. The veteran Hughes has shown the best control of the bunch and comes with the most late-inning experience in the big leagues, having spent several seasons as a setup man for the division-rival Pirates. Lorenzen, meanwhile, was the top setup man to Iglesias last season but has yet to pitch in the Majors this season due to a shoulder strain that caused him to open the season on the disabled list.
Soreness in his non-throwing bicep? It’d have to be like a grade 2 strain where he doesn’t have full mobility. Just an odd injury, must have upped the weight too much on the bicep curls
I really think Amir Garrett is the Reds’ closer of the future. Iglesias’ absence might be a good time to see what he can do. If Garrett pans out then there’s no reason CIN should keep Iglesias beyond the trade deadline. Reds SHOULD get a decent package of prospects for him.
It would be nice to see if Amir Garrett can go back to starting. He was great in his first few starts last season before the injuries
Why trade him. He is great value at his current salary. We have to get out of sell mode and keep some pieces to win with.
Cuz you aren’t winning. If they trade him in a mini-aroldis Chapman deal, then they’ll get a mini-gleyber Torres in a couple years. And 6 years of gleyber Torres looks to be at least a bit more productive than 3 months of Chapman. (not that it was a bad trade on the Cubs side) (OK it definitely would have been if not for his postseason heroics)
@SLP is right. A team will not be out of a rebuild, until you stop selling players. Also you’re talking about 2 1/2 seasons of control left, not 3 months.