Indians manager Terry Francona announced this morning that Cleveland has traded veteran infielder Mike Freeman to the Reds (Twitter link via Mandy Bell of MLB.com). Cincinnati sent cash to Cleveland to complete the minor swap, C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic tweets. Freeman was in camp with Cleveland as a non-roster invitee, so he won’t go onto Cincinnati’s 40-man roster at this time.
The 33-year-old Freeman spent the past two seasons with Cleveland, working as a utilityman and posting a combined .270/.352/.377 batting line through 256 trips to the plate. He’s spent time at all four infield spots and in both outfield corners during that time, although the bulk of his work has come as a second baseman and third baseman. Freeman doesn’t offer much power and has a fairly limited MLB track record, but he’s a career .304/.369/.418 hitter with quality strikeout and walk rates in parts of six Triple-A seasons.
Freeman had been vying for a bench spot in Cleveland, and he’ll give the Reds another option as they try to sort out who will get playing time at shortstop this year. He has 1901 career innings at the position between the minors and the big leagues, although he hasn’t played there on a semi-regular basis since his 2018 run with the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate.
Still, Freeman at the very least gives the Reds a possible bench option who can handle the position. At the moment, the favorites for playing time at shortstop appear to be Kyle Farmer, Kyle Holder and non-roster veteran Dee Strange-Gordon. In the long run, the hope is that top prospect Jose Garcia can handle the spot, but the 22-year-old looked overmatched in his first taste of MLB action last year, hitting just .194/.206/.194 in 68 plate appearances.
Over in Cleveland, Freeman’s departure lends a bit of clarity to the infield mix. Andres Gimenez and Amed Rosario are vying for starting reps at shortstop, and if Gimenez wins out that would seemingly push Rosario into an infield/outfield role off the bench. Yu Chang could join him as a utility piece off the bench. If the club decides to send Gimenez to the minors to begin the year, Rosario would likely take the reins at short, with Chang serving as the primary backup around the infield.
It seems pretty rare to trade a non-roster invitee
Seems even rarer to start a season with no SS
What are the odds anyone hits one to SS over the Reds season?
Those odds are much greater than the odds of you writing a coherent article, 815.
Not exactly the Amed Rosario trade to Cincinnati that some were expecting
Exciting. Let’s recap. The Reds have a third baseman playing second, a third baseman playing centerfield, a shortstop playing third, and a series of minor league second basemen competing to play shortstop. Makes total sense.
Suarez was never really a SS, even when he was with Detroit. Whatever keeps your narrative afloat.
LOL
You mean a minor league 2B competing with a former catcher for SS.
It’s simple! Move Suarez to SS. Move Castellanos back the 3rd.
Infield of:
1B: Votto
2B: Moustakas
3B: Castellanos
SS: Suarez
What could possibly go wrong with this infield???
For real though, why don’t they just try Senzel at SS? He is athletic enough and if he sticks, it lowers the bar for what his bat needs to be.
Didn’t the Tigers move Castellanos off 3B because his defensive skills just weren’t there.
The joke
—————
You
I know you’re probably kidding, but if you moved Moose to 3B, Senzel to 2B, and Suarez to SS, Akiyama to CF, Winker to LF, and Castelanos to RF, it could work.
You might have a historically bad defensive team, but they”d likely slug the heck out of the ball.
I think Steve has thought more about reds roster than Kroll and Bell combined
Suarez and Castellanos would form the weakest left side of the infield of all time, (not saying they arent good players) but those poor poor reds pitchers
The Reds already tried Senzel at SS. The experiment ended quickly, which tells you something about his shortstop skills.
Senzel played at SS for like a day in spring training a year ago…he’s been an infielder his whole life until the hapless Reds were incapable of finding a CF and didn’t have the stones to move Scooter on a hot streak for their top draft pick (where’s Scooter now?). They lied to their fan base when drafting a 3b that it wouldn’t be a problem with suddenly exploding Suarez cuz he can move over to SS…which now, neither can supposedly do…at the same time learned all they needed to know about 2b/3b Van Meter by playing him in LF and then trading him for a pitcher who’s now gone. Then they sign Moose to play out of position at 2nd blocking Senzel from the infield again and act like Senzel to CF was the plan all along. I could go on….Anyone still making excuses for this org. has their head in the sand, lives in Cinti. and either works for the team or is a blind addict. Nothing short of new ownership, FO, Manager, faith in youth and some growing pains is gonna fix it. Deal with it.
It would help Senzel take less of a beating and it gives Akiyama more at bats.
@ gocincy;
They’re channeling the Mets.
You forgot they got a fricken catcher in the lead for shortstop reps
Good news for Yu Chang.
He’s been killing it this spring, so he’s earned a roster spot.
Whats the word on Chang? Like bigger picture wise. He has shown some solid power at times in the minor leagues… and seems to have improved his contact at least the consistency of it over the past few seasons in the minors. Granted he’s never really put up great numbers in the minors… he seems like he could be intriguing enough that with the right opportunity he could wind up being more than just a bench guy… maybe not quite an “everyday player” but possibly close to it in a super utility role or something like that. But as a non-Indians fan I don’t really know much about him or what he’s projected to be.
wow and he’s mashed 3 HRs in just 14 ABs this spring. Maybe he’ll wind-up having “starter-caliber” power for a 2B/SS at least.
Considering they seem to extremely high on Gimenez at SS and set at 3B and 2B, I see Chang as so far earning the super utility role, with his ability to play those 3 infield positions well, along with his improved plate performance.
Good glove and good power. I read somewhere that he would project as a .220 hitter with 25 HR and above average in DWar.
This is the move Reds fans have been waiting for, it took a while but it was well worth the wait. What a bunch of maroons. Ahahaha!
dude they traded for freeman. oh what? not that one?
What is a maroon? And don’t blame it on auto-correct, moron.
@skyyranger- HA! The fact that you don’t know what a maroon is not only makes you one but a moron as well.
Ahahahaha!
It will be interesting see if the Indians get away with manipulating Giminez’s service time when they send him to the alternate site for the first two weeks of the year in order to save one year service on the clock.
Tribe management is is enough trouble for allegedly looking the other way on Mickey Calloway
that suggests they will send him down, and either way, a perfectly valid justification is you want to start Rosario at SS and give Gimenez regular playing time.
This is why the NYM’s move to give Gimenez a full year of service time was one of the stupidest roster moves I’ve ever seen.
They had Davis for 3B, Rosario for SS, Cano for 2B, and McNeil and Frazier filling in. I like Gimenez a lot, but what was the reason to promote a kid, kill a year of service, to make the guy a super-sub?
Freeman is a very useful UT who actually can hit, but I’m not sure he’s ideal even as a bridge to the future. He’s never been an everyday player at the major league level despite his age, but I guess it’s a low cost move on the Reds’ part. Maybe the plan is to keep him at SS until CIN acquires someone like Story at the deadline.
Freeman is a decent guy to have at the end of your bench because he’s versatile and isn’t a terrible hitter. Still, this is good news because it’s about time Yu Chang gets more of an opportunity.
Classic reds. Acquire the wrong Indian.
I think you mean “acquire the wrong Freeman from Cleveland”.
Tyler Freeman has way more upside.compared to Mike Freeman.
As for the cash acquired in trade, is it more or less than what cost to get Dave Winfield from Minnesota during the strike of 1994 ???
(great story for any that look that story up)
Freeman must have an awesome coffee cup collection.
Indians need to free up a roster spot or two, but trade freeman? Always backing themselves into a corner
He was a non-roster invitee.
A non-roster invitee means he does not free up a roster space if traded. i’d gather that one or even two of Gose, Hembree, Parker or Perez would get a spot in the pen, hence needing a few roster spots.
Are you confusing him with Tyler Freeman?
Mike Freeman feels like he’s played for all 30 teams at this point
All the commentators and writers on here that regularly squeal that bad small market teams doing rebuilding are “cheap” and “not trying to win” when they can go out and overpay for a bunch of so-so free agents, only need to look at the state of the Reds today.
When they were piss*ing away money and “trying to win” by “going all in” before they had a foundation of young, inexpensive players as well as a cushion of money in the budget saved from the rebuilding years – people on this site gushed about the Reds in articles and comments the past few years. Guys like Senzel and Winker were future stars. Castellanos’ fielding wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it was made out be (and who cares about defense anyway), he was a veteran impact bat that any ML team would have loved to have in the middle of their order for a measly 4 years/$64mm ….. but Scott Boras was had by the clever Reds FO. And on and on…..
Red fans need a new front office and a new owner to hire them. In the meantime it might be fun for them to follow the Rays, A’s, Indians, Pirates, Marlins, Brewers, Royals, Orioles and others to see what can be done, although there are lost years so patience is needed. Heck, the White Sox may play in a major market, but the Cubs own that city in baseball; making the Sox a mid-market team. Look at the team they’re fielding this year. One that will be there for years to come……or at least until the players union gets free agency after 3-4 years, thereby assuring that all small and mid-market teams will simply be feeders to the large market teems….i.e. they’ll all look like the Reds today. Forever.
So he walked across the field to another field. Pretty easy trade to make when you share a stadium.
Rumor has it that the trade was discussed and closed while both GM’s were looking at Tshirts at the ballpark’s shared team store.
Freeman good 26th man or call up
for injury. Definition of boarder line player
Hope this Cash guy can cover short for us this year. A few bombs won’t hurt as well. Looking forward to watching him play.
You escaped the mistake by the lake. You’re a free man, good sir