March 23: The Reds have announced the signing, which fills their 40-man roster. Strickland will earn $1.825MM in 2022, tweets MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon. He can also earn another $750K via performance incentives and would receive a $250K assignment bonus if traded.
March 22, 12:50pm: It’s a big league deal for Strickland, tweets Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
8:16am: The two sides have agreed to a deal, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.
8:00am: The Reds are closing in on a deal with free-agent righty Hunter Strickland, tweets Robert Murray of FanSided. Strickland, a client of All Bases Covered, would give Cincinnati a veteran option to consider for what’s otherwise a largely inexperienced relief corps.
Strickland, 33, split the 2021 season between three clubs, beginning the year with the Rays after signing a minor league deal and pitching well through 16 innings. Tampa Bay still felt comfortable trading him to the Angels for cash, and things quickly went south for Strickland in Anaheim, where he yielded nine runs (seven earned) in just 6 1/3 innings of work. The Halos designated him for assignment and traded him to the Brewers (again for cash).
Strickland quickly righted the ship in Milwaukee and remained in the Brewers’ bullpen for the duration of the season. He notched a tidy 1.73 ERA in 36 1/3 frames with the Brew Crew and added another 2 1/3 shutout frames in the NLDS. Overall, his regular season concluded with 58 2/3 innings of 2.61 ERA ball (4.19 FIP, 4.06 SIERA). Along the way, Strickland whiffed 24% of his opponents against a 9.1% walk rate and a 34.8% grounder rate. He was particularly deft when it came to suppressing hard contact, as Statcast ranked his 29.4% hard-hit rate in the 97th percentile of MLB pitchers and his 86.9 mph average exit velocity in the 84th percentile.
The Reds will be without top reliever Tejay Antone for most, if not all of the 2022 season after he underwent Tommy John surgery in late August last season. Meanwhile, projected closer Lucas Sims won’t be ready for Opening Day, as he’s currently healthy but behind schedule in camp after rehabbing some offseason back troubles. Lefty Amir Garrett was traded to the Royals in this month’s Mike Minor swap, and the Reds have seen both Michael Lorenzen (Angels) and Mychal Givens (Cubs) depart via free agency.
Cincinnati does still have at least a pair of veteran arms at the back of the ’pen, as former Yankees Luis Cessa and Justin Wilson, both acquired from New York last summer, are still with the club. Righty Jeff Hoffman, though, is the only other projected member of the bullpen with even a year of big league service time. (Hoffman has three-plus years but has still yet to truly solidify himself as a steady option.) Cincinnati does have a handful of more seasoned options in camp as non-roster players, including Buck Farmer, Kyle Zimmer and Trey Wingenter.
Would be a solid signing. Lets see if the Reds can sign him…..maybe 1 year $2-3M?
Should be less than that, about $1.5MM
So decent before and productive after the Angels. I’m not sure if I should read anything into that.
Nice! He gets to renew the rivalry with Harper.
you know whichever one dies first, the other one is showing up at the funeral to pee on the grave.
Trade piece at the deadline. Shocked the brewers didn’t bring him back. He was terrific
His FIP and SIERA were both over 4 last year. The Brewers might just feel his results won’t be sustainable or have someone they can shuttle back and forth to eat his innings.
The Brewers didn’t bring him back because they want the flexibility of the shuttle for the last bullpen spot or 2 and Strickland can’t be optioned.
Do his performance incentives include bonuses for each 5 games he makes it through where he doesn’t have a tantrum or break a body part, get into a fight, or throw at someone?
Yes, but is he still a knucklehead?
Well, okay. I guess this is fine (though I cannot disagree w/ the knucklehead sentiment)…
Isn’t the most glaring need right now for the Reds quality OF’s? I’m really pulling for a Tommy Pham signing. I think he could be really good, and probably not super expensive.
Tommy Pham for LF at GABP!
Doubtful at best. Reds aren’t going after major league contracts.
I know, I know… I’m just confused (and a tad frustrated) that as soon as they got “under budget” (as Krall said), they immediately blew that by trading for Mike Minor. Was that really a pressing need, to take on the extra $8 million?
The Reds have literally zero OF’s that I am fully confident in. I do remain bullish on Senzel, but he’s just been SO injury-prone….Naquin had a fine year but is a platoon guy…
Aquino just is not a major league player, I’m afraid. His one spectacular month was unreal – and sooooo much fun – but the league figured him out, and now he just can’t put the bat on the ball.
I remember this guy debut with the Giants. I thought he was going to be a lockdown closer for years to come. I love these kind of signings. I didn’t realize how ugly that Reds bullpen is going to be this year.
I know it’s very easy to drag the Reds through the mid with how the front office has operated this off-season but I’m optimistic to a fault and I think they will be a lot better than people are expecting them to do this year. I’m not saying they can beat Milwaukee for the division but I don’t think they finish in the bottom 5 of the NL like majority of baseball people think they will. They will shock the world and go 86-78 and finish in second behind the Brewers. I’ll happily eat crow if and when that happens but as a fan you have to be positive or it’s not even worth investing your time into the season.
Mud*
Hope you got an appetite. Crow is for dinner
That was supposed to be 86-76. I fat fingered my keyboard.
Joe, you seem like a nice guy but you are on drugs if you think the Reds are winning 86 games this season. Sorry buddy.
I love the Reds and have been following them for 49 years. This team may be the worst team they have had going into a season since I have been a fan and that includes 1982-83.
The Reds will be lucky to win 70 games this season. I think there is a fair chance they will lose 100 games.
Not only is there little talent at the major league level, I think their farm system is very overrated. They have a few nice prospects (Green, Lodolo, Barrero) but get beyond maybe their top five or six prospects and their system is bare.
This team is bad and trading away their major league talent without receiving quality prospects in return has set this team back 6-8 years.
I don’t disagree with anything you said at all. Like I said, just being overly optimistic. If Lodolo and Greene can put together quality rookie years, I like the rotation with Castillo and Mahle fronting it and think our pitching can keep us in a lot of games. There is still some offensive talent with Votto, India and Stephenson. Maybe Senzel can finally stay healthy and put up the production that we all expected him to do. Moustakas could have a bounce back season and with regular playing time maybe Naquin or Aquino produce more than we expect. I’m not holding my breath on any of this to happen but nothing wrong with staying optimistic until we see what the product looks like on the field.
Nothing wrong with being optimistic. As I mentioned, I love this team and no one is hoping I am wrong about them more than myself.
My problem is that they aren’t the worst Reds team that they’ve fielded. Is this a rebuild or not? If it is then tear it down. Trade all of the pieces. They look like they want to compete for 3rd place. I cannot for the life of me understand these moves
I hope Strickland has gotten some counseling and can deal with his emotions. I don’t want to have to go back to call him Headhunter Strickland.
Maybe he can see who Garrett sees for his emotional outbursts.
He was only horrible here. You know, like many before him.
Hopefully he will be moved at trade deadline to Phillies…that would be fun to see
I guess this means someone noticed he had a locker with his name on it in the clubhouse.
I have a locker with my name on it in their clubhouse, and they haven’t even told me…