After letting Wade Miley go via waivers and trading Sonny Gray to the Twins in the offseason (amid other cost-cutting moves), the Reds attempted to restock the rotation in a trade that sent reliever Amir Garrett to the Royals in exchange for veteran southpaw Mike Minor. Not long after the trade, the Reds revealed that Minor was battling some shoulder issues and expected to begin the season on the injured list, though skipper David Bell suggested at the time that the shoulder soreness was not overly concerning.
Minor went on a rehab assignment last week, but the lefty suffered a setback in his first appearance with Double-A Chattanooga. Per The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans, Minor has now been shut down for the time being and returned to Cincinnati. He’s back into a rest-and-rehab program and will need to build arm strength back up whenever he’s cleared to begin throwing. At present, there’s no timetable for Minor’s return.
It’s a depth blow to a Reds rotation that is also without top starter Luis Castillo, who’s also been sidelined thanks to shoulder issues. Castillo’s work early in camp was delayed by shoulder soreness, but he’s said to be healthy now and is throwing to hitters as he ramps up toward a rehab assignment of his own. The Reds have previously expressed optimism that Castillo could return late this month. With both Castillo and Minor shelved, Cincinnati has been deploying Tyler Mahle, Reiver Sanmartin, Vladimir Gutierrez and top prospects Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo as its starting five.
The setback to Minor figures to only further rile a fanbase that wasn’t happy with the Reds’ offseason direction. Cincinnati let Miley go on waivers to spare a $1MM buyout on a $10MM club option they weren’t going to exercise — the Cubs claimed him and happily picked that option up — but months later took on about $7.3MM in salary to acquire Minor on the heels of a less-productive season. Of course, Cincinnati couldn’t have known early in the offseason that they’d manage to successfully jettison the remaining three years and $35MM on Eugenio Suarez’s contract. The money saved in the Jesse Winker/Suarez trade with the Mariners surely played a role in the Reds’ decisions to acquire Minor and sign free agents Tommy Pham, Donovan Solano (also currently on the injured list) and Hunter Strickland.
Minor, 34, is in the second guaranteed season of a two-year, $18MM contract originally signed with Kansas City. The Reds hold a $13MM club option on him with a $1MM buyout, though the Royals agreed to pay that buyout as part of the trade. Over the past two seasons, Minor has a 5.18 ERA in 215 1/3 innings, albeit with much more palatable strikeout and walk rates (23.2% and 6.7%, respectively).
Shoulder injuries are a requirement for any Reds trade return
Signing Minor was a pure DJ play.
Minor trade was a major mistake.
A minor setback
It’s all going according to the Reds master plan.
So, you’re saying the Reds’ GM is not Lanny Poffo?
He’d do a better job.
When I read ‘Mike’ and ‘shut down’ in the 1st line of the headline (didn’t see the last name immediately), just assumed it was Mike Trout.
dont say that on this site – some Angels fans here get really defensive on this topic for some reason.
I read words in sequential order so I didn’t make that assumption
Your loss.
This organization is batting 000 , wow what how can the fans pay to see this team play and support this organization
It’s a shame too. I was just in Cincinnati. Great town. Big baseball city.
Their attendance sucks!
Phil will explain it to you
Where you gonna go?
The Rudderless Reds…such a shame to see a once-proud organization sink to this depth. The Miley decision was beyond mind boggling; plenty of teams would have traded for his $10M contract, but they released him to save a $1M offseason payout? That’s the action of a broke franchise.
So other than Minor throwing batting practice out there, his walk and K rates make him look like a real pitcher. Comforting.
They swindled the Mariners
Nick Krall is just an idiot…sorry. Guy isn’t qualified to be a paperboy
I’m not sure about that. He’s operating on orders from a CEO/COO who only care about slashing payroll. Look at the son’s comments from Opening Day — we’re not dealing with enlightened leadership here. Krall may indeed be lousy, but it’s hard to know when everybody in baseball knows that he’s under strict orders to slash payroll by hosting a fire sale.
GoCincy
Agreed, we do not know if he is an idiot or just a flunky following orders.
I don’t understand how the Reds this offseason, can trade away around the same level of value the Cubs traded away at the 2021 Deadline, and yet get like 5 times less then what we managed to nab, what a awful teardown, not trading Miley, trading Winker and Suarez for nothing, getting a small return for Gray, and then failing to resign any good players. I feel bad for this team, Future could be bright though.
Chase petty is a good return
The only player that could have improved the Reds this season that they had afterlast year is Nick Castellanos. Miley hasn’t pitchedv& on IL, Barnhart hitting .133, Suarez hitting .182, Winker hitting .152, Garrett has thrown 1.2 IP, Gray with 2 starts but only 6.1 IP (5.68 ERA) & also on IL.. Had they kept everyone but Castellanos, they’d still be in last place in the division.
The Winker and Suarez trade isn’t near as bad as people are making it out to be. Baseball fans are basing it a bad trade off of name recognition. Williamson could turn out to be the big get in that deal and then people will start singing a whole different tune. Suarez has negative value and Winker isn’t looking too hot through the first couple of weeks. I’m sure he will turn it on but the Reds got a nice future part of their rotation in Williamson.
Seriously though, how did Minor pass the team’s initial physical for the trade to go through? Isn’t it the Orioles who are infamous for thorough physicals that have rescinded trades in the past because guys didn’t pass them? Hopping on the Google – I see Grant Balfour was one scuttled trade.
If Minor were a car, we’d be seeing the Reds on the People’s Court claiming “lemon law”. (Please let this happen).
Dude looks 50
I hadn’t considered the delta between Miley ($10 million) and Minor ($7.3 million). That’s not a big number.
So far they are both injured but at least Miley looks to be coming back.
Be interesting to look back next off season and see how this plays out.
Royals won the trade.
One of the stranger adds/trades of the offseason no doubt
Its going to be a tough year for the Reds but I really like the future here
Between Green, Lodolo , Gray, Gutiérrez, Mahle, Hoffman, Antone Dunn, and Ashcraft there’s a lot of live young arms
I think Castillo gets dealt, and that’s fine…by mid decade they should have a well stocked pond of arms to dispense upon the league for dirt cheap
The ledger will be almost completely wiped by 24′ (15 mill B/o total between Votto Moose and last year of Griffey after 23 is all that’s left )
By 2025, India and Stephenson will be making more than League minimum and they will be traded/given away. Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo will be a year or two behind them.
Good teams supplement their major league talent with their farm system. The Reds simply replace their major league talent with their minor league talent. It’s a terribly run organization.
Also Sonny Gray is with Minnesota now. Antone is recovering from his second Tommy John surgery. Most don’t come back after a second TJ surgery.
Brain fart, was thinking Josiah Gray for a split sec…(know he’s on Nats) and my own team traded him so its even more of a gaff…..
Cincy and La have just made so many trades the last 4~5 years and the Red unis threw me off
Hopefully just a Minor setback…
Hopefully, the Mike Minor trade is the one that will have Nick Krall taking his talents elsewhere.