The Reds announced this afternoon they’ve released outfielder Shogo Akiyama. It had seemed likely Akiyama would be released when the club informed him over the weekend he wouldn’t break camp on the active roster, as his contract afforded him the right to refuse any minor league assignments.
The move closes the book on a disappointing tenure in Cincinnati. Akiyama signed a three-year, $21MM deal over the 2019-20 offseason. Making the jump from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball to MLB during the 2020 season was no doubt difficult, as the typical challenges of the new environment were exacerbated by the shortened schedule and pandemic protocols. Nevertheless, the Reds certainly expected better than the .224/.320/.274 line Akiyama posted in 366 plate appearances over the past two years.
Due $8MM in 2022 under the terms of that contract, Akiyama is a lock to clear release waivers. Cincinnati will remain on the hook for that money, minus the league minimum salary if the 33-year-old catches on with another MLB team as a free agent. From the Reds perspective, the release was about reallocating Akiyama’s spot on the active and 40-man rosters.
The Reds don’t have to officially make a call on their Opening Day roster until Thursday, but C. Trent Rosecrans of the Athletic tweets the club is planning to select three non-roster invitees to the big league club. Infielder/outfielder Brandon Drury, catcher Aramís García and reliever Buck Farmer are all expected to break camp.
It would be the eighth consecutive season with some MLB time for Drury. The right-handed hitting utilityman had a couple decent seasons early in his career with the Diamondbacks but has only eclipsed 90 plate appearances once in the past four years. His last extended run in the majors — 120 games with the 2019 Blue Jays — resulted in only a .218/.262/.380 slash, but Drury was alright in a bench capacity with the Mets last year.
García is expected to join the big league club as the backup to Tyler Stephenson. The 29-year-old backstop has suited up with the Giants and A’s in recent years. Over parts of three big league seasons, he’s a .218/.256/.373 hitter. García owns a more impressive .268/.333/.448 line at Triple-A. He seemingly beat out fellow non-roster invitee Andrew Knapp for the backup catching job. Rosecrans tweets that Knapp has been granted his release after being informed he wouldn’t break camp.
Farmer, meanwhile, has pitched in parts of eight big league seasons. He’d spent his entire career with the Tigers but is now in line for his second MLB team. The right-hander posted a sub-4.00 ERA in both 2019-20, but he’s coming off a difficult 2021 campaign. In 35 1/3 innings, Farmer posted a 6.37 ERA with an elevated 12.3% walk rate. He’ll add some multi-inning relief depth for skipper David Bell, though, in hopes of rediscovering his 2019-20 form.
Akiyama’s release clears one spot on the 40-man roster, and the other two seem likely to come from injured list placements. Righty Justin Dunn is out “months” with a shoulder issue and figures to wind up on the 60-day injured list. Bell told reporters (including Charlie Goldsmith of the Cincinnati Enquirer) that infielder Max Schrock will be placed on the 60-day IL as well. The 27-year-old is dealing with a left calf strain.
That’ll set the stage for the Opening Day roster, but the Reds figure to require another 40-man roster spot by the middle of next week. As Jesse Borek of MLB.com writes, Cincinnati is expected to promote top pitching prospect Nick Lodolo to make his major league debut when the team first needs a fifth starter on April 13. The team has yet to make a formal announcement, but Lodolo isn’t expected to be assigned to a minor league affiliate. Assuming that plan comes to fruition, the Reds would have to formally select the southpaw onto the major league roster.
Sho-Gone!
No mo Shogo.
Sho no!!
Shogo was the second coming of Tsuyoshi Nishioka
That’s not a compliment
It’s too bad given how much he was hyped when we signed him. He just couldn’t cut it. Time to move on.
Good glove, right? Welcome to San Diego?!?
Idk bruh haha id give Azocar or Mazara a shot before this guy. Shogo can’t adjust to velo and we need real bats.
It must be really bad if you’re telling him to speed up the bat, Señor Kim! Lol =)
Yea haha we don’t need another me -_-
Again, NPB is AAAA ball.
Again, everyone already knows this.
CK – always a pleasure. Imagine, the nerve of me commenting on a comment board. What was I thinking? Have a good day. I bet you’re a lot of fun on long car rides.
Yeah, the best thing on car rides is saying the same things over and over…. and over. Then stopping to beat a dead horse and resuming the repetition.
I am great fun on long car rides.. mostly because I don’t emphatically repeat common sense statements.
Seriously though, I’m having a great day and I hope you’re having one too.
You hear about NPB being AAAA ball? No, it’s true. Lighten up, sweethearts. Be well.
$21M over 3 years is good money. Not a complete failure on his part.
He’s a rich failure
@HidekiMatsuimalemodel
Are you jealous? I wouldn’t mind being a failure at my job and still earning $21M over 3 years.
What about his comment screams jealousy? He simply spoke the truth
@Tomahawk Takeover
It’s a question. What’s wrong with being a rich failure?
I am
IDK ask Putin that question
Best move of the off-season
Good riddance.
One of the worst international signing in reds history
Alfredo Rodriguez would like a word. Shogo had one good month of real MLB experience. Rodriguez barely made it out of AA
So 2nd all time in a 130 yr franchise
Not too many intl signings those first 50-60 years.
No African Americans until 1954… so yeah. That’s probably accurate.
We broke the bank with Tony Perez. On the whole, the Reds are still looking pretty good on international signings.
Aroldis chapman… raisel iglesias… johnny cueto… tbh the reds have done really well with their international signings until dick and nick took over the front office.
USA… USA… USA!!!
what .. What… WHAT???
This is a great example of how valuable a 40 man roster spot is ESPECIALLY when you’re in full rebuild mode like the Reds. Because there will be some roster casualties in the next few days with more promising players than Shogo just ready to be scooped up by Cincy.
Somehow the Reds valued giving a roster spot to Colin Moran so much they were willing to eat Akiyama’s contract.
Yeah if Akiyama is all glove, no bat, then Moran is some bat, no mobility. There’s a reason some Pirate fans called him “Column” Moran; he fields what he gets to, but he has the range of a totem pole.
I wonder if the Giants see anything in his swing/approach that they think they can work with…
Why work with crap
Ask an organic farmer.
Japan is a pool league people think they going to be a super star here is ridiculous
Ichiro would like a word.
Ichiro is an exception, not a rule.
Shohei would like a word. Shall we continue? NPB players are signed just like other prospects. Some work out, some don’t. Plenty of Dominican signings go bust, too. I don’t get your point.
The percentage of Japanese position players who’ve managed to stay in the majors for at least three years (77%) is far higher than the percentage of first-round position player draft picks who play that long in the majors (23.6%).
https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-chances-of-a-drafted-baseball-player-making-the-major-leagues-a-quantitative-study/
omg… the number of Japanese position players is like maybe 2 or 1 signed, every couple years, but your trying to compare it to 1st round draft picks, of which there is at least 30 every year.
I know these are excuses, but in addition to what the article mentions, they never even gave him one full season of regular ABs. It’s hard enough to hit a baseball despite all the challenges, but to do it part-time is one of the hardest things in sports. Not saying he would have done any better, but…
Honestly, I felt the same. Dude never played every day.
all glove and no bat? Send him to the northeast corner of Ohio….he can guard the basement in the AL central with the rest of the outfielders in Cleveland!
You got that right! This guy is right up CLE’s alley – league minimum, decent fielder, can’t hit worth a damn. He’ll fit right in!
Sounds like Akiyama is going back to Seibu or an NPB team. I was expecting a .750 ops out of Akiyama heading into 2020 but I think he was playing through an injury as his power numbers had historically been much better than that.
Shogo maybe lands somewhere as a 4th OF. Happy for Drury, always wanted him to make a comeback.
I doubt any team is looking for a powerless, little basepath knowledge, and who claims a negative WAR
He’s 34 years old coming off a -1.1 WAR season. Who is looking for that?
*Ben Cherington slowly raises hand*
That would be the first step, if Ben signs Shogo. Second step that he will avail himself of the CF depth and trade Reynolds.
After watching Anthony Alford strike out 15 times in his first 20 AB’s Akiyama might not sound so bad
He’s probably a better hitter that Jackie Bradley what he hit like 160 last year… terrible
As I understand it, if Akiyama signs with a new MLB team he still makes just $8M, with the Reds paying most of that and the new team probably paying league minimum.
But if he signs back in Japan does the salary offset still apply? Or would he get his $8M from Cincy plus the extra NPB salary?
Plus.
No coordination of salaries between MLB and NPB.
In that case it seems like he’ll almost certainly end up back in Japan right away.
I saw him speak earlier today, he really sounded like he wanted to stay in MLB. He reiterated that it feels like “unfinished business”… I’m not sure either way but he was really emotional and I took him at face value. The question begs- who gives him another chance?
And just to confirm, LordD99 is correct.
Lodolo is the good news here. Hunter and Lodolo. Something to watch, anyway. Unfortunately the rest of the product is crap.
I’m excited to see how Lodolo does this season. I hope they don’t call him up for just the one start and then send him back down. It’s time to see how much he has developed and if he’s ready for MLB this year or not. Unless he gets tattooed in his first couple of starts, they really need to give him 4-5 starts to see if he can handle MLB hitters at this point in his career. If he has a bad start in his debut and they send him down to AAA right after that, it could really affect the mental part of his game. Give him a chance to get a good sample size in before making the final decision on where he’ll play most of his games this season.
Good news about Lodolo, and Green, the future is bright. Now if only C Trent would get released, Tool of the Year.
Aroldis chapman… raisel iglesias… johnny cueto… tbh the reds have done really well with their international signings until dick and nick took over the front office.
Whoever scouted and recommended signing Akiyama should be hanged, drawn, and quartered – and then spit on and kicked. And then made to eat his weight in sushi. His bat is way too slow thru the strike zone to have any meaningful impact.
Am also bummed that we won’t get to see Greene and Lodolo in Louisville this year. Was really looking forward to seeing them on a regular basis.
woah… I never actually looked at his stats to see how awful he was… WOW… at first I was questioning this move, now I understand it.