10:30 AM: Hector Gomez of Z101 Digital adds that Aquino’s deal is one-year, $1.2MM with an additional $300K of possible incentives.
10:20 AM: Outfielder Aristides Aquino has signed with the Chunichi Dragons of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, reports Jon Morosi of MLB Network. It’s Aquino’s first stint overseas, who had previously spent parts of the last five seasons with the Cincinnati Reds.
Aquino, 28, made his debut during the 2018 season, earning a single at-bat, before reaching free agency and re-signing on a minor league deal with the Reds. He would eventually join the team in a more permanent role during the 2019 season, slashing .259/.316/.576 with 19 homers in 205 at-bats while posting serviceable strikeouts (26.7%) and walk (7.1%) rates. During that stretch, the right-handed hitter hit 13 homers in his first 100 plate appearances, setting an MLB record.
His success soon faded, and Aquino would spend the 2020 season bouncing between the major league club and the Reds’ alternative training site. More recently, Aquino hit a weak .194/.269/.381 with 20 homers across the 2021 and 2022 seasons (433 at-bats) with a poor 36.7% strikeout rate and a strong 9.2% walk rate. He was designated for assignment two weeks ago, as the Reds adjusted their 40-man roster ahead of the Rule 5 Draft.
It’s possible that Aquino has a strong enough performance in Japan to draw some new major league interest in the future, for it was only a few seasons ago that he showcased his immense power. Nevertheless, he will now turn to the Dragons as an outfield option with a career .300/.374/.644 line at the Triple-A level.
Good Luck!
Guardians were runners up for Aquino
This guy will be Barry Bonds with the juice he’ll get there!
Ahhh…..so?
Noice, the Punisher is gonna hit 50+ bombs over there.
And hopefully not fall of a cliff again.
Had the chance to meet him at a reds fan event dude is legitimately one of the nicest people in baseball hopefully he can get back to punisher form over there
Don’t make us get the receipts, casuals – many of you thought this guy was the next Juan Gonzalez
Maybe the next Greg Luzinski but never the next Juan Gone
Aquino is an excellent defensive outfielder with a cannon of an arm. He is a much better athlete than Greg Luzinski ever was.
Pulling receipts where everyone is anonymous = you are absolutely insane.
Let’s keep this receipt for when Aquino figures it out in Japan and becomes the next Prince Fielder.
Aquino is a better athlete than Cecil Fielder. AA is a plus defender with an absolute cannon of an arm. He doesn’t need to hit 50 home runs to find success in Japan. I think 30 is absolutely possible. I’ll be rooting for him.
How do you go from smacking 13hr/100ab to pfbbbts so quickly?
Did he get a wish from a genie that only lasted a season?
Was a mirage. He was mid at best in the minors
300/374/644 AAA career. Wouldn’t call that mid at best…
300 PA with the juiced ball in 2019. Now do A and AA
If you have to pull LOW MINORS stats to make a point = you have lost.
Mmmm no. Do you have any idea how projections systems work?
Obviously not. Almost nobody who sucks in the minors for 3+ years is ever good in MLB
Your definition of “sucks” is so stupid in this context. Sorry Gmoney, better luck next time.
He was getting <1 war projections and not even hitting the mark lol. Anyone who paid attention to his milb career knew why
Big league breaking balls have tendency to expose a lot flaws people have in their swings.
Just like they did with Cecil Fielder! Luckily he figured it out in Japan and came back and hit 50 MLB bombs in a season.
The Reds had a logjam in the OF and I don’t think he ever really had a shot at regular playing time. Even coming back from his first good season they didn’t give him much of a chance to start because they had more vets to play instead. Teams don’t give these you guys a chance anymore, they need regular at bats to find their grove, get better, and become something. This up and down between the majors and minors or the starting and to the bench for 2 game then starting again doesn’t worth and isn’t fair to their development.
I disagree. He had several long stretches of starting games in a row including that magical month and a half. Once the league adjusted to him, he did not make needed adjustments. Even a trip to AAA to try to figure it out was not productive. The wake up call didn’t wake him up.
I hope he figures it out over there. He will face a lot more off speed, breaking stuff, and the “shooto” so he will either hit other stuff then the fast ball or fall flat on his face. Still, if I were him, I’d jump at the chance hoping I can come back and make some good money after a great stat season over there.
The Reds don’t have a long jam in the outfield now. In fact, they don’t have one full time outfielder.
I said when they made the trades, why get so many infielders because they can’t play them all and why didn’t they address the outfield.
I have heard though , that De La Cruz can play CF and that is an interesting possibility. After all a couple of former shortstops like the great Eric Davis and Billy Hamilton played a mean CF. De La Cruz’s body type actually reminds me a lot of Eric.
For the most part though, switching positions with guys don’t always work. I always said Senzel was just fair defensively, for example. Is he athletic, yes. Does he have good outfield instincts, not really.
This dude gonna hit 50 HRs next year, sign a $20 mil/2-year MLB deal with like the Tigers or Guardians, then be awful for half a season before getting benched. Wish the guy all the best but his debut was clearly a fluke as he’s been a lousy hitter ever since. What sucks as well is he has a rocket for an arm and would be an everyday player if he could just hit like .235 or something close to that.
You would have made this exact same post in 1988 about Cecil Fielder. How can you be so sure Aquino will NEVER improve his game, or make an adjustment? He’s never even been out of the Reds org, who may have been screwing him up, much like they have screwed up many of their prospects (like Senzel).
“Only the biggest fool speaks in absolutes about the future”
I mean BOTH of us have no idea what he will do. Cecil Fielder is obviously a popular example. More recently we have Nick Martinez and Robert Suarez. But for each of those guys there are a dozen or more Craig Brazell’s of the world who never return.
It’s become much more popular over the last several years for players to go overseas and try to reset their brand/improve. I just don’t think a .170 AVG across 3 seasons since his breakout month are indicative of much future success (in the MLB), but I wish him the best of luck either way.
I agree with all of that, I just used Cecil Fielder as he’s a better offensive profile match than just any player who comes back. There is definitely a world where Aquino dominates Japan and comes back to MLB as a middle order masher, we cant immediately deny that so quick, if you were indeed, trying to wish him luck.
@ Asfan, on today’s day and age these organizations have enough scouting and analytics that they can recognize flaws. If they thought there was a reasonable chance of getting Aquino right he’d b playing in MLB next season. The odds are heavily against him ever being a high impact bat at MLB level. At best he does well over there and gets another chance in MLB as a bench bat or platoon role.
@Tigers3232 that is true, but scouting and analytics mean nothing when talking about a single player making adjustments. There’s vague generalizations you can make, but they routinely get exposed.
You last line is extremely wrong and I will never agree with it: At “best” he does well over there and comes back like Cecil Fielder. Why is everyone always bringing the ceilings down on players, focusing on the bad and not the good? You/we all were wrong about Muncy, Turner and JDM and those types, and there is a pretty good chance you will be wrong again here (of course this is dependent on Aquino’s JPL results).
@AsFan Cecil going to Tigers was over 30 years ago now. He has been by far the exception not the standard. He also played at a time when tape on players was done via VHS and delivered by mail or hand. Opposed to no with vastly more video and info available instantaneously on players. That no MLB teams are taking the chance is very telling. And in no way is it bringing the ceiling down, trying to compare an anomaly such as Cecil to the standard is falsely inflating the ceiling.
So he’ll be Eric Thames then and soon fall off after a season and a half. If he returns, I doubt he gets 20mul per year. Maybe a team will take a gamble on him at 1 year and 7mil. Go to a bad team and if he’s successful he’s flipped to a contender. So a team like the Pirates or Nats. Maybe the A’s
mostlytoasty;
The Guardians are going to give $10m a year to guy that puts up stats for a year in Japan?
They have 10 young OF’s in their organization that are better than he’ll ever be.
A notable lack of power in their OF for the time being so that’s why I pulled their name offhand.
I was gonna say if he struggle against high velocity, he’ll kill it there, because they throw a lot more off-speed stuff there.
And then I was gonna say if he struggled against off-speed, maybe he’s going there to improve because he’ll see more off-speed stuff and he can try to improve.
Then I looked at the splits, and he’s terrible against both.
Yes and he can make an ADJUSTMENT at any second and turn it around….
All you posters on here want things NOW and its annoying – players development routes and patterns are NEVER linear or repeatable.
By saying “all you posters”, aren’t you speaking in absolutes?
How? I’m not predicting the future I’m spitting facts about what is currently happening in this thread.
Only a sith deals in absolutes
The Sith do not deal in absolutes. They are continually trying to shade what should be absolutes into grays.
He can? Gosh, I wonder when he’ll decide to do that! After all, it’s just an adjustment!!
Hate to tell ya, but it’s far more likely his MLB career is over than about to turn around. He has A LOT of adjustments to make.
If you know ball, you know the most minor adjustment can make a massive difference.
I don’t disagree he might not come back to MLB just because he will be too big a star in Japan, probably not worth it to come back to a country where every other white fan hates you for the color of your skin and the country you are from. Stuff like that just flies right over your head.
Is there a worse person that posts on this site than you? Everything you say is a generalization, it’s negative, hateful and argumentative when it doesn’t have to be. You must be a very angry person. Cheer up.
Why are you so triggered into this extreme reply? I dont see anything of what you claim in my post, and neither do others. This is a form of gaslighting, go pick up some pamphlets next time youre at the office.
Youre the one who talked smack first, I am showing you how wrong you are, so you call me “angry” lmao ok buddy
If he doesn’t learn to put the bat on the ball and cut down on the 39% strikeout rate he won’t be good there either
1.2 million doesn’t even get me to pack my suitcase.
Yeah, but your interns will bail on you for a cool half million.
Good luck to the Punisher as a fire breathing dragon!
If 1.2 million don’t get you to pack a suitcase, O wish I had your job lol
Remember his alternative is a Louisville type city. Not from the U.S. so probably not.much different playing in Japan – going to be away from home all year, mught as well get paid and get playing time. Maybe he’ll be the next Wily Mo Pena.
Mr. Baseball
writing stuff like, posting serviceable strikeouts (26.7%), will never get players to try to improve.
Ok but lets peel back THAT onion…
Player improves, stops striking out.
You: “These pitchers today are all terrible, Nolan Ryan is the benchmark and I am going to whine and complain about every pitcher who doesnt strike everyone out – what happened to all the Josh Haders and Verlanders??”
Me: But you also dont want any hitters to strike out – you know you cant have it both ways, right?
You:
you can’t speak for me
Answer the question. You cant have it both ways: do you want things as they are now, with pitchers having massive K rates, or do you want hitters to not strike out and all pitchers to have low K rates. How do you justify this?
you peeled the onion wrong
You dont have a real argument then, so bring on the 300+ K hitters who also have 1.000+ OPS’s, I would love that!!! The game would be so much better!!!
Also long AB’s that end in a K are ENTERTAINING. Stop ignoring facts!!!
I don’t find Ks entertaining, unless I am pitching!
I love how its always the same guy who says “This SP wont ever succeed with such a low K rate” and “This hitter is bad because he strikes out a lot”, buddy, you can’t have both. Pick one, please. I pick high K world, its more fun and bunting sucks.
There are a lot of successful pitchers who don’t strike out a lot of batters, even in todays game, from Greg Maddox to Kyle Hendricks.
In the Reds ballpark, I’d rather have a sinker ball pitcher who throws a lot of ground balls. That’s why I like Graham Ashcroft so much. He keeps the ball out of the air for the most part.
they wouldn’t strike out so much if they’d quit swinging at balls out of the strike zone
A good place for him to try to get things straight. I wish him luck. Maybe he’ll excel there and come back like Eric Thomas a few years ago.
Aristides is turning Japanese, I really think so …
With that arm they should make him a reliever if his hitting stays at .200
Great move for him personally, he might never need to come back to America if he pops 50+homers in his first year there and his personality might also be better in not-America too, with all the horrible racist idiots we have in our “fans”. He might come back to MLB too now we have a universal DH.
Because people have pointed out his flaws and he happens to have dark skin, you call people racist?
Interesting. Nothing like people with an agenda which is a social media staple these days.
No, because people have called his personality bad for being Cuban.
I always thought Aquino had a great personality myself. Then again, Suarez also was always one of my favorite guys too because he was personable.
I never heard anyone say that about Tony Perez and he was Cuban.
Tony Perez won titles, of course no one said anything. The 1970s were literally 50 years ago now, please use more recent examples moving forward, thanks.
Yes, the 70s were 50 years ago and people are making the same mistakes now in spite of society allegedly being more “enlightened“. And your point is?
I’d say if folks were being derogatory now, they would be even more so then since we are supposed to be more tolerant now.
Would be cool if this dude has a Cecil Fielder turn around.
Eric Thames (like the River, not Thomas as was typed by the earlier poster) came back to the show after a three year KBO stint, but Thames so far not made it back to show, only AAA Las Vegas, after two years in Japan.
Oops, I stand corrected.
I didn’t even know the Reds fired him.
Aquino will probably mash over there
In august of 2018 AA was Babe Ruth. I’m actually going to miss him.
I wonder if he will be the first 300 strikeout player in the Nippon Professional Baseball.
Kind of a lot of money for an unproven slugger. I can see the kbo calling first. Well see if he can go .210 with 30
Watched a few games where Aquino faced the Cubs, and he seemed to murder them. Checked it out, and he had a .280/.346/.710 slash against the Cubs, only .201/.275/.391 against everyone else.
Both he and Farmer seemed to like Cubs pitching.
Some guys just own certain teams. Like Ian Happ owns the Reds now and Roy Oswald at one time.
I always said the Reds should get Happ just for that. Plus he loves their park.