6:29pm: It’s a $1.175MM guarantee, reports Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer. There’s an additional $25K bonus attainable if Maile appears in 80 games next season.
4:25pm: The Reds announced they’ve signed catcher Luke Maile to a one-year contract. Financial terms of the deal have not yet been reported. Maile is a client of Meister Sports Management. Cincinnati’s 40-man roster count is up to 39.
Maile, 32 in February, has spent his career bouncing around the league as a depth option. He’s played parts of seven big league campaigns, suiting up with the Rays and Blue Jays early in his career. He spent the 2021 season with Milwaukee and inked a $900K guarantee with the Guardians this past spring.
The University of Kentucky product opened the season on the injured list with a left hamstring strain, but he was reinstated by mid-April. He spent the rest of the year on the active roster, logging a bit less action in a timeshare with Austin Hedges. Maile made 76 appearances, hitting .221/.301/.326 with a trio of home runs across 206 plate appearances. While he was arbitration eligible for a final time this winter, Cleveland non-tendered him in lieu of a projected $1.3MM salary.
Maile has 306 games of big league experience under his belt. He’s a career .207/.268/.314 hitter but has a solid reputation as a defender. Defensive Runs Saved gave him average marks in just over 500 innings of work last season, but that metric has pegged him 21 runs better than par over the course of his career. Statcast has given him mixed reviews as a pitch framer in recent years. It’s credited him with an above-average throwing arm, though, with a 1.96-second average pop time (time to throw to second base on a steal attempt) that ranked 28th among 72 catchers with 10+ throws.
With over five years of big league service time, Maile is on track to return to the open market at the end of next season. For the 2023 campaign, he’ll presumably settle into his familiar role as a backup. Cincinnati is sure to give the lion’s share of playing time to Tyler Stephenson, who looks like one of the top young backstops in the game. The Reds cycled through a number of depth options behind him this year, giving brief looks to each of Aramis Garcia, Austin Romine, Michael Papierski, Mark Kolozsvary, Chuckie Robinson and Chris Okey.
None of that group is still in the organization. Romine reached free agency, while Okey, Robinson, Papierski and Garcia were all let go. Kolozsvary was lost on waivers to the Orioles. Maile joins Stephenson as the only backstops on the 40-man roster, and Cincinnati could look to bring in another depth player on a minor league deal later in the offseason.
One of my faves , walk up music is Zeppelin
Coolest walk up music in the league!
Love the moniker, Oscar Gamble. I remember his baseball card with the giant Afro lol.
Coolest walk up music in tbd league .
Certainly one of the best bands ever. Which song?
Kashmir
platemusic.com/artist/led-zeppelin walk up to Zep
He’s fine as a backup.
As a triple a catcher maybe
What kind of production do you expect out of your backup catcher? He handled Cleveland’s pitching staff just fine last year and was ok at the plate compared to the rest of the league.
The Guardians were runners-up in pursuit of Maile.
This is an unbelievable loss for them based on how he handled their pitching staff.
Yep! Sucks man I wanted him back in Cleveland so bad
I think they have their eyes on bigger fish, thus the non tender.
Offer the Reds his salary plus $1.25 and you can have him back.
Says Bob Castellini in a cost-cutting move!
League minimum contract?
Surprised it wasn’t Jeff Mathis.
The Maile Man always delivers
I was wondering which one they would end up with.
Reds needed a backup catcher and it’s a homecoming for Maile.
Maile got returned, eh?
There goes the Tucker Barnhart reunion. Guess he was holding out for more than league minimum
not necessarily, reds fan. they got rid of most of their catching depth. I think this is a depth move.
They’re not going to carry 3 catchers on their 26 man roster. This almost assuredly closes the door on a Barnhart reunion.
I would hate for them to find a legit player under 28.
Death, taxes, and Luke Maile on a cheap one-year deal.
Oh look another trash bin find. Good Job on finding another big league player. 110 losses here we come.
They are not one of the big markets so they aren’t shopping at one of the expensive stores in Manhattan.
Neither are the Rays….still competitive tho!
Bull, they don’t have Yankee money sure, but the Reds can afford better. The past two seasons they have traded or failed to re-sign Sonny Gray, Wade Miley, Tucker Barnhart, Nick Castellanos, Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suarez, Tyler Mahle Luis Castillo and Kyle Farmer without putting a nickel back into the team.
You don’t spend serious money at the beginning of a rebuild, you spend it at the end of the rebuild.
By the way, what exactly are the Reds trying to do? Are they rebuilding or are they content to remain static and stay at the bottom of the NL central?
According to their GM they are “aligning payroll with resources” and (I swear to God he said this)
“Trying to avoid Peaks and Valleys”
Why you would want to avoid peaks, I can not say.
Fear of success? Envy mediocrity? Avoid valleys, try to maintain peaks.
Must be that money, they been talking about, 207 hitter. Lol, Look out Pittsburgh here we come. Bob C. Big spender.
Need a catcher. Otherwise there are a lot of pitches bouncing off umpires.
Being a Reds fan is like a yearly colonosopy. ….you drink the juice then flush again…repeat in winter 2023..
same #@%₩ ! Different day!
If you are not one of the 6-8 big market teams in MLB, it’s a crapshoot. Of course they don’t address what is killing the sport. Ever.
I would say expansion is what’s killing the sport. What’s your take on this?
I agree avenger. There’s probably 3-6 guys on every MLB club that shouldn’t be playing over the AAA level. Yet people claim on here there’s a need for even more MLB clubs. Quite honestly MLB should force 3-4 teams to relocate or eliminate them that would drive the talent up in MLB. Also the fact MLB and the MLBPA cannot agree on a floor and cap is hurting MLB immensely. If there are stadiums that cannot draw hardly any fans than those franchises are in the wrong geographical spot or they have a cheap owner not willing to field a MLB caliber team and should be forced to sell at some point.
Is it the influx of foreign players taking over the American past-time? Does it need to be religated or debated. Should it be the same as it is with Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB)? The KBO league places a cap on the number of foreign players allowed on club rosters. The foreign player limit is set at three (no more than two of them being pitchers), increased from two players from 2014. So is this wrong on their part? or trying to make level competition?
Jobs are takin away from US players. and they become lifers in the minor league. We all know the minors has a poor income system and players are never given the opportunity by big league clubs or a second look. I m sure some one can give the current percentages of ethnicity players in the league.
I understand the American dream for 3rd world nations.We ve been blessed to see some great foreign ball players. World league? I dont know? thoughts? Is there away? Not being Racist so before you get all jumpy…remember that please. Could MLB expand to other countries? .Mexico Venezuela…Cuba? what Problems would u see if this happened? Thoughts? Obviously, Covid/BlueJays that was an issue with Canada.
Oh please, there are plenty of talented players to field as many teams as they want to have. You know when there were actually guys playing in the majors who probably didn’t belong above AAA? Back in the days before the sport was fully integrated. Today baseball draws in talented players from all over the world, and the last guy on the bench is way more talented, relatively speaking, than guys sitting on benches back 70 or 80 years ago.
Finatic,
1.) The international players make this game more fun to watch. I for one to not want to limit their participation. I want to see the BEST. The fact that we do not have those limits is yet another reason why MLB is so far above the NPB and KBO in terms of talent.
2) It is the World Series, not the continental US series.
3) International travel works for football (one game per week) but is hard to pull over when you have 162 games per year.
The problem is not expansion. There are enough good players to support the present number of teams. Plenty of good players are kept in the minors longer for financial reasons.
Many of the Pirates last year didn’t belong in the majors. Some were rushed and not ready and others were journeymen who could not even field their position properly.
It is a disgrace that MLB allows this to happen to a city.
The excuse is always we are rebuilding.
At least you have the Bengals.
Agreed 100%
Yeah but com’on only for the last 30 years.
He’s a Kentucky kid moving close to home and getting paid $1.25M to be a part time player.
Somebody other than CLE, please sign Austin Hedges immediately. That way the Guardians will be forced to upgrade to a C who can hit over .200. As it stands now they’ll likely bring him back unfortunately. The argument for doing so is always his defense, but if you’re hitting .181, you better at LEAST be a gold glove finalist which Hedges was not.
solaris602;
Cleveland is a team based on run suppression – defense and pitching.
Ask the pitchers how they like working with Hedges.
@Samuel – his defense has really tailed off though. They’ll enjoy working with Murphy or Vazquez just as much.
CyBieber;
Both are too expensive.
Bo will take over the main duties as the year goes along. If not Hedges maybe they bring Perez back as a #2….perhaps even Leon.
The FO letting Maile go says they already have a plan.
Hedges might not be a good hitter or catcher for that matter but he’s the happiest man on the planet. I loved his enthusiasm for the game and life in general. What a great attitude he has.
Local guy who had a 0.7 WAR as a backup catcher last year. Sounds like a fine deal to me. He was better than Tucker Barnhardt last year. I also wanted a Tucker reunion, but I’ll settle for this.
Perhaps, but Maile is a much cheaper option among .220 hitting, quality glovesl behind the dish.
Most people won’t care but I think it’s pretty cool he gets to come home and play for the Reds since he grew up right across the river and played for Covington Catholic. Always fun to see a kid get to play for their hometown team.
Would be a lot cooler if they would sign a local kid who was hitting .280 or so.
Yeah because batting average is everything when it comes to backup catchers.
What an insightful retort.
Hey Pirates, one less catcher on the market.
What are we waiting for? Still looking at more first baseman? LOL
Knowing the state that the Reds are in, I like this signing. Maile is definitely better than the crew we ran out there last year after Stephenson got hurt.