The Reds announced Thursday that they’ve designated right-hander Yosver Zulueta for assignment in order to open a 40-man roster spot for righty Pierce Johnson, whose previously reported one-year deal with Cincinnati is now official.
A hard-throwing 6’1″ righty, Zulueta has pitched briefly in the majors with Cincinnati in each of the past two seasons. He’s totaled just 22 1/3 innings and been tagged for an unsightly 5.32 earned run average but has some more encouraging underlying traits. Zulueta averaged a blistering 98.1 mph with his four-seamer this past season and has fanned 24.8% of his opponents in the majors and kept a hearty 54% of batted balls against him on the ground. However, a paltry 8.4% swinging-strike rate and 25.4% opponents’ chase rate don’t really support that strikeout rate, and Zulueta has also walked 10.9% of his big league opponents.
Zulueta has a solid Triple-A track record, including 60 1/3 frames of 3.78 ERA ball in 2025. He punched out more than 31% of opponents with Louisville in 2025 but also issued walks at a near 13% clip and plunked another two percent of the batters he faced (five of the 250). In parts of four Triple-A campaigns, the Cuban-born righty has a 3.74 ERA, 27.5% strikeout rate and 14% walk rate.
Based on his velocity, ability to both miss bats and generate grounders, and the fact that he still has a minor league option year remaining, Zulueta seems like the type of low-risk bullpen arm who could appeal to other clubs via a small trade or waiver claim. The Reds will have five days to work out a trade before he has to be placed on waivers, which would be another 48-hour process. His DFA will be resolved within a week’s time.
That was a really short leash for such a good arm.
He was tattooed in that ballpark
Somebody had to go to make room for Pierce Johnson. He wasn’t the first one to go, that was Lyon Richardson a couple weeks ago.
Two seasons since they claimed him off waivers isn’t exactly a short leash.
I read he got busted smoking a cig.
I remember him as a Jay farmhand…. no prospects ever pan out. 🙁
Yosver has an option and is unlikey to clear waivers.
I’d love to see if the Brewers organization could develop his talent as a late inning arm.
This is a tough loss really. I would have rather seen someone like Callihan go.
Tough loss? The dude has been knocked around like a ping pong ball.
3.28 ERA in 44 appearances at AAA last year and 3.83 ERA in 40 appearances at AAA in 2024. He had a 4.83 ERA in just 12 appearances in 2024 for the Reds and only 7 appearances last year. Dude throws gas and strikes out a ton of batters.
If you don’t think he’s good you are going to be surprised by how long he sticks around in the majors for another team.
I won’t be surprised because it won’t happen.
Did you watch the games or just look at stats? He was only used in blow out games after he was lit up like a Cuban earlier. He had an ERA over 7 at that point. His fastball is straight so he gets teed off on. You can’t throw it past major leaguers. There’s a big difference between AAA and the big leagues.
A 4.83 ERA is not exactly anything to write home about at any rate.
Homer Bailey had over a 6.72 ERA in his first two years as a red in a similarly small sample size before throwing 2 no hitters and being a major piece of the 2010 and 2012 playoff runs. Based on your emotional logic, you would have cut him from the team before he had a chance to figure it out in the MLB.
I see your comments on here a lot – I know you are more of an emotional guy than a stats guy. I do prefer to look at stats.
BigRed- You would have a better chance explaining quantum physics to my Laborer Retriever than statistics or logic to This One. Throw it in the list causes scrap heap.
Homer was rushed to the big leagues, everyone knows that, as evidenced by his trying to throw it past everyone. Once he learned how to pitch in the majors, he was fine until his arm went out toward the end of his career.
I prefer to actually watch the games, see movement and location. How does a guy deal with pressure, does he fold or does he bow his back and go get em. Chase Burns got hit hard a couple of times but you could still see the talent as he got through it and actually is probably better for it. Abbott has that kind of bulldog in him too. Now Chase Petty, the jury is still out. He got nailed good but he’s still young at 24 and looks to have been rushed too.
The guy you are talking about here is 28 and been released by his second team. He got the sweet in the headlights look whenever something went wrong – not good. Can you honestly say you saw any of what I described above in him? Or did you just read the stat sheet, read the radar gun reading and that’s it?
Besides you have some young guys in your bullpen named Mey and Maxwell who have shown a lot more and still have a ceiling they haven’t hit yet. Santillan is about as good as it gets. They added two vets, one a lefty and brought back their closer. They really need another lefty and a proven long guy and they would be set nicely down there.
If only they did something about their every day lineup.
You look stunned right now that the Mariners instantly picked him up. Absolutely stunned. Just another scouting department that doesn’t know ball, I guess.
Not really. A lot of teams think they can “fix” a player and nine times out of ten, that never happens.
It’s not a loss, if he isn’t claimed.
Only player in MLB history with the initials YZ