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Reds Place Nick Senzel On Injured List, Recall Daniel Duarte

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The Reds announced a pair of corresponding roster moves today. Nick Senzel has been placed on the COVID-related injured list, though he has not tested positive, per C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic (via Twitter). To take his roster spot, they recalled right-handed reliever Daniel Duarte. They now have an 11-man bullpen with just three extra position players on the bench.

Duarte made his big league debut already this season with a pair of appearances spanning 1 2/3 innings. The 25-year-old right-hander played across four different levels of the Reds’ system in 2021, totaling 23 2/3 innings over 19 outings with a 4.56 ERA.

But this move is more about Senzel, who has struggled to stay on the field in his young career. Jonathan India is also suffering from a sore hamstring, leaving the Reds pretty severely short-handed on the bench. They clearly aren’t all that concerned about it in the short-term, however, given their decision to add another arm to the bullpen. Given the COVID designation, there is no minimum length of stay on the injured list, so the Reds may expect to get Senzel back sooner than later. For today, Brandon Drury is getting the start for India again, while Jake Fraley steps in for Senzel as the center fielder of record.

Reds, Sandy Leon Agree To Minor League Contract

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The Reds and free-agent catcher Sandy Leon have agreed to a minor league contract, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link).

Leon, 33, will give Cincinnati some extra catching depth after they traded Tucker Barnhart to the Tigers this offseason. The emergence of young Tyler Stephenson played a large role in prompting that trade, and Stephenson is locked in as the primary backstop for manager David Bell, but Leon could eventually get a look in the big leagues should Stephenson incur an injury or should current backup Aramis Garcia struggle or get hurt.

Leon spent the 2021 season with the Marlins, where he slashed .183/.237/.267 in 220 plate appearances. Outside of what now looks like an anomalous 2016 campaign that saw him slash .310/.369/.476 in 283 trips to the plate, Leon has never provided much value with the bat. He’s regarded as a strong defensive backstop, however, evidenced by plus framing rates, a career 33% caught-stealing rate and a total of 36 Defensive Runs Saved in 3621 career innings behind the plate.

Offseason In Review: Cincinnati Reds

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The Reds forecasted a payroll reduction early in the offseason, and a few of the team’s more notable players wound up departing. Cincinnati held off on a full teardown and even added incrementally during Spring Training, but that may not be enough to return to last season’s 83-win level.

Major League Signings

2022 spending: $14.825MM
Total spending: $14.825MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Claims

Extensions

None

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

The Reds were involved in the first notable transaction of the offseason, dealing longtime catcher Tucker Barnhart to the Tigers the afternoon after the World Series ended. That was a fitting precursor for the months to come, as “which other veterans will the Reds move?” became one of the offseason’s defining storylines.

In fairness to the Cincinnati front office, the Barnhart trade was a perfectly defensible one. Twenty-five-year-old Tyler Stephenson was ready for an everyday look behind the dish, and he brings quite a bit more offensive upside to the table than does Barnhart. Reallocating the $7.75MM it’d have cost to keep Barnhart in the fold made sense, and the deal gave the respected veteran a chance to continue playing regularly in Detroit.

Far more concerning than the Barnhart deal itself was the now-famous line general manager Nick Krall dropped in explaining the trade about aligning the team’s payroll to its resources. That hinted at more departures, the next of which came in fairly short order. Cincinnati waived starter Wade Miley on the heels of a 3.37 ERA season, saving themselves the $1MM buyout on a $10MM club option they were evidently set to decline. Even worse for Reds fans, he was claimed by the division-rival Cubs.

With the team in clear cost-cutting mode, attention turned again to the Reds top trio of high-end starting pitchers: Luis Castillo, Tyler Mahle and Sonny Gray. It was the second consecutive offseason in which Gray and Castillo, in particular, were involved in trade discussions. Early reports indicated that Gray — the oldest and most expensive — was the likeliest to find himself on the move. No deal transpired before the lockout, but the right-hander was shipped off to the Twins for hard-throwing pitching prospect Chase Petty shortly after transactions resumed.

Petty was selected 26th overall by Minnesota in last summer’s draft. His fastball-slider combination draws plenty of praise, but he’s not without concern about his control and the inherent risk associated with any teenage pitcher. Petty is a legitimate prospect to add to the system, but there’s little doubt Cincinnati had a strong financial motivation for the Gray trade as well.

Shortly after Gray was dealt, Krall went on the record to quash any speculation about the possibility Castillo or Mahle could follow him out of town. Both pitchers have two remaining seasons of club control via arbitration. If the Reds get off to a rough start, they could each be in-demand midseason trade targets (as José Berríos was last summer). For now, though, they’re remaining at the front of the rotation. Castillo began the year on the injured list but could be back by the end of the month.

The Reds kept their top two arms, but they pulled the trigger on a deal that subtracted one of their best bats in another payroll-saving maneuver. Cincinnati sent Jesse Winker to Seattle after the Mariners agreed to take back Eugenio Suárez while assuming the remaining three years and $35MM on the latter’s contract. Suárez’s March 2018 extension had gone south over the past two seasons; relinquishing Winker marked a notable price to pay to get out from under the back end of the deal.

As with the Gray swap, the Winker trade wasn’t a strict salary dump. Cincinnati brought back Brandon Williamson, another hard-throwing pitching prospect. Unlike Petty, Williamson isn’t too far from major league readiness, and he’s landed on the back end of a couple top-100 prospect rankings (No. 83 at Baseball America, No. 100 at MLB.com). The Reds also acquired a second pitching prospect, Connor Phillips, as well as an immediate outfield option in Jake Fraley and a depth arm in the currently-injured Justin Dunn.

Gray, Barnhart, Winker and Miley wound up being the four most notable contributors the Reds affirmatively moved as part of their payroll “alignment.” One could argue that the most impactful departure of all, though, was that of free agent outfielder Nick Castellanos, who inked a nine-figure deal with the Phillies. The Reds were never a threat to re-sign Castellanos, although they did pick up a draft choice as compensation after he rejected a qualifying offer. Winker and Castellanos had made one of the most effective corner outfield pairings last season, at least offensively, leaving fairly significant gaps to plug in the lineup.

Clearly, the Reds’ budgetary limitations were going to keep them from splurging on a replacement for either of those departing sluggers. Krall and his staff instead made a shrewd, low-cost pickup of Tommy Pham late in the spring. The 34-year-old Pham is coming off the worst two seasons of his career, but he’s continued to draw plenty of walks while making his fair share of hard contact. He’ll be hard-pressed to match the production of Winker or Castellanos, but $7.5MM is a reasonable price for a hopeful bounceback from the typically steady veteran in a more hitter-friendly home environment.

Pham and Fraley step into an outfield mix that also includes holdovers Aristides Aquino, Tyler Naquin and Nick Senzel. That’s not a great defensive grouping, but most of those players have capable track records at the plate. It’s certainly not as high-powered an outfield as Cincinnati ran out last year, but it shouldn’t be a disaster. There was enough depth in the group the club decided to release Shogo Akiyama shortly before Opening Day. Akiyama’s three-year deal over the 2019-20 offseason proved ill-fated as he offered very little offensively during his time in Cincinnati.

The infield is more exciting, with franchise icon Joey Votto looking resurgent and second baseman Jonathan India fresh off a Rookie of the Year campaign. Highly-touted prospect José Barrero figures to eventually take over as the regular shortstop, but he’s dealing with a hamate injury that’ll keep him out into May. Utilityman Kyle Farmer demonstrated he’s capable of holding the position over in Barrero’s absence last season; he’ll do so again for this year’s first month and a half, then perhaps shift over to a third base position that has disappointed in recent years.

That’s mostly because Suárez’s production fell in 2020, but he’s not the only big-name infielder to stumble unexpectedly. Mike Moustakas, whom the club signed to a four-year deal a couple offseasons back, is coming off a miserable season in which he missed significant time due to repeated foot injuries. His underwhelming showing looks particularly problematic in the context of the organization’s curtailed spending. Moustakas is the nominal starter at third base, but it stands to reason both Farmer and offseason signee Donovan Solano could cut into his playing time once everyone’s healthy.

Solano might also help shoulder the load at the newly-implemented NL designated hitter position. He’s posted above-average offensive numbers in all three seasons since reinvigorating his career with the Giants in 2019. Solano isn’t an impact hitter, but he’s solid enough at the dish to be a capable bat-first utility option for skipper David Bell once he returns from a season-opening IL stint.

He and Brandon Drury, who made the roster as a minor league signee, offer some infield depth. The Reds also took a low-cost flier on former Pirate Colin Moran to add another bat to the corner infield/DH group. As a left-handed hitter, Moran could be a candidate to split time at the hot corner with the righty-swinging Solano and Drury if he can play his way above Moustakas on the depth chart. Cincinnati rounded out the position player mix by selecting non-roster invitee Aramis García to back up Stephenson behind the dish.

There’s a bit of a mishmash feel to the Reds lineup, but it’s certainly not without talent. Votto, India, Stephenson, Naquin and Pham should make for a capable offensive core. Barrero and Senzel have a chance to play their way into that mix, and Cincinnati has at least brought in some competent if unexciting veterans to fill the roster.

Of greater concern may be the depth on the pitching staff. Castillo and Mahle make for a strong top two, but the losses of Gray and Miley removed last season’s No. 3 and No. 4 options. To replace some of that veteran stability, the Reds sent reliever Amir Garrett to Kansas City for starter Mike Minor. The southpaw is starting the season on the injured list himself, but he began a rehab assignment this week.

The Minor deal was a real surprise, something of an outlier in the Reds’ broader offseason. He’s coming off two consecutive seasons with an ERA north of 5.00. Minor’s career track record and recent peripherals both paint him more favorably, making him a sensible enough bounceback candidate in a vacuum. Yet the deal involved Cincinnati taking on around $7.3MM in salary (after subtracting Garrett’s arbitration tally and a small cash payment by Kansas City).

Would the Reds have been better served to hang onto Miley and non-tender Garrett, which would’ve been roughly financially equivalent? It’d seem so, but Reds pitching coach Derek Johnson has to be confident he can coax better results from Minor — with whom he’s no doubt familiar from their time at Vanderbilt more than a decade ago.

Johnson is also tasked with guiding two of the top pitching prospects in the game as they make their MLB debuts this season. Fireballing Hunter Greene broke camp with the big league club and picked up his first start over the weekend. The righty averaged an absurd 99.7 MPH on his fastball, showcasing the kind of power stuff that made him a No. 2 overall pick and gives him front-of-the-rotation upside. Left-hander Nick Lodolo doesn’t have that kind of arm strength, but his impressive slider and very advanced command could make him a mid-rotation arm fairly soon. It’s expected Lodolo will be in the regular rotation as well, although after a clean first frame, he was hit hard in his MLB debut yesterday (five runs in four innings).

There’s something of a trial-by-fire element in relying on both Greene and Lodolo every fifth day in a season where the Reds still hope to contend. They’re both very highly touted arms, but there’s risk inherent in projecting any prospect to assume a key role on a win-now big league roster. Reiver Sanmartín and Vladimir Gutierrez are around as insurance, but neither has much big league success on his resume either. Whether Greene and Lodolo immediately excel could be a turning point for the Reds. If they hit the ground running, there’s a decent enough core in both the lineup and the rotation that it’s not out of the question they hang around the playoff picture. If either experience some early growing pains, the lack of pitching depth could catch up to the team pretty quickly.

That’s particularly true in light of the club’s lack of offseason moves to address the bullpen. Cincinnati relievers posted the league’s fourth-worst ERA (4.99) in 2021, one of the biggest reasons the Reds couldn’t hold onto a postseason spot. That was despite 33 2/3 fantastic innings from Tejay Antone, who probably won’t pitch at all this season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in September. The Reds entered the offseason seemingly in desperate need of some help late in games, but they did virtually nothing to address the issue.

The only external pickup was a one-year deal for journeyman righty Hunter Strickland. He’s coming off a 2.61 ERA season, but his underlying numbers were closer to average. Strickland is a fine middle reliever, but he’s miscast as a high-leverage option. That puts particular pressure on holdovers like Tony Santillan and Art Warren to build off promising 2021 showings. Whenever Lucas Sims returns from the IL, he figures to assume another key late-game role as well.

Much as is the case with the lineup and the rotation, one can envision a scenario where things break right with the bullpen. Relief units tend to be the most volatile aspect of a team — few would’ve anticipated the Mariners riding an elite bullpen to 90 wins at the start of last season, for instance — and the Reds have a few promising arms they can deploy. Yet as with the rest of the roster, the depth behind the top few options is lacking, making it particularly paramount the most talented players stay healthy and perform up to expectations.

The Reds find themselves in a weird spot. They spent the second half of the last decade rebuilding, gearing up for a full-fledged push for contention in 2020. The organization obviously couldn’t have foreseen the shortened season and pandemic-associated revenue losses to come, and ownership has declined to push payroll forward in the wake of that difficult year.

That has left the front office trying to strike a delicate balance between contending and managing finances. There’s too much win-now talent for the club to commit to another full rebuild, but there are enough gaps on the margins of the roster it’s hard to project them as a 2022 playoff team. They’re left to hope that some late-offseason depth adds, early prospect promotions and a newly-expanded postseason field will be enough to hang around. It’s not impossible, but the Reds have less margin for error than many of their competitors. There’s a real danger of the franchise spinning their wheels around .500, which would only raise more questions about how to proceed with Castillo and Mahle as the summer trade deadline approaches.

Reds’ COO Phil Castellini Discusses Payroll Reduction

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One of the major storylines of this past offseason was the extent to which the Reds would cut spending. General manager Nick Krall’s November quote about “aligning our payroll to our resources” became oft-repeated as Cincinnati parted with notable players like Sonny Gray, Wade Miley and Jesse Winker in money-saving moves while making virtually no effort to retain free agent slugger Nick Castellanos.

The Reds did reinvest some of the saved funds into modest one-year deals with free agents Tommy Pham, Donovan Solano, Hunter Strickland, and Colin Moran, plus took on more than $7MM of payroll expenses in the Amir Garrett–Mike Minor swap with the Royals. These present-minded moves, coupled with a Cincinnati farm system that has seen its stock rise over recent years, factored into Reds President and COO Phil Castellini’s March decree for fans to “have a little bit of faith in what we’re doing with your Cincinnati Reds.”

Fans were none too pleased with Castellini’s comments, as the on-paper unit the Reds are rolling out in 2022 houses considerably less star power than the 2021 team. The team also entered the new season with a payroll $9MM lighter than the previous year (per Cot’s Baseball Contracts). With several young pitchers forcing their way onto the team’s roster at eminently affordable rates, an argument can be made to have kept at least one of the team’s departed stars.

Early Tuesday, Phil Castellini joined WLW 700’s Scott Sloan and Mo Egger and was asked why fans should maintain trust in Reds leadership. Addressing this question, as well some fans’ calls to sell the team, Castellini replied:

“Well where are you gonna go? Let’s start there. I mean, sell the team to who? That’s the other thing – you want to have this debate? If you want to look at what would you do with this team to have it be more profitable, make more money, compete more in the current economic system that this game exists – it would be to pick it up and move it somewhere else. And so be careful what you ask for […] we’re doing the best we can do with the resources that we have.”

It’s bizarre to see an ownership figure take such a defensive stance to criticism and all but threaten the fans, particularly on Opening Day when the Reds sold more than 43,000 tickets. (Wednesday’s attendance, per Charlie Goldsmith of the Cincinnati Enquirer, was 10,976 — though weather surely impacted that total.)

Castellini’s comments also come on the heels of a second straight offseason punctuated by transactions more oriented toward cutting payroll than toward improving the on-field product. Asking Reds fans for patience is particularly brazen given that the team’s most recent rebuilding effort is still fresh in the minds of fans. The Reds, from 2015-16, traded away the likes of Aroldis Chapman, Todd Frazier, Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake — generally coming up empty on the vast majority of those deals.

What followed was a series of three straight last-place finishes in the National League Central from 2016-18, followed by a fourth-place finish in 2019. The Reds averaged a $95MM payroll during that string of last-place finishes, ranking 25th, 25th and 22nd in leaguewide payroll along the way. Cincinnati emerged from that rebuild/retooling process and spent aggressively in the 2019-20 offseason, signing Mike Moustakas, Nick Castellanos, Shogo Akiyama and Wade Miley. The stage appeared set for the Reds, buoyed by a strong rotation and a collection of impressive sluggers, to shift back into a prolonged win-now mindset.

Instead, the Reds went 31-29 during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, got swept in the postseason without scoring a run, and immediately began taking another step back. Raisel Iglesias was traded to the Angels in a pure salary dump, and the Reds non-tendered their two main trade-deadline acquisitions: Archie Bradley and Brian Goodwin. Krall spoke of reallocating those resources to other areas of need. Months later, on Opening Day, Sean Doolittle proved to be the Reds’ lone Major League signing — at one year and $1.5MM. The 2021-22 offseason subsequently commenced with the aforementioned “align payroll to resources” comments from Krall that preceded further payroll reduction.

Despite that frustrating sequence, Castellini further preached fan patience and loyalty throughout the day yesterday, drawing comparisons to the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals who surprisingly emerged from a string of losing seasons en route to a Super Bowl appearance (and ignited fanbase) two months ago. In regards to the team’s payroll, Castellini also added that it “is still significantly more than the revenues we’re generating to produce it. […] For the last 16 years [we’ve] invested beyond our market size every single year.”

Those comments caused a stir among Reds fans who haven’t seen their team win a playoff series since 1995, and Castellini has since walked them back. They also come in conjunction with comments from Castellanos to ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, wherein he blasts Reds ownership for “suffocating” baseball in a “great city like Cincinnati.” Castellanos made those comments for a piece that ran before Castellini made his comments Tuesday, but even though they’re not a direct reaction, the timing is nevertheless impeccable.

Beyond riling the fanbase though, the club president’s comments potentially shed some light onto the team’s plans moving forward. If the team is indeed operating at a deficit while in Cincinnati, then it’s unlikely the payroll is set to rise much any time soon. Of course, there’s no way to verify the veracity of Castellini’s claims, as teams choose not to open their books to the public. But it’s worth noting that following MLB’s offseason streaming agreements with Apple and Peacock, each club is now set to receive roughly $65MM in national television/streaming revenue alone. That doesn’t account for gate revenue, local broadcast deals and myriad other revenue sources for Major League clubs.

Perhaps further signaling the organization’s future direction, Castellini name-checked the club’s “Big Red Machine” days of the 1970’s, indicating the way to best emulate that successful era of Reds baseball was to invest in the team’s talent pipeline and grow from within. Placing an emphasis on internal development is certainly a practical approach, but it’s sure to draw skepticism from the fanbase in context of the Reds curtailing payroll at a time when they’d already graduated a significant amount of young talent to the majors. Cincinnati has just $44.5MM on the books in 2023 and does not have any guaranteed contracts for the 2024 season.

Reds Select Nick Lodolo, Designate Riley O’Brien For Assignment

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The Reds formally announced top pitching prospect Nick Lodolo’s widely expected promotion to the big leagues yesterday, and they’ve now officially added him to the Major League roster by selecting his contract from Triple-A Louisville. Right-hander Riley O’Brien was designated for assignment in a corresponding 40-man move, and Cincinnati optioned righty Daniel Duarte to Louisville to open a spot on the active 28-man roster.

The 27-year-old O’Brien will now be traded or placed on outright waivers within a week’s time. An eighth-round pick by the Rays back in 2017, O’Brien came to the Reds in a 2020 trade that sent southpaw Cody Reed to Tampa Bay. He made his big league debut in 2021 but pitched just 1 1/3 innings in his lone start before being sent back to Louisville, where he otherwise spent the entirety of his 2021 season.

In 112 2/3 innings with Louisville last season, O’Brien pitched to a 4.55 ERA with generally similar marks from fielding-independent pitching metrics. He fanned a solid 24.7% of his Triple-A opponents and induced grounders at a similarly sound 45% clip, but O’Brien walked 11.2% of his opponents and plunked 10 more. O’Brien also walked three of the nine big league hitters he faced last year and allowed a pair of homers, illustrating that he’ll need to refine his command if he’s to find success at the big league level.

That said, O’Brien only turned 27 a couple months ago and has a pair of minor league option years remaining (2022 included). He’s shown an ability to miss bats in the minors and, as Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin wrote when ranking him 29th among Cincinnati prospects, he’s shown three pitches that have all, at times, looked like potential plus offerings: his fastball, curveball and changeup. A club with some 40-man flexibility and a need for pitching depth could certainly take him on as a project.

As covered in greater detail yesterday, Lodolo will join fellow top prospect Hunter Greene in a youthful and high-upside Cincinnati rotation. The No. 7 overall pick in the 2019 draft, Lodolo is widely considered to be among the sport’s 100 best prospects and will give Reds fans a pair of young hurlers on which to dream.

Lodolo, Greene, 2021 Rookie of the Year Jonathan India and promising young backstop Tyler Stephenson could well be integral parts of the Reds’ core moving forward, and the organization undoubtedly still has high hopes for former No. 2 overall draft pick Nick Senzel, whose career to date has been continually derailed by injuries. Cincinnati surely still hopes to contend in 2022, but in order to do so they’ll need big performances from several young players, as the club also subtracted a number of productive veterans over the winter while cutting payroll (e.g. Jesse Winker, Sonny Gray, Wade Miley).

Reds To Promote Nick Lodolo

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Top Reds pitching prospect Nick Lodolo will make his Major League debut tomorrow, the team announced. Lodolo, the No. 7 overall pick in 2019, will start tomorrow’s game against the Guardians and join fellow top prospect Hunter Greene in the rotation. Greene impressed with seven punchouts and a barrage of triple-digit heaters in his own MLB debut this past weekend. Lodolo has not yet been selected to the 40-man roster, so Cincinnati will need to make a corresponding move before he is formally promoted to the big leagues.

Nick Lodolo | Kareem Elgazzar-USA TODAY NETWORK

It’s been expected since the season opened that Lodolo would take the mound this week and make his big league debut, but it’s nevertheless notable that Cincinnati has now made it official and set the stage for a forthcoming 40-man move to add the prized young lefty to the roster. Lodolo split the 2021 season between Double-A Chattanooga and Triple-A Louisville, pitching to a combined 2.31 ERA with an eye-popping 38.8% strikeout rate, just a 5.5% walk rate and a 54.3% ground-ball rate.

Impressive as those numbers were, Lodolo also missed time last year with blister troubles and, far more troublingly, with a shoulder strain that ended his season in August. He looked plenty sharp this spring, tossing 11 1/3 innings of 2.38 ERA ball with a 12-to-2 K/BB ratio, so it certainly looks as though he’s put the shoulder troubles behind him for now. Still, those injuries limited Lodolo to just 50 2/3 innings in 2021, and he of course didn’t pitch at all in 2020, when there was no minor league season.

The largest workload Lodolo has ever recorded is the combined 121 1/3 innings he pitched between his junior season at Texas Christian University and the Reds’ lower minor league levels in 2019, when he was drafted. It stands to reason that Cincinnati will be relatively careful when it comes to managing his innings.

Even if the Reds limit his innings on the season as a whole or on a start-by-start basis, there’s good reason to be excited about the lefty’s arrival on the scene. As one would expect for a pitcher with that lofty draft stock and those scintillating 2021 numbers, Lodolo is widely regarded as one of baseball’s most promising young pitchers. He ranked as a top-100 prospect at Baseball America (No. 32), MLB.com (No. 42), Baseball Prospectus (No. 42), FanGraphs (No. 52) and ESPN (No. 79).

There’s a fairly wide split as to just how highly Lodolo ought to be regarded, though most scouting reports on him will characterize him as a likely mid-rotation arm. Still, FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin wrote that Lodolo was one of the “more divisive” players discussed with evaluators when writing their top prospect rankings, noting that while analytics-driven evaluations love his changeup, scouts question it and wonder why he threw it so little (9%) if it’s truly one of his best offerings.

FanGraphs touts Lodolo for having three plus pitches, whereas Baseball America opines that the slider is Lodolo’s only plus offering. The Athletic’s Keith Law omitted Lodolo from his Top 100 altogether, but ranked him fifth in the Cincinnati system while opining on the lack of a third plus pitch and likening Lodolo’s slider and arm slot to that of Andrew Miller.

Split camps are nothing new when it comes to prospect evaluation, and there’s certainly still consensus that Lodolo is a big league talent who’ll play a role with the Reds for years to come. Data-driven models and traditional scouting may not agree on the lefty’s ceiling, but Lodolo will have the opportunity to start proving skeptics wrong beginning tomorrow. He’ll bring a mid-90s heater, a quality sweeping slider and that divisive changeup with him to Great American Ball Park, and there’s a clear long-term opportunity in the rotation now that Cincinnati has traded Sonny Gray and dropped Wade Miley via waivers.

If Lodolo is in the big leagues for good, there’s still enough time on the calendar for him to log a full year of service time — regardless of his finish in end-of-year awards voting. He’d be eligible for arbitration after the 2024 season and would be controlled through the 2027 campaign via arbitration. Of course, future optional assignments could impact that timeline, but Lodolo’s fate is largely in his own hands now that he’s getting his first big league look at a time when the rotation has such ample opportunity.

Reds Injury Notes: Sims, Solano, Castillo, Minor

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  • Reds manager David Bell provided reporters (including MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon) with several updates on injured players over the last two days.  Lucas Sims is on pace to head to Triple-A this week after throwing a live BP session at the team’s extended Spring Training camp, and Bell set April 20 or 22 as the target dates for Sims’ likely return.  Donovan Solano is out with a left hamstring injury, but Boone said Solano has been doing some running drills and even took some swings during some simulated game sessions.
  • Mike Minor and Luis Castillo both began the season on the IL due to shoulder soreness, and while Castillo was initially thought to have the quicker return of the two, Minor has now seemingly moved ahead after throwing a 35-pitch simulated game on Friday.  Minor could now be ready for Triple-A work or at least another sim game, while Castillo still has to get a second bullpen session under his belt.  In terms of projections, the Reds are now aiming for Castillo to be back by late April, while Minor could make his debut closer to the middle of the month.

Reds Release Shogo Akiyama; Expected To Select Drury, Garcia, Farmer

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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.

Todd Frazier Retires

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Two-time All-Star Todd Frazier is set to announce his retirement today, he tells Greg Joyce of the New York Post. “(Baseball) has been my love my whole life,” the third baseman said. “It’s very hard to let go. Don’t get me wrong, it’s one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made in my life. But where I’m at in my career and where I’m at in my life, I think it was the right decision. I think it’s time to be that family figure that I’ve always wanted to be.”

Frazier has appeared in the majors in each of the past 11 seasons. A supplemental first-round pick out of Rutgers by the Reds in 2007, Frazier emerged as one of the sport’s most promising prospects within his first couple pro seasons. He debuted in the big leagues in 2011 and cemented himself at the hot corner in Cincinnati not long thereafter.

Todd Frazier

In 128 games in 2012, Frazier hit a productive .273/.331/.498 en route to a third-place finish in NL Rookie of the Year balloting. After a roughly league average showing the following season, he broke through as one of the better position players in the game. Frazier combined for a .264/.322/.479 showing between 2014-15, averaging 32 home runs per season. He was selected to the Midsummer Classic in both years and won the 2015 Home Run Derby in front of a home crowd in Cincinnati.

The rebuilding Reds moved Frazier to the White Sox as part of a three-team deal with the Dodgers the following winter. He spent a season and a half in Chicago, not quite reaching his peak Cincinnati level but still offering solid production. The Sox moved him to the Yankees midseason in 2017, and he spent the following two years in Queens after signing with the Mets that offseason. Frazier continued to hit at a decent level throughout that run. His batting average and on-base percentage gradually ticked down, but he popped 39 homers during his first two seasons as a Met.

Frazier’s 499 plate appearances in 2019 proved his last extended MLB workload. He signed with the Rangers over the 2019-20 offseason, then ended up back in Flushing when the Mets acquired him at the trade deadline. Frazier struggled down the stretch, though, and New York bought him out that winter. He hooked on with the Pirates last offseason and played in 13 games before being released in March.

That marked an end to Frazier’s time in the big leagues, but it didn’t bring his playing career to a complete conclusion. He was among a handful of respected veterans to represent the U.S. as part of last summer’s Silver Medal-winning team at the Tokyo Olympics.

Frazier wraps up his career with a .241/.318/.445 slash line in a bit under 5,000 MLB plate appearances. That production was seven percentage points better than league average in aggregate, by measure of wRC+, and he had three seasons with a wRC+ north of 115. A well-regarded defender for the bulk of his career, Frazier got plus marks from both Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating. He suited up for six different clubs, combining to hit 218 homers and drive in 640 runs. Each of Baseball Reference and FanGraphs valued his career at around 23-24 wins above replacement, a very fine showing that endeared him to Reds fans in particular. MLBTR congratulates Frazier on an excellent run and wishes him all the best in his post-playing days.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Reds Roster Cuts: Akiyama, Wingenter, Knapp

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The Reds have told Shogo Akiyama that he will not make the Opening Day roster, Reds GM Nick Krall told The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans and other reporters.  The team has also told minor league signings Trey Wingenter and Andrew Knapp that they won’t be breaking camp.

Akiyama’s three-year, $21MM contract gives him the right to decline a minor league assignment, and he already turned down a visit to Triple-A near the end of the 2021 season (he did see some minors action last year as part of a rehab assignment).  If Akiyama does indeed decline to go to Triple-A again, the Reds seem set to designate him for assignment, and in all likelihood eat the $8MM owed to the outfielder for the 2021 season.

After nine seasons as a standout performance for the Saitama Seibu Lions of Nippon Professional Baseball, Akiyama came to Major League Baseball and hit only .224/.320/.274 over 366 plate appearances in a Cincinnati uniform.  His first season had some flashes of promise, as Akiyama was a finalist for NL Gold Glove Award in left field and he posted a .357 OBP in 183 plate appearances.  However, he started off the 2021 season with a month-long stint on the IL with a hamstring problem and simply never got on track, playing in 88 games and amassing 183 PA as a part-time player.

Akiyama was blunt about his performance when speaking with Rosecrans and other reporters through a translator, saying “with two years, that’s the results that are out there” and “it’s just unfortunate how I don’t have that many memorable moments.”  Of course, Akiyama did come to the majors just before the pandemic altered the world, but he only alluded to those unusual circumstances by saying that “I don’t know what the actual true self with me is….But realistically, I still can play.  I can play hard.  I know I can play.  So I just have to move forward with this situation.”

The contract ended up being an expensive misfire for the Reds, which stands out even more given how the team has been paring back its payroll for much of the last two offseasons, particularly this winter.  There doesn’t seem like any chance that another team would claim Akiyama on DFA waivers and thus absorb his entire $8MM salary, so if a team is interested, it can wait out the waiver period and then sign Akiyama to only a minimum salary, with the Reds covering the rest of the $8MM owed.

Even considering Akiyama’s lack of Major League production, it seems possible that another team might take a flier on him for such a limited cost.  The Padres, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Rays, Blue Jays, and Cardinals all had some level of interest in Akiyama when he came over from NPB, so at least one of those former suitors might take a look to see if Akiyama (who turns 34 this month) can break out in a new environment.

Wingenter and Knapp both signed minor league deals just barely before the lockout was implemented.  Wingenter has only pitched two innings this spring due to an elbow injury, and the righty has already told the Reds that he won’t be exercising his opt-out.  Knapp has until Monday to decide whether or not to use his own opt-out, after Aramis Garcia won the competition to be Cincinnati’s backup catcher.

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