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Hunter Greene Makes Reds’ Rotation

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Top pitching prospect Hunter Greene has made the Reds’ Opening Day roster and will pitch out of the rotation to begin the season, manager David Bell announced to reporters Wednesday (Twitter link via Charlie Goldsmith of the Cincinnati Enquirer).

Hunter Greene

Tyler Mahle will start on Opening Day and be followed by lefty Reiver Sanmartin, righty Vladimir Gutierrez and Greene. Cincinnati has an early off-day that’ll allow them to skip the fifth spot in the rotation the first time through, and Mahle has already been announced as the starter for their fifth game (which is also their home opener). The Enquirer’s Bobby Nightengale adds that whoever is settled upon as the fifth member of the rotation will likely start the sixth game of the season.

Greene, 22, was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2017 draft. Initially selected as a two-way player, he’s since been shifted solely to the mound and has done little to drop his stock in the years since being drafted. Tommy John surgery wiped out Greene’s 2019 season, but he’s returned with the same triple-digit heater and wicked slider that made him such a coveted player as an amateur. He currently ranks among MLB’s 35 best prospects according to each of Baseball America, MLB.com, FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, ESPN and The Athletic (where Keith Law is most bullish on him, placing him No. 12 overall).

Greene split the 2021 season between the Reds’ Double-A and Triple-A affiliates, pitching to a combined 3.30 ERA with a 31.7% strikeout rate, an 8.9% walk rate and a 43.8% ground-ball rate over the life of 106 1/3 innings. That marked a new career-high in innings pitched for Greene, which comes as little surprise given 2019’s surgery and the lack of a minor league season in 2020. The Reds may yet be cautious with Greene’s workload — both on a per-start basis and with regard to the season as a whole — but he’ll be given the opportunity to grow that innings total at the big league level.

The news on Greene comes just one day after the Pirates drew flak for optioning top infield prospect Oneil Cruz to the minors to begin the season. Situations like this were a focal point for the MLBPA during this offseason’s wave of collective bargaining, as players pushed the league to incentivize front offices to carry their best prospects to begin the season rather than hold them in the minors for a few weeks to secure an additional year of club control. Under the 2021-26 CBA, teams can be awarded draft picks if they carry top prospects to begin the season and those players go on to finish well in awards voting.

It’s eminently possible that Cincinnati might’ve included Greene in the Opening Day rotation even in the absence of those new stipulations, as the offseason trade of Sonny Gray and injuries to Luis Castillo and Mike Minor have thinned out the Reds’ options. Regardless, Greene’s forthcoming debut gives Reds fans plenty to be optimistic for after a frustrating offseason that was more focused on trimming payroll than improving the 2022 roster.

If Greene is in the big leagues for good, he’ll accrue a full year of service time in 2022 and be on track to reach free agency following the 2027 season, when he’d be just 28 years of age. As things stand, he’d be on track to reach arbitration following the 2024 season.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Reds Acquire Connor Phillips From Mariners To Complete Winker Trade

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The Reds announced they’ve acquired pitching prospect Connor Phillips from the Mariners. He’s the player to be named later in this month’s deal that sent Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suárez to Seattle.

Cincinnati maintained at the time of the deal they’d add a notable prospect as the player to be named later, and they indeed pick up one of the better arms in the Seattle system. Baseball America ranked Phillips 12th among M’s farmhands this winter, writing that the right-hander owns a 94-96 MPH fastball and a plus slider. BA suggests that Phillips’ below-average changeup and inconsistent control figure to make him a reliever in the long run, but he worked as a starting pitcher during his first full professional season.

Phillips, whom the Mariners selected 64th overall out of a Texas junior college in 2020, made 16 starts with Low-A Modesto last year. The 20-year-old tossed 72 innings of 4.75 ERA ball, striking out an excellent 32.3% of opposing hitters but issuing walks at an alarming 13.7% rate. He was bumped up to High-A Everett for his final start of the year, allowing three runs in four innings.

Phillips becomes the latest power arm added to the Cincinnati system as part of their recent sell-off. The Reds also picked up Brandon Williamson in the Winker trade and landed 2021 first-rounder Chase Petty from the Twins in the Sonny Gray deal.

Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times reported Phillips’ inclusion in the deal shortly before the official announcement.

Luis Castillo, Mike Minor To Begin Season On Injured List

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4:55pm: Bell told reporters (including Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer) that Castillo and Minor will indeed both start the year on the IL.

9:44am: Reds right-hander Luis Castillo is “expected” to begin the season on the injured list after being slowed by some shoulder soreness early in camp, writes MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon. Meanwhile, manager David Bell told reporters yesterday that Castillo is “quite a bit ahead” of newly acquired left-hander Mike Minor, who is battling shoulder troubles of his own. Bell said the team is set to meet with some of its ailing players today to establish a more concrete rehab plan for each.

News of Castillo’s barking shoulder first surfaced earlier in camp, and it’s worth emphasizing that the team believes he’s healthy now. However, Castillo has been behind schedule in an already truncated Spring Training and has yet to pitch in a Cactus League game. Opening Day is less than two weeks away at this point, and it seems the 29-year-old righty simply won’t have time to sufficiently build up to readiness for the early portion of the season. Placing Castillo on the injured list would set him up to miss multiple turns through the rotation, but he could still be back in the fold for the Reds by mid-to-late April.

The likelihood of a Castillo trade had already plummeted in recent weeks, with general manager Nick Krall publicly stating he didn’t expect to trade Castillo or right-hander Tyler Mahle (who has since been named the team’s Opening Day starter). Now, with some shoulder issues on top of the Reds’ public disinclination toward trading him, it seems all but certain that Castillo remain a Red for at least the early portion of the season. Should the team struggle, of course, his name will be featured prominently in summer trade rumblings once again.

As for Minor, it’s not yet clear just how much time he’ll be expected to miss. Bell suggested that Minor is dealing with soreness that the team does not believe to be overly concerning, but added that the veteran lefty’s shoulder is going to “take some more time.”

Acquired in a surprising swap that sent reliever Amir Garrett to the Royals and saw the Reds take on about $7MM in salary — the first time this winter that Cincinnati had added, rather than subtracted, from the payroll — Minor joined his new club in hopes of rebounding from a rough 2020-21 showing.

The 34-year-old Minor has posted an ERA north of 5.00 in each of the past two seasons, working to a combined 5.18 ERA in 215 1/3 innings between the Rangers, A’s and Royals in that time. Minor still notched solid strikeout and walk rates during that time, but home runs have become increasingly problematic for him. Considering he’ll move from the spacious Kauffman Stadium to the homer-happy Great American Ball Park, that’s not an encouraging trend, but the Reds clearly have some confidence they’ll be able to help curtail the issue.

With Castillo and Minor both sidelined for some time to begin the year, the Reds’ Opening Day rotation is going to feature quite a few untested arms. Mahle will take the ball on Opening Day and likely be followed by 26-year-old Vladimir Gutierrez, who held his own with a 4.74 ERA in 114 innings/22 starts as a rookie last season. Options already on the 40-man would include Tony Santillan, Reiver Sanmartin and Riley O’Brien. The Reds have several non-roster veterans and journeymen in camp, including Zack Godley, Ben Lively, Brandon Bailey and Connor Overton.  Prospects like Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Brandon Williamson and Graham Ashcraft could all get a look, too. Right-hander Justin Dunn, acquired in the Jesse Winker trade, is expected to miss “months” with a shoulder injury that Reds knew about at the time of the trade.

Charlie Goldsmith of the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote over the weekend that Greene, in particular, appears to have a shot at breaking camp in the Reds’ rotation, though no final decisions have been made just yet. Greene showed well in his first start of the spring though and has already drawn praise from Bell, who noted that the former No. 2 pick has “settled in” and impressed the club while “pitching with confidence” thus far.

Reds Sign Tommy Pham

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TODAY: The Reds have officially announced Pham’s signing.  Tejay Antone (who underwent Tommy John surgery in August) was placed on the 60-day injured list to create roster room.

March 24: Pham is guaranteed $7.5MM on the deal, coming in the form of a $6MM salary and a $1.5MM buyout on next year’s mutual option, Nightengale further reports.

March 23: The Reds are in agreement with outfielder Tommy Pham on a one-year deal, reports Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer. The deal, which contains a mutual option for 2023, is pending a physical. Financial terms have not been disclosed. Pham is a client of Vayner Sports.

Pham was one of the game’s more underrated players early in his career with the Cardinals and Rays. Between 2017-19, the right-handed hitter posted a .284/.381/.475 line while averaging nearly 22 home runs and stolen bases apiece per season. Pham routinely posted high-end exit velocities and walk rates while making a decent amount of contact. A high ground-ball tendency kept him from emerging as an elite power threat, but he was a well-rounded and highly productive offensive player.

Over the 2019-20 offseason, Tampa Bay traded Pham and Jake Cronenworth to the Padres in a deal that sent Hunter Renfroe and Xavier Edwards back to the Rays. While Pham was the headliner of the swap from the Friars’ perspective, Cronenworth proved to be the more valuable pickup. Pham struggled to a .211/.312/.312 mark during the shortened 2020 season, the only below-average offensive showing of his career. Last year’s .229/.340/.383 slash was a tick above average, by measure of wRC+, but it still came up well shy of his early-career numbers.

Pham, who didn’t emerge as a regular until his age-29 campaign, turned 34 earlier this month. It’s certainly possible his recent downturn is attributable to aging, but it’s worth noting he dealt with a few health issues in San Diego that probably also had a deleterious effect on his performance. Pham missed a month in 2020 after fracturing the hamate bone in his right hand, an injury that could certainly have sapped some of his power. Last offseason, he was the victim of a life-threatening stabbing attack that required 200 stitches to close a wound in his back.

Remarkably, Pham returned by Opening Day and didn’t spend any time on the injured list. Yet he was open about how the incident affected his offseason routine, and it’s possible he was never fully healthy in 2021. Pham actually performed much better in the first half of the year than he did in the second — he didn’t merely start slowly while recovering from the stabbing  — but it’d be understandable if he weren’t up to the physical grind of a 162-game season coming off the prior winter’s tribulations.

Pham’s dip in results has been attributable to what has happened on balls in play. Last season’s 13.9% walk rate remained excellent, while his 22.8% strikeout percentage is right in line with his career marks. Pham still made plenty of authoritative contact. His 47.6% hard contact rate and 94.9 MPH average exit velocity on balls hit in the air were both definitively better than average. The results didn’t align with those batted ball numbers, though, as Pham saw a career-low 13.5% of his fly balls clear the fences.

San Diego’s pitcher-friendly home ballpark didn’t seem to do the veteran outfielder any favors. Pham’s .412 weighted on-base average on fly balls was far outstripped by his .562 “expected” weighted on-base on those batted balls, per Statcast. A few more of those flies should clear the fences at the hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park, perhaps enabling Pham to post numbers closer to his career norms.

That makes him a sensible buy-low target, although the signing comes in the broader context of a strange offseason for the Reds. Much of the winter was focused on the club’s cost-cutting efforts. They parted ways with Wade Miley, Tucker Barnhart, Sonny Gray and Jesse Winker and seemingly made no effort to retain free agent Nick Castellanos. Those all thinned out a roster that was marginally above-average (83-79 with a +26 run differential) last season.

That’ll make it difficult to make a serious run at contention in 2022, but Cincinnati has made a few short-term moves in recent days. They acquired Mike Minor from the Royals and signed each of Donovan Solano, Colin Moran and Hunter Strickland, building out the margins of the roster. Pham may be the most impactful of those moves, but competing this year while slashing costs still looks to be a difficult needle for general manager Nick Krall and his staff to thread.

Pham figures to replace Winker as the primary left fielder. Jake Fraley, whom the Reds acquired from the Mariners in the Winker/Eugenio Suárez trade, is better suited for left but could see some action in center field. Tyler Naquin will probably move from center to right after rating poorly defensively, leaving Fraley, Nick Senzel and Shogo Akiyama as the options in center. That’s not an ideal group, but there weren’t many capable everyday center fielders available in free agency or trade this offseason. Pham isn’t a perfect positional fit, but installing his bat into the lineup should help an offense that lost two of last season’s top three hitters.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Reds, JT Riddle Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Reds have agreed to a minor league contract with infielder JT Riddle, per Baseball America’s Chris Hilburn-Trenkle. The Meister Sports client will give Cincinnati some additional infield depth.

Riddle, 30, spent the 2021 season in the Twins organization and briefly appeared in four games as a replacement player while the Twins were set back by a Covid-19 positives early in the season. He went 2-for-6 in that tiny sample but spent the bulk of the year in Triple-A St. Paul, where he struggled to a .202/.269/.322 batting line in 350 trips to the plate.

That rough showing severely dragged down Riddle’s career marks in Triple-A, but he’s generally been a serviceable bat in the upper minors — one who can bring a good bit of versatility to the table. Although he’s spent the bulk of his professional career at shortstop (4504 innings), Riddle also has 898 innings at third base, 414 at second base and 306 in center field (420 in the outfield overall).

Even after managing to unload the remainder of Eugenio Suarez’s contract in a trade that also sent Jesse Winker to the Mariners, the Reds have a pretty full slate in terms of starting infielders at the MLB level. Reigning Rookie of the Year Jonathan India is back at second base, while catcher-turned-utilityman-turned-shortstop Kyle Farmer has emerged as a starter at short in Cincinnati. Mike Moustakas will man the hot corner. Former No. 2 pick Nick Senzel, meanwhile, can play both the outfield and various infield spots, and the Reds also signed veteran Donovan Solano to a big league deal earlier this month.

Riddle brings some depth to the roster and could give them an option at shortstop in Triple-A while top prospect Jose Barrero mends from a broken hamate bone that required surgery which is expected to sideline him up to six weeks. Cincinnati also has infielders Max Schrock and Alejo Lopez on the 40-man roster, while veteran Brandon Drury was invited to big league camp just this week.

Reds Sign Hunter Strickland

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March 23: The Reds have announced the signing, which fills their 40-man roster. Strickland will earn $1.825MM in 2022, tweets MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon. He can also earn another $750K via performance incentives and would receive a $250K assignment bonus if traded.

March 22, 12:50pm: It’s a big league deal for Strickland, tweets Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

8:16am: The two sides have agreed to a deal, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.

8:00am: The Reds are closing in on a deal with free-agent righty Hunter Strickland, tweets Robert Murray of FanSided. Strickland, a client of All Bases Covered, would give Cincinnati a veteran option to consider for what’s otherwise a largely inexperienced relief corps.

Strickland, 33, split the 2021 season between three clubs, beginning the year with the Rays after signing a minor league deal and pitching well through 16 innings. Tampa Bay still felt comfortable trading him to the Angels for cash, and things quickly went south for Strickland in Anaheim, where he yielded nine runs (seven earned) in just 6 1/3 innings of work. The Halos designated him for assignment and traded him to the Brewers (again for cash).

Strickland quickly righted the ship in Milwaukee and remained in the Brewers’ bullpen for the duration of the season. He notched a tidy 1.73 ERA in 36 1/3 frames with the Brew Crew and added another 2 1/3 shutout frames in the NLDS. Overall, his regular season concluded with 58 2/3 innings of 2.61 ERA ball (4.19 FIP, 4.06 SIERA). Along the way, Strickland whiffed 24% of his opponents against a 9.1% walk rate and a 34.8% grounder rate. He was particularly deft when it came to suppressing hard contact, as Statcast ranked his 29.4% hard-hit rate in the 97th percentile of MLB pitchers and his 86.9 mph average exit velocity in the 84th percentile.

The Reds will be without top reliever Tejay Antone for most, if not all of the 2022 season after he underwent Tommy John surgery in late August last season. Meanwhile, projected closer Lucas Sims won’t be ready for Opening Day, as he’s currently healthy but behind schedule in camp after rehabbing some offseason back troubles. Lefty Amir Garrett was traded to the Royals in this month’s Mike Minor swap, and the Reds have seen both Michael Lorenzen (Angels) and Mychal Givens (Cubs) depart via free agency.

Cincinnati does still have at least a pair of veteran arms at the back of the ’pen, as former Yankees Luis Cessa and Justin Wilson, both acquired from New York last summer, are still with the club. Righty Jeff Hoffman, though, is the only other projected member of the bullpen with even a year of big league service time. (Hoffman has three-plus years but has still yet to truly solidify himself as a steady option.) Cincinnati does have a handful of more seasoned options in camp as non-roster players, including Buck Farmer, Kyle Zimmer and Trey Wingenter.

Luis Castillo Behind Schedule, Justin Dunn Out “Months” With Shoulder Injury

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The Reds could be without top starter Luis Castillo when Opening Day rolls around, as manager David Bell told reporters Tuesday that Castillo was briefly shut down due to some shoulder soreness (Twitter link via Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer). Castillo is healthy now and has resumed throwing, per Bell, but he’s behind schedule in his buildup for the season. There was more concerning news on righty Justin Dunn, acquired in last week’s Jesse Winker trade, as Bell revealed that he’ll miss at least a couple of months due to ongoing shoulder troubles. Nightengale further notes that the Reds were aware of Dunn’s injury status when acquiring him.

The good news for Reds fans is that there’s no indication Castillo is being plagued by a serious injury. It’s possible he’d only miss the first turn or two through the rotation, so long as there are no further setbacks as he builds back up.

For much of the offseason, Castillo stood out as one of the more logical trade candidates on the market. General manager Nick Krall began the offseason speaking of a need to align the Reds’ payroll to its resources, and the first few moves continued a cost-cutting sequence that dated back to last offseason. The Reds placed Wade Miley and his eminently reasonable $10MM salary on waivers and traded catcher Tucker Barnhart to the Tigers. In the days coming out of the lockout, Cincinnati dealt Sonny Gray to the Reds and traded both Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez to the Mariners.

Since shedding the remainder of the Suarez deal, however, the Reds have begun to make some more modest additions to the payroll. They picked up about $7MM of salary obligations in the trade that sent Amir Garrett to Kansas City in exchange for Mike Minor, and the Reds have also given out small big league deals to infielder Donovan Solano and reliever Hunter Strickland. Krall has since publicly stated that he does not expect to trade either Castillo or right-hander Tyler Mahle, who was a popular trade target of pitching-needy teams himself.

Castillo, 29, got out to a rocky start in 2021 when he posted an ugly 7.22 ERA through his first 11 appearances. His return to form was swift and emphatic, however, as Castillo closed out the year with a brilliant stretch of 22 starts that saw him work to a 2.73 ERA with a 26% strikeout rate and 9.4% walk rate. Over the past three seasons, he’s given the Reds 448 1/3 innings of 3.61 ERA ball with a 27% strikeout rate, a 9.3% walk rate and an outstanding 56.8% grounder rates. He’s controllable through the 2023 campaign, and it stands to reason that if the Reds don’t contend this year, Castillo’s name will again surface on the summer trade market. It’s a similar story with Mahle, who’s also controlled through 2023.

As for Dunn, the news of a months-long absence due to a shoulder problem that dates back to June 2021, when the right-hander last pitched, is surely a source of frustration. The 26-year-old Dunn pitched 50 1/3 innings of 3.75 ERA ball with Seattle last year but did so with a below-average 22.8% strikeout rate, a bloated 11.3% walk rate and a low 33.8% grounder rate. He last took the ball on June 17.

Dunn is a former first-round pick and well-regarded prospect, having been drafted 19th overall by the Mets in 2016 and traded to the Mariners alongside Jarred Kelenic in the deal that sent Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to New York. He can still be controlled all the way through the 2025 season, but it now seems that by the time he’s ready to go for the Reds, he’ll have missed upwards of a year due to shoulder troubles.

The injury news on Dunn squarely takes him out of the running for the fifth spot in the rotation, and with Castillo ailing to a much lesser degree, there’s some uncertainty regarding who’ll round out the starting staff. If Castillo isn’t ready to go, Opening Day would likely fall to Mahle. He’d be followed by Minor and Vladimir Gutierrez, with right-hander Tony Santillan and perhaps lefty Reiver Sanmartin serving as early options as well. The Reds figure to get a look at several top pitching prospects in 2022 — Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo and Brandon Williamson among them — but it’s unclear whether they’d consider dipping into their farm for an early-season stopgap.

Players Avoiding Arbitration: 3/21/22

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Tomorrow afternoon is the deadline for teams and arbitration-eligible players to exchange filing figures. Some players will go to hearings that will linger into the regular season, but many others will be motivated to settle on a contract before that point. A few early agreements have trickled in throughout the day. All projected salaries are from MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.

  • The Royals announced this evening they’ve agreed to terms with infielder Adalberto Mondesi. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reports (via Twitter) he’ll make $3MM, a hair under his $3.2MM projection. Mondesi was limited to 35 games and 136 plate appearances by various injuries this past season. He posted a .230/.271/.452 line with six homers and 15 stolen bases — an encapsulation of both Mondesi’s enviable combination of power and speed, as well as his concerning plate discipline. Kansas City can control him through 2023.
  • The Guardians and shortstop/outfielder Amed Rosario are settling at $4.95MM, reports Kiley McDaniel of ESPN (via Twitter). That’s right in line with his $5MM projection. Acquired from the Mets last offseason, the former top prospect hit .282/.321/.409 with 11 homers and 13 steals over 588 plate appearances. Rosario comes with one additional season of club control, as Cleveland can keep him around through 2023.
  • The Reds and utilityman Nick Senzel have settled at $1.25MM, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (on Twitter). That’s narrowly above his $1.1MM projection. Senzel, a former #2 overall pick and top prospect, has had trouble staying healthy in recent years. He’s taken 616 cumulative plate appearances in his first three big league seasons, including just 124 trips to the plate last year. The 26-year-old is a career .246/.308/.396 hitter and remains controllable through 2025 after qualifying for early arbitration as a Super Two player this year.
  • The Reds also agreed to terms with outfielder Tyler Naquin, Murray reports (Twitter link). It’s a $4.025MM deal, a bit north of his $3.6MM projection. The lefty-hitting Naquin picked up a career-high 454 plate appearances last season, hitting a solid .270/.333/.477 with 19 home runs. Defensive metrics weren’t fond of his work, but Naquin still looks likely to see plenty of action at all three outfield spots this season. He’ll reach free agency at the end of the year.
  • Murray reports the Blue Jays and right-hander Ross Stripling have settled at $3.79MM, a few hundred thousand dollars under his $4.4MM projection. A successful starter early in his career with the Dodgers, Stripling has stumbled over the past couple seasons. He posted a 4.80 ERA in 101 1/3 innings this past season and looks as if he’ll begin this year in a swing role after Toronto’s offseason efforts to bolster the rotation. Stripling will hit the open market after the season.

Reds, Brandon Drury Agree To Deal

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Another day, another new sighting in the Reds’ clubhouse. Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer tweets that veteran infielder/outfielder Brandon Drury has a locker with the Reds, signaling that the two parties have agreed to terms. Presumably, a deal with the Wasserman client will formally be announced once he passes a physical.

Drury, 29, spent the 2021 season with the Mets organization, appearing in 51 games at the big league level but primarily serving as a bench player. He logged just 88 plate appearances across those 51 contests and posted a strong .274/.307/.476 batting line with four homers and five doubles.

That was far and away Drury’s most productive showing in the past several seasons. The former 13th-round pick looked on his way to solidifying himself as a solid big league hitter with some defensive versatility back in 2016, when he hit .282/.329/.458 with 16 homers and 31 doubles in 499 plate appearances with the D-backs. He followed that with a solid enough .267/.317/.447 output in 2017, but Drury’s bat went dormant from 2018-20, when he mustered only a .205/.254/.346 triple slash through a combined 582 plate appearances.

Drury has played all over the diamond in the big leagues, although his most frequent positions have been second base (1264 innings) and third base (1082 innings). He’s also logged more than 400 innings in both outfield corners in addition to 139 innings at first base and 57 frames at shortstop.

The Reds are largely set at second base and third base, with reigning NL Rookie of the Year Jonathan India and veteran Mike Moustakas, respectively. Cincinnati also inked Donovan Solano to a one-year deal last week, and he can fill in at second, third and shortstop as needed. The outfield is a bit less certain following the trade of Jesse Winker, but the Reds still have Jake Fraley, Nick Senzel, Tyler Naquin, Shogo Akiyama and Aristides Aquino on the big league roster. That doesn’t leave a ton of room for Drury to win a roster spot — assuming this is a minor league deal, which seems likely — but injuries or further transactions could always open up playing time.

Injury Notes: Urias, Sims, Glasnow, Dobnak

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After suffering a left quad strain in yesterday’s Spring Training game, Luis Urias is facing at least a two-week layoff and is “questionable” for Opening Day, Brewers manager Craig Counsell told The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s Todd Rosiak and other reporters.  Even if Urias does miss only 14 days, that won’t leave much time for Urias to ramp up to play in the Brew Crew’s first game on April 7, and even the two-week timeline is just a projection since Counsell noted that Urias will still get more tests.

While it doesn’t seem like Urias is facing too long a layoff, the Brewers will probably have to turn to their bench depth early to fill in for their starting third baseman.  Milwaukee has multiple third base options but not really a true backup shortstop, as Urias was also seen as the top candidate to play short if Willy Adames needed a breather.  If not Pablo Reyes (who only has a few career games as a shortstop), top prospect Brice Turang hasn’t yet made his MLB debut, and the Brewers probably don’t want to start his service clock until such limited circumstances.

More on other injury situations from around the Show…

  • Reds righty Lucas Sims won’t be on the team’s Opening Day roster since he more time to build up his arm, Sims and manager David Bell told reporters (including MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon).  Sims is healthy now, but is behind schedule since illness and back spasms interrupted his usual offseason work.  “We can re-assess later but [first] make sure the build-up is done right and then we don’t rush into something and have a big deal,” Sims said.  The absence could allow for other pitchers to step up into the closer void, as Sims has been favored as Cincinnati’s top choice for the ninth inning this season, assuming the Reds indeed have a set closer.  The 27-year-old Sims moved to full-time relief work in 2019, and he has a 4.05 ERA and 35.2% strikeout rate in 115 2/3 innings over the last three seasons, though control and home runs have been issues.
  • Tyler Glasnow won’t throw for 2-3 weeks after undergoing an arthroscopic ankle surgery on Friday, according to Rays broadcaster Neil Solondz (Twitter link).  The procedure removed some loose bodies from Glasnow’s right ankle.  While the procedure seems minor, the delay to Glasnow’s rehab from Tommy John surgery could end whatever hope the righty had of pitching in the 2022 season.  Glasnow underwent his Tommy John surgery last August, thus giving him a narrow window to return this season if he hit the low end of the usual 12-15 month TJ recovery timeline.
  • The Twins have shut down Randy Dobnak due to continued soreness in the right-hander’s middle finger on his throwing hand, MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park writes.  It isn’t known how long Dobnak will be sidelined, though it appears as though he won’t be on the Opening Day roster.  Dobnak initially sprained his finger back in late June, and then pitched in only one game the rest of the season due to a pair of 60-day IL placements.  Even prior to the finger problems, Dobnak was already struggling through a rough year, and finished with a 7.64 ERA over 50 2/3 innings.
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