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Injury Notes: Reds, Wood, Rays, Duffy, Jays, Marlins

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Reds left-hander Alex Wood, who’s on the injured list with lower back tightness, isn’t nearing a return. While Wood is progressing in his recovery, it may have been “a little aggressive” on the Reds’ part to expect a mid-April debut, manager David Bell said Sunday (via Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer). Given that Wood has been battling back problems since late February, he’ll need to build up his innings before taking a major league mound again, Nightengale notes. Wood’s situation is undoubtedly a significant disappointment for the Reds. After all, Cincinnati acquired the ex-Dodger’s final year of team control with the hope that he’d slot in near the top of its made-over rotation for the entire season.

More injury updates from around the league…

  • The back and hamstring issues that forced Rays third baseman Matt Duffy to open the season on the injured list will shelve him until at least mid-May, Rodney Page of the Tampa Bay Times writes. This is the latest unfortunate injury-related development for Duffy, who missed 71 games two years ago and sat out another 30 during what was still a productive campaign in 2018. Yandy Diaz and Daniel Robertson have occupied third in Duffy’s absence so far this season.
  • The Blue Jays have shut down lefty Clayton Richard for two weeks on account of a right knee stress reaction, Scott Mitchell of TSN reports. Richard, acquired from the Padres in the offseason, had been slated to make his Blue Jays debut against Baltimore on Monday. That start will instead go to righty Sean Reid-Foley, whom the Jays will need to recall from Triple-A Buffalo. Meanwhile, southpaw Ryan Borucki, who’s on the IL with elbow discomfort, is making progress but will miss at least one more start, manager Charlie Montoyo revealed Sunday (per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet).
  • The Marlins announced that they’ve placed right fielder Garrett Cooper on the IL with a left calf strain. Cooper said he’ll sit out a few weeks, Joe Frisaro of MLB.com tweets. It’s the second consecutive early season injury for Cooper, who began 2018 as the Marlins’ starting right fielder before going down for months with a partially torn wrist tendon sheath. His newest injury led the Marlins to recall power-hitting outfielder Peter O’Brien from Triple-A New Orleans.

Reds Claim Jose Lopez, Designate Brandon Finnegan

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The Reds have claimed righty Jose Lopez off waivers from the Giants, per a club announcement. To open a roster spot, lefty Brandon Finnegan was designated for assignment.

Lopez had been claimed from Cincinnati in mid-February. Given a chance to reconsider their decision after watching both players this spring, the Reds decided they’d rather have him back at the expense of Finnegan. While he didn’t impress in camp, Lopez remains an interesting hurler with a strong pedigree.

Finnegan’s career has gone off the rails a bit after beginning with real promise. He has dealt with injury issues and produced brutal results last year. The former first-rounder, who cracked the majors in his first professional season, was tagged for 11 earned runs in five innings this spring.

Reds Select Derek Dietrich, Jose Iglesias; Designate Matt Wisler

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The Reds announced a series of transactions today, selecting the contracts of veteran infielder/outfielder Derek Dietrich and shortstop Jose Iglesias to join the Opening Day roster. Righty Matt Wisler was designated for assignment to clear 40-man roster space.

Several players were also shifted to the 10-day injured list, with no surprises in the bunch. Lefty Alex Wood joins infielders Scooter Gennett and Alex Blandino on ice to open the season.

Bringing Dietrich and Iglesias aboard further strengthens a position-player unit that is full of talent. Both are limited players: the former is a quality left-handed hitter who doesn’t field well and the latter is a magician with the glove who doesn’t bring much with the bat. Iglesias’ defensive wizardry will be all the more important early in the season, as he’ll likely see significant time at shortstop with Jose Peraza sliding to second base in place of the injured Scooter Gennett.

As for Wisler, the Reds will now have a week to either trade the former top prospect or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. The 26-year-old was a key part of the trade that sent Craig Kimbrel from the Braves to the Padres several years ago, but he’s never pieced things together at the MLB level. Wisler owns a 5.14 ERA with 6.4 K/9 against 2.9 BB/9 in 338 frames in the Majors to this point, though he’s consistently posted solid numbers in the minor leagues. He’s also out of options, though, so any club who acquires Wisler would need to carry him on its 25-man roster.

Minor MLB Transactions: 3/27/19

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Some minor moves from around the game on the eve of Opening Day (for most of the league)…

  • The Cardinals announced this afternoon that lefty Chasen Shreve has cleared waivers following this week’s DFA. He’s been assigned outright to Triple-A Memphis. While Shreve does have enough service time to reject the assignment, electing free agency would mean forfeiting the $900K salary to which he’d agreed earlier this winter. The 28-year-old Shreve came to the Cards as part of the now-lopsided deal that sent Luke Voit to the Yankees last summer. Over the past four seasons, Shreve has posted a solid 3.85 ERA and missed bats (10.3 K/9), but he’s also been far too prone to walks (4.7 BB/9) and home runs (1.8 HR/9) for either the Yankees or Cardinals to deem him a reliable bullpen option. Furthermore, he’s not a candidate for a more specialized role, as left-handed opponents have been even more successful against Shreve (.248/.335/.444) than right-handed opponents have been (.222/.316/.430).
  • The Blue Jays reportedly agreed to acquire minor league outfielder Jordan Patterson from the Reds — a move that was prompted by injuries to Dalton Pompey and Jonathan Davis, as Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet explains. The 27-year-old Patterson received a bit of MLB experience with the Rockies back in 2016 but has spent the bulk of the past three seasons with Colorado’s Triple-A affiliate. The Reds inked him to a minor league pact back in December, but he never stood much of a chance of cracking the roster by the time Spring Training rolled around. Patterson hit .271/.367/.525 in Triple-A last year and owns a lifetime .282/.363/.516 slash in 1517 plate appearances at that level, making him a solid fill-in option to help round out the Jays’ Triple-A roster. Presumably, for a transaction of small magnitude, the Jays are merely sending cash to Cincinnati in return.

Nick Senzel Out Several Weeks Following Ankle Injury

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Top Reds prospect Nick Senzel, who was recently reassigned to minor league camp, incurred a right ankle sprain while sliding into second base during a minor league game and will be in a walking boot for seven to 14 days, the team announced. As president of baseball operations Dick Williams tells Bobby Nightengale Jr. of the Cincinnati Enquirer, Senzel will require multiple weeks to get back up to speed once he’s out of the boot.

Cincinnati assigned Senzel to minor league camp earlier this week — a move that was met with noted protest from agent Joel Wolfe, who called the decision a “simply egregious case of service-time manipulation” in a statement to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

Whether the move was indeed fueled by service time — the Reds can at least plausibly maintain that they’d like Senzel to continue getting reps in center field after shifting there from the infield just this spring — the injury will definitively keep in the minors long enough for the Reds to garner an additional year of club control over the former No. 2 overall draft pick (2015). Assuming Senzel is called up to the Majors later this season and sticks, he’ll be controlled through the 2025 season and, depending on the exact date he’s called up, would be eligible for arbitration after either the 2021 season (if he’s a Super Two player) or the 2022 season.

With Senzel sidelined, Scott Schebler will now get a lengthier look as the primary center fielder with the Reds to begin the 2019 season. He’ll be flanked by Jesse Winker, Yasiel Puig and (more occasionally) Matt Kemp in the outfield for at least the first few weeks of the season.

Reds Reassign Matt Wisler

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The Reds are expected to place righty Matt Wisler on outright waivers, according to Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer (Twitter link). He was reassigned to minor-league camp today, with Robert Stephenson and Wandy Peralta being chosen instead for bullpen slots.

Wisler was one of three players with MLB experience who headed to the Reds in the July 2018 swap that shipped Adam Duvall to the Braves. He’s out of options and therefore will need to be traded or exposed to waivers if he’s to miss out on the active roster.

While he has largely disappointed at the game’s highest level, Wisler has actually been rather good in brief action in a relief capacity since landing in Cincinnati. He allowed just three earned runs in 13 1/3 frames late last year and racked up a 16:1 K/BB mix in a dozen innings this spring.

Roster Notes: Rox, Brewers, Phils, Nats, Reds, Marlins

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The latest on several teams’ rosters…

  • First baseman Mark Reynolds will make the Rockies’ roster, Nick Groke of The Athletic tweets. A Rockie from 2016-17, Reynolds rejoined the club on a minor league deal this past January after spending last season with the Nationals. In his return to Colorado, the 35-year-old Reynolds will back up the team’s headlining offseason acquisition, Daniel Murphy.
  • More from Groke, who reports catcher Brett Nicholas has requested and received his release from the Rockies. However, it’s possible the Rockies will try to keep Nicholas, Groke adds. An ex-Ranger, with whom he totaled 110 plate appearances from 2016-17, Nicholas signed a minors pact with the Rox in November. He has always faced an uphill battle to make the team, though, considering it has Chris Iannetta, Tony Wolters and Tom Murphy on its 40-man roster.
  • Catcher Erik Kratz won’t crack the Brewers’ roster, leaving him to await his trade/waiver fate, per Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. This had been the expected outcome for Kratz, who’s stuck behind Yasmani Grandal and Manny Pina on Milwaukee’s depth chart.
  • Infielder Philip Gosselin won’t make the Phillies, Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia relays. It seems the 30-year-old will remain on hand as minor league depth, however. The journeyman has accrued 579 major league PAs, though he didn’t play much at the MLB level from 2017-18, and batted .263/.314/.361.
  • The Nationals have informed left-hander Vidal Nuno he won’t make their roster, per Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. Nuno now has six days to decide whether to opt out of the minor league deal he signed in January. The 31-year-old has logged solid results this spring, having allowed two earned runs in 5 2/3 innings while recording six strikeouts against one walk. Nuno was similarly effective across 33 innings with Tampa Bay last year, when he put up a 1.64 ERA (with a much less impressive 4.46 FIP) and 7.91 K/9 against 2.73 BB/9.
  • The Reds have sent right-hander Anthony Bass to minor league camp, according to Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. Bass had been competing for a bullpen spot with the Reds after they signed him to a minors deal in December. He owns a 4.51 ERA/4.20 FIP with 6.07 K/9 and 3.31 BB/9 and a 47.9 percent groundball rate in a combined 299 1/3 innings with the Padres, Astros, Rangers and Cubs.
  • The Marlins are “expected” to retain Rule 5 pick Riley Ferrell, Joe Frisaro of MLB.com reports. The club took the right-hander fourth overall from the Astros in December, and he has since pitched well over 6 2/3 spring innings (two earned runs allowed on five hits and five walks, with 10 strikeouts). Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel of FanGraphs regard the 25-year-old Ferrell as “at least a big league-ready middle reliever with a chance to be a set-up man.”

Scooter Gennett To Spend 8-12 Weeks On Injured List

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Reds second baseman Scooter Gennett will be sidelined for the next 8-12 weeks due to a right groin strain, Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports (Twitter link).  Gennett suffered the injury yesterday during the second inning of the Reds’ Spring Training game, while making an awkward slide on a fielding play.

The news is a major blow to a Reds team that had a busy offseason in preparation for a return to contention in the NL Central.  Now, Cincinnati will have to wait until mid-May at the earliest to welcome back their All-Star second baseman.

Gennett has been nothing short of outstanding since joining his hometown team prior to the 2017 season, as the infielder has hit .303/.351/.508 with 50 homers over 1135 plate appearances in a Reds uniform.  Originally seen as something of a utility infield option when he first arrived with the team, Gennett’s emergence made him into an unexpected building block for the Reds, and perhaps even a long-term answer at second base (though recent extension talks hadn’t delivered much progress).

Gennett is scheduled to hit free agency after the season, and while the 29-year-old can still produce quite a bit over three or four months of action, his hopes of a big platform year have now been dented by this lengthy stint on the IL.  He’ll have to hope for a relatively quick recovery and then no lingering after-effects from his groin strain, though on the plus side, Gennett has been a pretty durable player throughout the rest of his big league career.

The vacancy at second base will be filled by Jose Peraza, whose former shortstop role will be assumed by minor league signing Jose Iglesias.  Peraza took a big step forward at the plate last season and actually grades out better defensively as a second baseman than as a shortstop, so the Reds should be in decent shape at the keystone.  Iglesias is one of the sport’s better defensive shortstops, so he’ll bring value to the everyday lineup even if his hitting has generally been subpar.  Derek Dietrich, also in camp on a minors contract, was already expected to make Cincinnati’s roster, and Gennett’s absence should solidify Dietrich’s spot as a backup utilityman.

Nick Senzel’s status won’t be impacted by the Gennett news, Reds president of baseball operations Dick Williams told reporters (including C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic).  The top prospect has played second base in the past, though Senzel is still ticketed to begin the season at Triple-A and will be playing as a center fielder, in order to eventually help the Reds at that position.

Reds Reassign Nick Senzel To Minor League Camp

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The Reds announced a slew of players who’ve been reassigned to minor league camp Friday, headlined by top prospect Nick Senzel. Cincinnati’s decision to do so has prompted a response from Senzel’s agent, Joel Wolfe of Wasserman, who spoke harshly of the organization’s decision to ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link).

“I don’t believe I’ve ever made public statements on this issue in my career,” said Wolfe, “but I feel compelled to do so in this case where it feels like a simply egregious case of service-time manipulation. We are well aware of the mandate from ownership for the Reds to win this year — and this seems to fly in the face of it. The NL Central was decided by one game last year. Every game matters. This is a shortsighted move that may be frugal now but could cost them dearly later.”

Reds president of baseball operations Dick Williams, unsurprisingly, told C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic that the decision was not tied to service time (Twitter link).

The Reds’ Senzel decision is, at the very least, more defensible than some recent service-driven minor league assignments (e.g. Kris Bryant, Eloy Jimenez, Ronald Acuna). Senzel is learning a new position on the fly after being moved from the infield to center field, and injuries limited him to just 44 games last year while also preventing him from taking place in the Arizona Fall League.

That said, Senzel is hitting .308/.300/.462 with six doubles and four stolen bases in 39 spring at-bats thus far, and he batted .310/.378/.509 as a 22-year-old in his first exposure to Triple-A pitching last season. There’s an argument  that Senzel’s bat is ready for big league work, and the timing of his promotion to the big leagues will be an interesting situation to monitor in the coming weeks. The Reds would only need to keep Senzel in the minors for just over two weeks in order to secure an extra year of club control over the 2016 No. 2 overall draft pick.

Regardless of whether the move is service-driven, the Reds are well within their rights to make it and are arguably even wise to do so. The fact that they’re hoping to be more competitive and contend for a postseason berth in 2019, as Wolfe suggested, does muddy the waters a bit, and the Reds will unquestionably receive their share of criticism if they call Senzel up early in the season and narrowly miss the playoffs.

However, the current service time constraints were collectively bargained long ago and were not addressed in the latest wave of negotiations between the league and the MLBPA, thus maintaining a clumsy and antiquated system that is a disservice to virtually every party other than ownership. The game’s best young players are often held down longer than need be, slowing their path to significant earnings, while fans are deprived from seeing rising stars on the game’s biggest stage. Even front offices are left to make thinly veiled and often transparent statements to their fans, knowing full well that they’re setting themselves up to incur an angry backlash. It’s an out-of-date mechanism that would be better served to be restructured, and it’s likely to be a focal point as the league and union begin preliminary discussions well in advance of the next wave of the current CBA’s expiration.

In other Reds news, Cincinnati skipper David Bell announced that right-hander Tyler Mahle will open the season as the team’s fifth starter while Alex Wood heals up from back spasms that have plagued him throughout the spring (Twitter link via Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer). Wood’s injury isn’t expected to sideline him long, so he may only be in line for a small handful of starts before either shifting to a bullpen role or heading back to Triple-A to continue making regular starts.

Giants Acquire Connor Joe, Designate Drew Ferguson

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The Giants have acquired utilityman Connor Joe from the Reds, per a club announcement. Righty Jordan Johnson and cash considerations are headed to Cincinnati in return. To open a 40-man roster spot, the Giants designated outfielder Drew Ferguson for assignment.

Both Joe and Ferguson were selected in last December’s Rule 5 draft. The former went to the Reds from the Dodgers, while the latter came from the Astros organization. Ferguson would be offered back to Houston if he clears waivers, but every other team in baseball will have a chance to step into his Rule 5 rights.

With a deal coming together at this late stage of camp, it seems likely that Joe has the inside track on a job in San Francisco — perhaps bumping out veteran Pablo Sandoval. New president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi is amply familiar with the former Dodger farmhand, having just come over from the L.A. organization. If Joe can make and stay on the MLB roster all year, his rights would move permanently.

Joe, 26, is a former first-round pick who had largely struggled until a breakout 2018 season. In 435 plate appearances in the upper minors, he turned in a robust .299/.408/.527 slash with a career-high 17 home runs and sixty walks to go with 88 strikeouts.

Ferguson is also 26 years of age. The former 19th-rounder put himself on the map with some strong offensive showings, including a .305/.436/.429 run in 292 Triple-A plate appearances last year. But he has struggled since in short stints in the Arizona Fall League, Puerto Rican Winter League, and Cactus League.

On the Cincinnati end of this swap, Johnson will give the organization another upper-minors arm to work with. He earned a call-up to the highest level of the minors after 15 solid starts at Double-A last year, but struggled thereafter. In 58 frames over 11 outings at Triple-A, Johnson managed only a 4.66 ERA with 37 strikeouts against 33 walks.

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