Reds Place Sam Moll On 15-Day Injured List
The Reds placed left-hander Sam Moll on the 15-day injured list today, and called up righty Casey Legumina from Triple-A Louisville in a corresponding move. Moll is dealing with a left shoulder impingement, and it is “not likely” that he’ll return before the season is over, as the southpaw told Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Moll has been trying to pitch through the injury for a few weeks, and the issue might even date back to last season, when Moll said he was also trying to pitch through some shoulder discomfort in order to contribute to a contending Reds team. Coming into this season, Moll began the year on the 15-day injured list and didn’t make his season debut until April 23.
“I obviously don’t want it to snowball to what it did last offseason, where it screwed up my offseason as far as preparation and leading into obviously what I dealt with earlier this year,” Moll said. It isn’t yet known if Moll will just need to rest his shoulder, or if some kind of procedure could be needed to address the problem.
Despite the lack of a proper ramp-up in the spring, Moll still delivered some quality innings out of Cincinnati’s bullpen. If this is indeed it for his 2024 campaign, he’ll finish the season with a 3.35 ERA, 25% strikeout rate, 9.2% walk rate, and 46.9% grounder rate over 37 2/3 innings and 48 appearances. Moll isn’t a particularly hard thrower, but his sinker and sweeper are plus pitches that induce a lot of soft contact. Left-handed batters have only a .430 OPS in 63 plate appearances against Moll this year, and he has also been effective against righty swingers to the tune of a .719 OPS in 89 PA.
This solid 2024 season comes on the heels of the 0.73 ERA Moll posted in the 24 2/3 innings he pitched for the Reds in 2023 after Cincinnati acquired him from the A’s at the trade deadline. A veteran of five MLB seasons, Moll will be arbitration-eligible for the first time this winter as he enters his age-33 season. If no injury-related complications interfere with the Reds’ decision to tender Moll a contract, he’ll be in line for a nice raise to get him out of the minimum-salary range.
Dominic Smith Elects Free Agency
First baseman Dominic Smith elected free agency rather than accept his outright assignment to Triple-A Louisville after being designated for assignment by the Reds, per the transaction log at MiLB.com. He can now sign with any club for the remaining three weeks of the regular season. However, Smith would not be postseason-eligible for a new club, and non-contenders may prefer to give those at-bats to a younger player who can be controlled beyond the current season. Smith, who has more than six years of MLB service, would become a free agent again at season’s end.
Smith’s time with the Reds proved quite brief. The 29-year-old appeared in only nine games and batted .192/.276/.269 in a tiny sample of 29 plate appearances before he was designated for assignment and passed through waivers unclaimed. The bulk of his 2024 season was spent in a Red Sox uniform. Boston signed Smith back in May after Triston Casas sustained a rib fracture and gave the longtime Mets first baseman 84 games and 278 plate appearances as their regular first baseman while Casas was shelved. Smith held his own with a .237/.317/.390 slash that was a bit below league-average in that time (96 wRC+), but the Sox moved on once Casas was healthy.
A former first-round pick (No. 11 overall) by the Mets, Smith long ranked among their top prospects prior to his debut and looked to be delivering on that status in 2019-20, when he hit .299/.366/.571 and belted 21 homers in a combined 396 plate appearances across those two seasons.
In the four seasons since that impressive showing, Smith’s bat has wilted. He admitted after the fact that he’d tried to play through a small tear of the labrum in his right shoulder during his 2021 season, which understandably didn’t go well. An ankle injury the following season further hobbled Smith. His numbers in 2023-24 ticked back up a bit, but Smith’s offensive output in each of these past two seasons has nonetheless checked in below-average. Overall, since that potential 2019-20 breakout, Smith has slashed .241/.311/.360 between four teams (Mets, Nats, Red Sox, Reds).
Reds Outright Dominic Smith
September 4: Smith has been outrighted to Triple-A Louisville, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He has the right to elect free agency though it’s not yet clear if he has chosen to do so.
September 2: The Reds announced that they have recalled outfielder Blake Dunn from Triple-A Louisville. In a corresponding move, first baseman Dominic Smith has been designated for assignment. The club’s 40-man roster count drops to 39.
Smith, 29, was with the Reds for just over a week. He signed with them on August 22 and has since taken 29 plate appearances over nine games, hitting just .192/.276/.269 in that time. That’s obviously not great production but it’s also not a meaningful sample size to draw conclusions from.
The fact that Smith is now being bumped from the roster might say more about the team than about him. The Reds were 5.5 games back of a playoff spot when Smith was signed but they have since fallen to 9.5 games back. With their playoff hopes now essentially dashed, there’s little use for an impending free agent like Smith, especially one with no real defensive versatility. They can instead use their remaining games to give playing time to players trying to earn roles on next year’s club, such as Dunn.
Smith has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment, so he will likely be a free agent in the coming days, either by a release or by him exercising his right to opt for the open market. Prior to his disappointing stint in Cincinnati, he had a better run in Boston. In 84 games for the Red Sox, he hit .237/.317/.390 for a wRC+ of 96, indicating he was 4% below league average.
He could perhaps try to latch on somewhere else for the remainder of the season, though he won’t be postseason eligible with a new club as it’s now after the September 1 cut-off date. Clubs out of contention like the Reds would probably prefer to give playing time to controllable players. Smith had a strong run in 2019-20, hitting .299/.366/.571 over those two seasons, but it’s been a rough ride side since then. In over 1,500 trips to the plate from 2021 to the present, he’s hit .241/.311/.360 for a wRC+ of 86.
Reds Outright David Buchanan
The Reds have sent right-hander David Buchanan outright to Triple-A Louisville, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment earlier this week.
Buchanan, 35, was seemingly an emergency option for the Reds. Their rotation had been without Graham Ashcraft and Brandon Williamson for much of the season due to injury. In August, each of Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Andrew Abbott and Christian Roa went on the injured list.
They sent cash to the Phillies to get Buchanan at the end of last month. He was eligible to be traded after the deadline since, at the time, he hadn’t been on a 40-man roster in 2024. He had signed a minor league deal with the Phillies in the offseason and had a 4.82 earned run average in 102 2/3 Triple-A innings before the deal.
Shortly after acquiring him, the Reds added him to their roster in order to provide a multi-inning option to their staff. The club deployed a bullpen game on August 31, with Buchanan tossing 3 1/3 innings, allowing one earned run on two hits and two walks while striking out one Brewer. Williamson was reinstated from the 60-day injured list the next day, with Buchanan designated for assignment to open up spots on both the active and 40-man rosters.
That one outing was Buchanan’s first in the majors since 2015, when he was with the Phillies. He was pitching in Japan from 2017 to 2019 and then in Korea from 2020 through 2023, before returning to North America this year. He now has a 4.97 ERA in 195 2/3 MLB innings, with almost a decade in between his time with the Phillies and his time with the Reds.
This is his first career outright and he has less than three years of major league service time. Though the Reds got Williamson back, the pitching staff is still fairly snakebitten. Buchanan can provide them with some non-roster depth for the next few weeks and could perhaps be summoned back to the majors if they need reinforcements again.
Reds Outright Evan Kravetz, Davis Wendzel
Left-hander Evan Kravetz and infielder Davis Wendzel both passed through waivers unclaimed and have been sent outright to Triple-A Louisville, per Mark Sheldon of MLB.com on X. Both players had been designated for assignment by the Reds in the past week.
Kravetz, 27, was just added to the roster last week, his first call to the majors. He got into one game, tossing two thirds of an inning without allowing a run, before being designated for assignment. Since he has just a few days of service time and no previous career outrights, he doesn’t have the right to reject this assignment.
He will therefore return to Louisville and provide the club with some left-handed depth in a non-roster capacity. He already has 42 1/3 innings tossed for the Bats this year with a 3.40 earned run average. His 11.7% walk rate was on the high side but he struck out 25% of batters faced.
Wendzel, 27, was once a somewhat notable prospect in the Rangers’ system. That club selected him 41st overall in the 2019 draft but his bat never really lived up to expectations. From 2021 to the present, he has played in 338 minor league games with a combined slash line of .232/.338/.426, which translates to a 91 wRC+.
He got out to a strong start this year and got added to the Texas roster in April. Around multiple optional assignments, he hit just .128/.163/.234 in his first 47 major league plate appearances. His hot start in the minors also cooled, so that his line in Triple-A for the season is now .266/.361/.407. That includes stints with the Triple-A clubs of the Rangers and Reds, as he was designated for assignment by Texas at the end of July and flipped to Cincinnati for cash.
This time, no trade was possible with the deadline having passed and none of the 29 other clubs were willing to grab him off waivers. Like Kravetz, he will report to Louisville and provide the club with some non-roster depth. Wendzel has played all four infield positions in his career, so he can give the club cover all over the dirt.
Reds Activate Brandon Williamson From 60-Day IL
The Reds announced a series of roster moves this morning that saw them activate left-handers Brandon Williamson and Brent Suter as well as outfielder Jake Fraley from the injured list. Right-hander David Buchanan was designated for assignment to make room for Williamson, who had been on the 60-day IL, on both the 40-man and active rosters. No corresponding moves were necessary to return Fraley and Suter, who were on the 10- and 15-day ILs respectively and will take the extra roster spots created by today’s expansion from 26 to 28 roster spots.
Williamson, 26, has missed the entire season to this point due to a shoulder strain he suffered back in March. The lefty was at risk of requiring season-ending surgery back in June but opted against going under the knife in hopes of rehabbing the issue. That plan has clearly worked out fairly well, as the lefty is now back on a big league mound for the first time in nearly a full calendar year. The southpaw enjoyed a solid if unspectacular rookie season with the Reds last year with a 4.46 ERA and 4.63 FIP to go along with a 20% strikeout rate in 117 innings that came together to give him the look of a solid back-of-the-rotation starting option.
Once a top-100 prospect, Williamson was acquired alongside Fraley as part of the package that sent Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez to the Mariners prior to the 2022 season. Long looked at as a likely middle- to back-of-the-rotation arm, Williamson has turned heads during his rehab process in the minor leagues this year with a microscopic 0.55 ERA in five rehab starts this year. That excellent production is backed up by an increase in strikeout rate, as Williamson has punched out 25.4% of batters faced while rehabbing this year. If the young lefty really has managed to not only return healthy but shows signs of having taken a step forward at the big league level down the stretch this year, that’ll be an exciting turn of events for the Reds as they look ahead to 2025 with Williamson, Nick Lodolo, and Rhett Lowder all in the conversation for starts behind Hunter Greene and Andrew Abbott.
Making room for Williamson on the 40-man roster is Buchanan, who was added to the club’s roster just yesterday. The 35-year-old journeyman posted 3 1/3 innings of one-run ball in yesterday’s game against the Brewers in what was his first big league work in nearly a decade. The righty last pitched in the majors for the Phillies back in 2015, when he struggled to a 6.99 ERA in 15 starts on the heels of what was a promising rookie campaign in 2014. Since then, Buchanan has spent the majority of his career pitching overseas in Japan and Korea, with a combined 3.50 ERA in 1169 2/3 overseas innings of work.
As for Fraley and Suter, the pair return from the injured list for the stretch run in hopes of proving themselves healthy and effective headed into next season. Fraley, 29, has struggled this year when healthy with a lackluster slash line of just .271/.323/.366 in 92 games. Suter, meanwhile, sports a 3.68 ERA and 4.30 FIP in 51 1/3 innings of work so far this year. The Reds hold a $3.5MM club option of Suter’s services for next season, while Fraley will be eligible for arbitration for the second time in his career over the offseason.
Reds Select David Buchanan, Designate Evan Kravetz
The Reds announced a trio of roster moves Saturday, including the news that David Buchanan‘s contract has been selected from Triple-A. Left-hander Evan Kravetz was designated for assignment in the corresponding move to create roster space for Buchanan. Cincinnati also announced that Casey Kelly (who was designated for assignment earlier this week) cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A.
Buchanan figures to get at least one start for a Reds team that been hit hard by rotation injuries, and it represents a rather remarkable comeback story. The 35-year-old Buchanan last pitched in the majors way back in 2015 as a member of the Phillies rotation, and he spent the 2016 with Triple-A Lehigh Valley before embarking on a long stint overseas. Buchanan pitched for Yakult Swallows of Nippon Professional Baseball in 2017-19, and he then spent the 2020-23 seasons with the KBO League’s Samsung Lions.
The right-hander enjoyed a good deal of success in international baseball, including a pair of All-Star nods with the Lions in 2022 and 2023. This earned Buchanan another look in North America, as he signed a minor league contract to return to the Phillies organization this past winter. Buchanan had a 4.82 ERA over 102 2/3 Triple-A innings before he was traded to the Reds earlier this week, in a post-deadline deal made possible since Buchanan hadn’t spent any time on Philadelphia’s 40-man roster this season.
Kravetz hits the DFA wire just three days after making his Major League debut, and throwing two-thirds of scoreless ball in the Reds’ 9-6 loss to the Athletics on August 28. While it’s safe to say that Cincinnati’s injury crunch helped open the door for Kravetz to get a cup of coffee in the majors, he made a solid case for promotion with a 3.40 ERA and a 25% strikeout rate in 42 1/3 relief innings with Triple-A Louisville this season.
Even this ERA was inflated by an uncharacteristically high 16.3% home run rate, though Kravetz didn’t help himself with an 11.7% walk rate in Louisville. Free passes have been something of a persistent issue for Kravetz, who has an 11.1% walk rate across his 244 1/3 career innings as a minor leaguer.
As for Kelly, there isn’t yet any word if he’ll accept the outright assignment and remain in the organization. Because he has been outrighted in the past, the veteran hurler can elect to become a free agent rather than stick with the Reds.
NL Central Notes: Pham, Walker, Greene, Abbott, McCutchen, Heller
Jordan Walker “will play every day” down the stretch for the Cardinals, manager Oliver Marmol told The Athletic’s Katie Woo and other reporters yesterday after St. Louis recalled the top prospect from Triple-A Memphis. After debuting with a solid rookie season in 2023, Walker has hit only .151/.229/.233 over 83 plate appearances at the MLB level this season, and the Cardinals have kept him at Triple-A for much of the season. While his production in Memphis this year was only decent, the Cards have seen enough to bring Walker back for an extended stretch of playing time that will ideally set the table for Walker to stick as a lineup regular in 2025 and beyond.
Some space in the Cardinals’ outfield was cleared for Walker when Tommy Pham was designated for assignment, a day after the team first put Pham on irrevocable waivers. Woo writes that Pham welcomed the news and had even discussed such a move with the Cards, as he’ll now have a chance at more regular playing time on another team. If he joins another club before Sunday, Pham will also be eligible for that new club’s postseason roster.
More from the NL Central…
- Reds manager David Bell updated MLB.com and other media on the status of a pair of injured starters, as Hunter Greene has started playing catch and Andrew Abbott is expected to start a throwing program next week. Greene hasn’t pitched since August 13 due to right elbow inflammation and there were concerns last week that his season could be over, but Bell indicated that Greene is aiming to return before the year is out. Abbott is also planning to pitch again in 2024, even though Bell said the left-hander is still feeling “a pinch” in his bothersome shoulder. Abbott has been sidelined since August 20 due to a shoulder strain. Since Cincinnati has fallen out of the playoff race, it stands to reason that either or both Greene or Abbott could be shut down at the first hint of a setback, but naturally both pitchers would prefer to keep playing and try to finish on a high note.
- Andrew McCutchen was activated from the Pirates‘ 10-day injured list yesterday, as the franchise icon returned after missing two weeks due to left knee inflammation. The franchise icon went 2-for-5 with a home run in Pittsburgh’s 10-8 loss to the Guardians, and McCutchen is now hitting .238/.337/.415 with 17 homers over 442 plate appearances in his 16th Major League season. In the corresponding move to activate McCutchen, Pittsburgh placed right-hander Ben Heller on the 15-day IL due to inflammation in his right shoulder.
Reds Release Tony Kemp
The Reds have released Tony Kemp from his minor league contract with the team, according to Kemp’s MLB.com profile page. Kemp signed with Cincinnati in July but didn’t receive a call-up to the majors during his latest stint in the organization.
After playing with the Athletics from 2020-23, Kemp has bounced around the league since becoming a free agent last fall. He previously signed another minors deal with the Reds back in February, but was released late in Spring Training camp and then caught on with the Orioles on a big league contract. He was designated for assignment and outrighted by the O’s in April, and Kemp elected free agency again and caught on with the Twins on a minors contract, before opting out and returning once more to the Reds. Throughout all of these moves, Kemp has appeared in just five MLB games this year, all with Baltimore.
The 32-year-old has hit .262/.350/.406 slash line over 326 combined Triple-A plate appearances this season, delivering decent production but not enough to compel the Twins or Reds to select his contract to the Show. With Cincinnati’s Triple-A affiliate in particular, Kemp was hitting a more modest .237/.338/.364 in 139 PA. Kemp has become strictly a second baseman and left fielder during his last couple of years in Oakland, but he has seen a bit of time as a center fielder and right fielder at the Triple-A level this year.
Kemp will still be eligible for postseason play if he signs with a new team before tomorrow, though his 2024 production makes him a depth candidate at best for any playoff contenders. Some clubs could certainly still be interested in bringing Kemp aboard to provide some extra backup at second base or left field, plus Kemp is a well-respected veteran whose presence could fit in many clubhouses. The Orioles’ deal with Kemp came with a guaranteed $1MM salary, so Baltimore is still responsible for the majority of owed salary, as a new team would owe Kemp just the prorated portion of a MLB minimum salary for any time spent on an active roster.
Reds Designate Davis Wendzel For Assignment
The Reds announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Rhett Lowder, a promotion that was previously reported, while also appointing righty Yosver Zulueta the 27th player for the double-header. In corresponding moves for Lowder, they optioned left-hander Brandon Leibrandt and designated infielder Davis Wendzel for assignment.
Wendzel, 27, was acquired from the Rangers in a cash deal at the end of July after Texas had designated him for assignment. He was sent to Triple-A Louisville, where he has slashed .233/.327/.279 in his 101 plate appearances, production that translates to a 66 wRC+.
With the trade deadline in the rear-view mirror, the Reds will have to place Wendzel on waivers in the coming days. Though his recent output wasn’t great, he could garner interest based on his larger track record. Prior to the deal, he had hit .289/.384/.492 in 151 plate appearances for Triple-A Round Rock, leading to a 117 wRC+.
He also hit 30 home runs for the Express last year and drew walks at a 14.1% clip. His .236 /.361/.477 batting line only translated to a 101 wRC+ in the heightened offensive environment of the Pacific Coast League, but that may have been held back by a .259 batting average on balls in play. His BABIP corrected to .298 with Round Rock prior to the deal, roughly average, which helped nudge his wRC+ up.
At a minimum, Wendzel provides defensive versatility, with the ability to play all four infield positions. He also has a full slate of options and just a few days of service time, meaning he wouldn’t need an immediate roster spot and comes with years of club control. Despite the offensive downturn since coming to the Reds, he had been hitting pretty well at the Triple-A level in 2023 and in the first few months of 2024.
The overall package could perhaps entice some club to put in a claim. He doesn’t have a previous career outright, nor does he have at least three years of service time, so he would stick with the Reds in a non-roster capacity if he goes unclaimed.