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13 Players Elect Free Agency

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With the World Series kicking off on Friday, we’re only a couple weeks from the opening of the offseason. It’s customary each offseason for dozens of players to hit the open market, separate from the players who reach MLB free agency at the end of the World Series based on the expiration of their contracts while having six-plus years of MLB service time.

Any player who is not on his team’s 40-man roster at season’s end but has three-plus years of MLB service, multiple career outright assignments and/or seven-plus seasons in the minor leagues has the right to elect free agency. Everyone in today’s group falls under that umbrella. The majority will take minor league deals over the winter, although one or two could find a big league deal as a bench piece or middle-inning reliever.

In recent weeks, we’ve provided periodic updates on players qualifying for minor league free agency. Here are the latest, courtesy of the MiLB.com transactions tracker.

Pitchers

Infielders

Outfielders

How The Reds Pursued Zack Wheeler In 2019

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The Reds had a longstanding interest in Zack Wheeler as both a trade target and then when the righty entered free agency in the 2019-20 offseason.  Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer recently revisited that free agent pursuit, which ended when the Phillies signed Wheeler to a five-year, $118MM contract.  According to Nightengale, the Reds were also willing to spend beyond $100MM to sign Wheeler, but they may have been undone by geography more than just dollars.  Wheeler prioritized staying on the East Coast and closer to his wife’s home state of New Jersey, giving the Phils the edge over both the Reds and the White Sox (who reportedly offered more than $118MM).

Needless to say, signing Wheeler would’ve changed the entire trajectory of recent Reds history, not to mention the Phillies’ last three seasons and their current berth in the 2022 World Series.  As Nightengale notes, the Reds went on to sign Nick Castellanos (for $64MM over four years) and Shogo Akiyama ($21MM over three years) after Wheeler left the market, and it isn’t known if either of those deals could’ve or would’ve still happened if Cincinnati had made its big investment in Wheeler’s contract.

Art Warren Expected To Miss 2023 Season

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Reds right-hander Art Warren finished the 2022 season on the injured list due to a elbow surgery, though no timetable for his recovery was given at that time. Manager David Bell told reporters, including Mark Sheldon of MLB.com, that though Warren’s UCL was being repaired, it was not a full replacement. That seemingly left some room for optimism that Warren wouldn’t require a full year or more, as he would if he underwent Tommy John surgery. However, Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer now reports that Warren is indeed expected to miss the entire 2023 campaign.

Warren, 30 in March, was acquired by the Reds prior to the 2021 campaign. His first year in Cincy was fairly successful, as he registered a 1.29 ERA in 21 innings, which included a 41.5% strikeout rate, 9.8% walk rate and 37.6% ground ball rate. Though he was surely hoping to build on that here in 2022, he largely dealt with injuries and underperformance. He landed on the IL in July due to a right flexor pronator strain and then again in September due to the aforementioned surgery. When on the hill, he threw 36 innings but with his ERA jumping up to 6.50 and his walk rate to 13.3%.

Those results might have been caused by his injury issues but were disappointing nonetheless. On top of that, he will now be looking at losing the entirety of his age-30 season while recovering from surgery. He has yet to reach arbitration and won’t cost much to keep around until healthy, but there’s no injured list between the end of the World Series and the start of Spring Training. If Warren can hold onto his 40-man roster spot through the winter, he could be placed on the 60-day IL for all of next year, though it’s also possible he becomes a casualty of a roster squeeze at some point. The club doesn’t seem to have designs on competing in 2023, with general manager Nick Krall recently telling Nightengale that “We’re going to come into (2023) in a similar place that we are right now.” Whether Warren sticks in their plans will likely depend on how much they expect him to contribute in 2024 and beyond.

In terms of other Cincinnati relievers, Buck Farmer is hoping to stick with the team. “I hope to be here next year,” he tells Nightengale. “I think (the coaching staff) as a group put me in the spot to where I’ve gotten this year, so it’s been a big help being here.” Signed to a minor league contract in the offseason, Farmer ended up tossing 47 innings with a 3.83 ERA, a big improvement over the 6.37 he had with the Tigers in 2021. He also posted a career-high 27.1% strikeout rate, though also issued free passes to 12.6% of batters faced.

Farmer, 32 in February, is arbitration eligible and projected for a salary of $1.4MM by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz. That’s not a huge sum by MLB standards, with next year’s minimum going up to $720K. Still, the club will have to decide if they think he can replicate or improve that performance going forward.

Reds Outright Three Players

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The Reds announced yesterday that right-handers Ryan Hendrix, Raynel Espinal, and catcher Chuckie Robinson have cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Louisville. All three will become minor league free agents after the World Series unless added back to the 40-man roster.

Hendrix, 27, has spent the past two seasons shuttled between Triple-A and Cincinnati’s major league bullpen. He’s struggled mightily during that time, failing to post an ERA below 5.00 at either level during either season. Hendrix will search for a minor league deal this offseason and, having spent his entire professional career in the Reds organization, may benefit from a change of scenery.

Espinal, 31, played for three organizations in 2022. He opened the season pitching for the Giants at their Triple-A affiliate in Sacramento, before being traded to the Cubs in exchange for minor league shortstop Dixon Machado at the trade deadline. After just 2 games with Chicago’s Triple-A affiliate in Iowa, he was released, and later signed a minor league deal with the Reds, for whom he served as an up-and-down pitcher during September, posting a 7.71 ERA in just 4 2/3 innings of work. After a similarly short stint with weak results in the Red Sox bullpen last year (9.00 ERA in 2 innings), Espinal will look for a minor league opportunity with yet another club this offseason.

Robinson, 27, struggled at the plate in 25 games with the Reds this year (60 PA), slashing just .136/.136/.271 in that time. Robinson fared better during his time in the minors this season, however, slashing a more respectable .266/.320/.399 in 58 games (219 PA) split fairly evenly between the Double-A and Triple-A levels. Given the desirability of upper-minors catching depth, Robinson will likely find a minor league deal this offseason, whether with the Reds or another club.

Orioles Designate Louis Head, Beau Sulser; Claim Aramis Garcia, Mark Kolozsvary

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The Orioles have added to their catching depth with a pair of waiver claims from the Reds, acquiring backstops Aramis Garcia and Mark Kolozsvary.  To create roster space, Baltimore has designated right-handers Louis Head and Beau Sulser for assignment.

Both Sulser and Head were themselves acquired via the waiver wire in 2022, with the former obtained from the Pirates in May and the latter from Miami in July.  Neither saw much action in an Orioles uniform, with Sulser pitching 12 2/3 MLB innings for the O’s and Head only five frames.  Those 12 2/3 innings for Sulser marked his Major League debut, as he pitched in four games with Pittsburgh before moving onto six more appearances with Baltimore.

The younger brother of former Orioles hurler Cole Sulser, Beau worked his way up to the big leagues after being a 10-round pick for the Pirates in the 2017 draft.  Though the Pirates gave the righty a long look at a starter at Triple-A in 2021, Sulser has pitched only as a reliever in his brief MLB career.  Sulser has a 4.12 ERA over 373 1/3 career innings in the minors, with an improved strikeout rate in 2022 as he made the move back to mostly relief pitching.

Head made his Major League debut in 2021, posting a 2.31 ERA over 35 innings out of the Rays’ bullpen.  Seemingly the latest product of Tampa Bay’s nonstop pitching pipeline, Head spent an unusual amount of time moving up and down that pipeline, as the Rays sent the right-hander up and down from Triple-A on 12 different occasions.  Acquired by the Marlins in an offseason trade, Head struggled to a 7.23 ERA over his 23 2/3 innings with Florida’s other team, though he seemed to right the ship with an 1.80 ERA in his brief time with the O’s.

The additions of Garcia and Kolozsvary give the Orioles six catchers on their 40-man roster — an unusually high number even for a team that didn’t have a surefire starter in Adley Rutschman.  However, Robinson Chirinos is a free agent and Cam Gallagher is a non-tender candidate, so bringing more backstops into the fold gives the O’s some flexibility in deciding who will ultimately work as Rutschman’s backup in 2023.  (Anthony Bemboom is the other catcher on the 40-man.)

A second-round pick for the Giants in the 2014 draft, Garcia spent much of his career in San Francisco’s organization before being claimed by the Rangers in November 2020.  That move sparked a whirlwind of movement for the catcher, as the Oriole are now Garcia’s fifth different team within the last 23 months.  Garcia has seen MLB action in four of the last five seasons, totaling 320 plate appearances over 116 games with the Giants (2018-19), Athletics (2021) and Reds (2022).

Other than an .800 OPS in his first 65 PA with San Francisco, Garcia hasn’t shown much at the bat, hitting .216/.253/.332 for his career against big league pitching.  Injuries have played a significant role in Garcia’s career, as he missed all of 2020 recovering from hip surgery, and a finger sprain sent him to Cincinnati’s 60-day injured list last season.  Garcia is projected to earn $800K in his first offseason for arbitration eligibility, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Orioles non-tendered him prior to the deadline, depending on the team’s other plans for its catchers or its 40-man roster space.

Kolozsvary was a seventh-round pick for the Reds in 2017, and today’s waiver claim marks the first organization change of his pro career.  After hitting .215/.326/.343 in an even 1100 PA in the minors, Kolozsvary topped off his Reds tenure by making his Major League debut in 2022, appearing in 10 games.

Tigers Claim Michael Papierski, Designate Ali Sanchez

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The Tigers have claimed catcher Michael Papierski off waivers from the Reds.  In a corresponding roster move, Detroit designated catcher Ali Sanchez for assignment.

With Tucker Barnhart heading into free agency, Papierski’s addition gives the Tigers some extra depth behind the plate beyond Eric Haase.  Jake Rogers is expected to compete for playing time in Spring Training after missing 2022 due to recovery from Tommy John surgery, and prospect Dillon Dingler (who played all of last season at Double-A) might be in line for a late-season debut in the majors.

The waiver claim doesn’t preclude Detroit from making further or larger moves at catcher as the offseason rolls on, yet Papierski is a known quantity to new Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris.  Formerly the Giants’ GM for the last three seasons, Harris oversaw the trade that sent Papierski from the Astros to San Francisco last May, which opened the door for Papierski to make his MLB debut.  Papierski’s tenure with the Giants last just over a month before he went to Cincinnati on another claim.

An LSU product, Papierski was a ninth-round pick for the Astros in the 2017 draft.  Over 1606 career plate appearances in the minors, the backstop has a .222/.356/.337 slash line and 30 home runs.  Papierski couldn’t match this modest slash line in his first exposure to Major League pitching, as he hit .143/.228/.187 over 103 combined PA with the Giants and Reds last season.

Sanchez was claimed off waivers from the Cardinals back in June, but the 25-year-old didn’t see any MLB action with either St. Louis or Detroit in 2022.  Receiving cups of coffee in both 2020 with the Mets and in 2021 with the Cardinals, Sanchez’s MLB resume consists of seven total games.  Known more than his defense than his bat during his time in New York’s farm system, Sanchez has a career .262/.323/.343 slash line over 2045 PA, with six of his eight seasons coming in the Mets organization.  Given the constant need for catching depth around the big leagues, it wouldn’t be surprising to see another club claim Sanchez off the DFA wire, but if he clears, he’ll get attention for minor league contracts this winter.

Offseason Outlook: Cincinnati Reds

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The Reds efforts to slice payroll while remaining at least on the periphery of the Wild Card race fell flat. An 11-game losing streak in April set the stage for what would prove to be a dismal season, with Cincinnati tying the Pirates for the third-worst record in the majors. With questions about the extent of ownership’s desired paring of the payroll, the Reds find themselves without a great path back to contention next year.

Guaranteed Contracts

  • Joey Votto, 1B: $32MM through 2023 (including $7MM buyout of 2024 club option)
  • Mike Moustakas, 3B: $22MM through 2023 (including $4MM buyout of 2024 club option)

Option Decisions

  • Mike Minor, LHP: $13MM mutual option (Royals responsible for $1MM buyout)
  • Justin Wilson, LHP: $1.22MM club option (no buyout)

Total 2023 commitments: $43MM
Total future commitments: $54MM

Arbitration-Eligible Players (service time in parenthesis, projections via Matt Swartz)

Non-tender candidates: Cessa, Aquino, Buck Farmer, Law, Garcia

Free Agents

The Reds aren’t far removed from their last rebuild. Cincinnati lost 90+ games each season from 2015-18, finishing at the bottom of the NL Central every year. They stockpiled high draft picks along the way, and they began to push forward midway through the 2019 campaign. Despite being out of contention at that year’s deadline, they acquired Trevor Bauer via trade. They followed up by signing Mike Moustakas and Nick Castellanos to four-year free agent guarantees, setting 2020 as their clear target date for a return to competitiveness.

To a very small extent, the Reds showed some progress that year. They finished 31-29 during the shortened season, qualifying for the expanded playoffs but being swept out of the Wild Card round. Whatever aggressiveness they’d shown the year prior waned in the aftermath of the pandemic season, as the Reds didn’t make any strong efforts to build out the roster over the 2020-21 offseason. They hovered around .500 for most of last year, flirting with Wild Card contention into September but ultimately coming up short. To the dismay of the fanbase, they then set about tearing down the roster as a means of cutting costs.

Over the winter, the Reds shipped out Tucker Barnhart, Wade Miley, Sonny Gray and Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suárez in a package deal to get out from under the remainder of Suárez’s contract. They watched Castellanos opt out and sign with the Phillies. Cincinnati made a series of late additions, bringing in Tommy Pham, Donovan Solano, Colin Moran and Hunter Strickland on one-year deals and acquiring Mike Minor from the Royals to backfill the rotation. Their host of subtractions left them with no margin for error if they wished to remain competitive, with very little in the way of depth capable of weathering injuries or underperformance from anticipated contributors. The Reds dealt with plenty of both, and the result was a 62-100 season that again leaves the team near the bottom of the majors.

Getting back to competitiveness in 2023 would require an unexpected renewed willingness from ownership to push spending forward, one which doesn’t seem to be on the horizon. Meeting with reporters last week (link via Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer), general manager Nick Krall indicated the team plans to “come into (2023) in a similar place that we are right now.” While Krall called the team’s results “not acceptable” and indicated the club would add to the roster in some capacity, he also suggested the roster would be composed of a number of young players. Most players early in their career, of course, are playing on pre-arbitration or relatively low arbitration salaries, and Nightengale reported the Reds were likely to further slice payroll this offseason.

Cincinnati entered 2022 with a player payroll in the $114MM range, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Midseason trades of Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle only trimmed that further, and Cincinnati is sure to decline its end of a $13MM mutual option on Minor’s services. They only have $43MM in guaranteed money on the books for next season, with the final seasons of the Joey Votto and Moustakas contracts their only commitments. They’ll owe an additional combined $11MM at the end of the year to buy that duo out, leaving the books completely empty going into 2024.

That figure doesn’t include projected salaries for arbitration-eligible players, and the Reds do have 11 players who’ll qualify for that process. Around half that group figures to be non-tendered, though, with utilityman Kyle Farmer headlining the class with a salary in the $6MM range. Even if Cincinnati retains each of Farmer, Nick Senzel, Luis Cessa, Jeff Hoffman, Lucas Sims, Tejay Antone and Justin Dunn, that group shouldn’t combine for much more than $15MM. Precisely where ownership will draw the spending line is unclear, but there should at least be room for a handful of low-cost one-year deals late in the offseason again.

While Krall and his front office will have budgetary constraints in the players they’re targeting, they are free to add at virtually any position on the roster. In his meeting with reporters last week, the front office head suggested nobody has a guaranteed position. “Everyone is going to have to come in and win a roster spot,” Krall said (via Nightengale). “That’s just the way it is. I don’t know if we have a ‘this is going to absolutely be this person’s position on Opening Day.’ I think we have to come in, evaluate where everybody is, and players have to earn those roster spots.”

There’s probably some amount of hyperbole in those comments. It’s hard to envision a scenario where second-year pitchers Nick Lodolo and Hunter Greene aren’t in the Opening Day rotation if healthy. Tyler Stephenson will be the #1 catcher, and 2021 NL Rookie of the Year Jonathan India figures to get an opportunity to bounce back from a down ’22 campaign at second base. The Reds do have a few young players who are virtual locks for certain roles to start next season.

To Krall’s point, there aren’t many positions locked down though. Much of the infield is an open question. Votto is a franchise icon and a potential future Hall of Famer, but he hit only .205/.319/.370 over 376 plate appearances before undergoing rotator cuff surgery in August. It’s hard to imagine the Reds taking him out of the primary lineup in what figures to be a non-competitive season regardless, but they could look to curtail his playing time a bit at age 39. Votto is entering the final guaranteed season of the ten-year extension he signed in 2012, and it could well be his final season in a Reds uniform.

India figures to join him on the right side of the infield on most days. The other side of the second base bag is a major question mark. Cincinnati gave some late-season playing time to the combination of José Barrero and Spencer Steer, the latter of whom was acquired from the Twins in the Mahle trade. Both players are 24 years old and came with some top-100 prospect support during their time in the minor leagues. Neither has played well in limited big league time to date. Steer has been below-average, and Barrero had an awful season, both in the majors and at Triple-A.

Steer saw the majority of his time at third base, mixing in some work at first base and at the keystone. Barrero played exclusively at shortstop. Steer has hit well throughout his minor league career and is likely to open the season as the favorite for playing time at the hot corner, but the Reds could start him back in Triple-A Louisville if they feel he’d benefit from further development time. It’s hard to count on Barrero as the Opening Day shortstop after he’s hit .170/.215/.223 through his first 93 big league games. Top prospect Elly De La Cruz has jumped Barrero as the player most likely to be their long-term shortstop. He’ll have to be added to the 40-man roster this winter. De La Cruz isn’t going to start the season in the majors after striking out in more than 30% of his Double-A plate appearances, but he could factor in later in the year. Noelvi Marte is also going to be added to the 40-man this offseason, although he’s yet to reach Double-A and probably won’t play in the majors until 2024 at the earliest.

In the interim, while the Reds would surely love for Barrero to show some of the power-athleticism combination that made him such a well-regarded prospect, they could look to a veteran stopgap at shortstop. Perhaps that’s Kyle Farmer, who has been a capable utility option for two seasons running. The 32-year-old is better suited for a bench role than an everyday job on a contender, but he can hold down shortstop (or third base, if the Reds wanted to give Steer more time in Louisville as well) for a team in transition. There’s a chance the Reds shop Farmer this winter, but he’s projected for a $5.9MM arbitration salary and would have modest trade value after a .255/.315/.386 showing.

Moustakas is also at least a tangential factor in the infield. The veteran left-handed hitter was a productive power bat at his peak, but he’s battled a number of lower half injuries and hit .211/.289/.356 over 491 plate appearances since the start of 2021. One could argue for the Reds to just eat the remainder of Moustakas’ contract and turn his roster spot over to someone else, since they’re certainly not going to be able to shed any notable amount of the $22MM he’s still owed in any event. Yet if he’s still on the roster come Opening Day, Moustakas could find himself in the corner infield/designated hitter mix.

Things aren’t any clearer on the outfield grass. Among players still under club control, Senzel, Aristides Aquino, TJ Friedl and Jake Fraley logged the most outfield action in 2022. Aquino and Senzel again disappointed. Aquino is virtually certain to be non-tendered this offseason. Cincinnati could at least consider the same with Senzel, who now owns a .240/.303/.360 line in over 1000 big league plate appearances. Those rough offensive performances mean he’s projected for a modest $2.2MM arbitration salary, however, and the front office will probably give the former #2 overall pick one more shot. Friedl and Fraley will be back after decent seasons; neither is an obvious everyday player, but each could see fairly regular playing time depending on what other moves the Reds do or do not make.

With both Friedl and Fraley hitting from the left side, a right-handed outfielder could be on the wish list. Chad Pinder, Wil Myers (who’ll be bought out by the Padres), Kevin Pillar and old friend Adam Duvall are among the affordable free agents who’d fit that bill. Pillar and Duvall are both capable of logging some time in center field, although neither is a great defender there at this stage of their careers.

Cincinnati is also likely to bring in a veteran catcher to back up Stephenson. Garcia signed a minor league deal and broke camp last spring, but he didn’t hit well when healthy and lost most of the second half to injury. He’s a non-tender candidate, with the Reds likely to bring in a new experienced backstop to assume a part-time role. Robinson Chirinos, Kevin Plawecki and former Reds Barnhart and Curt Casali are all headed to free agency.

With a number of unproven players likely to assume regular roles, the team will be counting on some to take steps forward. Cincinnati has already parted ways with hitting coach Alan Zinter and will turn to a new voice to guide their young bats. Manager David Bell will return for a fifth season, but a good chunk of his coaching staff will be overhauled.

That’s not the case for pitching coach Derek Johnson and assistant pitching coach Eric Jagers, both of whom are returning. They’ll be working with a number of young players themselves. Lodolo and Greene are former top ten draftees who made their major league debuts early this year. Both missed some time with injuries but showed promise when healthy. Lodolo pitched to a 3.66 ERA with an excellent 29.7% strikeout rate through 19 starts. Greene had a 4.44 ERA as he battled some home run issues, but he punched out 30.9% of batters faced over 24 outings.

They’ll be back at the top of the rotation, and another 2022 rookie could join them in the opening five. Graham Ashcraft made 19 starts this season, pitching fairly well early before tailing off in the final month. He finished with a 4.89 ERA, posting a below-average 15.3% strikeout rate but inducing ground-balls at a stellar 54.5% clip. Ashcraft isn’t a lock for the Opening Day rotation as Lodolo and Greene are, but he looks to have the inside track at a job.

That’s in part a reflection of the uncertainty at the back of the starting staff. Among in-house options, Cessa, Vladimir Gutiérrez, Dunn and Connor Overton led the team in rotation innings. Cessa is a swingman who could be non-tendered. Gutiérrez will miss most or all off next year recovering from Tommy John surgery. Dunn lost most of this season to shoulder issues and hasn’t had much MLB success through three seasons. Overton has bounced between a number of teams as a minor league journeyman. Brandon Williamson, acquired from Seattle in the Winker/Suárez trade, walked more than 14% of opponents at Triple-A. Anyone from that group could compete for innings, but penciling two of them into the season-opening rotation behind Lodolo, Greene and Ashcraft wouldn’t work.

The Reds will probably dip into the lower tiers of the free agent rotation market as a result. Chad Kuhl, Michael Pineda and Trevor Williams are among a host of back-end starters who’d only cost a few million dollars. The Reds’ hitter-friendly home ballpark could work against their efforts to pursue bounceback candidates, but they can promise a fair bit of opportunity.

There’s a chance for a similar low-cost flier in the bullpen. Cincinnati has had one of the league’s worst relief corps over the past couple seasons. Alexis Díaz was one of the team’s few bright spots in 2022, emerging as a late-game weapon. He’s not likely to repeat this year’s 1.84 ERA with how many fly balls he’s surrendered, but he’s a lock for high-leverage work. 2021 breakout hurler Antone missed all of this season rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, but he should be ready for Opening Day. Sims, Hoffman and Ian Gibaut are among the returning right-handed options, but the Reds could look for a left-hander.

Cincinnati holds a $1.22MM club option over Justin Wilson, but he’s likely to be let go after undergoing Tommy John surgery this June. Reiver Sanmartin is the only southpaw who finished the year in the MLB bullpen. He had a 2.96 ERA and a 54.3% grounder rate, but he had below-average strikeout and walk numbers. Even if the front office doesn’t go into MLB free agency, adding a left-handed bullpen arm via waivers or on a minor league deal is likely to be on the docket.

While Krall and his staff figure to make some small moves, the additions are likely to be around the margins. The 2023 campaign is going to be another trying season, with the Reds seemingly looking to 2024 and beyond as their more realistic window for contention. Cincinnati has stockpiled a decent amount of minor league talent, partially as a result of the deals that have torn down the MLB roster. Shortly after the trade deadline, Kiley McDaniel of ESPN ranked the Reds’ farm system #9 in the majors. As that upper level talent continues to matriculate to the big leagues and hopefully joins Stephenson, India, Lodolo and Greene, Cincinnati can begin to see their next contending core.

That’ll coincide with the removal of the Votto and the Moustakas contracts from the books. The long-term financial flexibility could allow them to explore extension talks with any of their intriguing young players who are already at the big league level this winter. Even if nothing comes together on that front, it should afford the front office some freedom after 2023 to attack some of the roster’s weaknesses with more urgency. There are glimmers of long-term hope for Cincinnati, but the fanbase looks to be in for another frustrating offseason and rough year before that hope can materialize into legitimate success.

GM Nick Krall Discusses Reds’ Roster

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The Reds’ .383 winning percentage in 2022 ranks as the sixth-worst mark in the franchise’s 122-year history. Over the past 24 months, they’ve traded away former mainstays Luis Castillo, Tyler Mahle, Sonny Gray, Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suarez, Raisel Iglesias, Tucker Barnhart and Amir Garrett. Once names like Donovan Solano, Mike Minor and Hunter Strickland formally become free agents after the postseason, the Reds will be left with one of the league’s youngest rosters. When addressing the team’s ugly season yesterday, general manager Nick Krall suggested that the roster will remain one of the youngest in the league next year (link via Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer).

“We’re going to come into (2023) in a similar place that we are right now,” said Krall. While the GM suggested the team will “try to make improvements,” his subsequent comments about how everyone will need to earn a spot on next year’s roster in Spring Training don’t exactly portend an active winter on the player acquisition front.

“I don’t know if we have a ‘this is going to absolutely be this person’s position on Opening Day,” Krall stated. Those comments are particularly eye-opening given the presence of stalwart first baseman Joey Votto still being on the roster, though the 39-year-old will be entering the final season of his 10-year contract in 2023. Mike Moustakas, the only other guaranteed contract on the books, is also entering the final season of his four-year deal but has played himself out of an everyday role over the past two seasons, hitting .212/.289/.356 in 491 plate appearances. There’s also 2021 NL Rookie of the Year Jonathan India to consider; he’s not signed to a long-term contract and is in search of a rebound at the plate after taking a step back in ’22, but one would still think he’s in line for regular playing time.

Setting aside any implications for players currently on the roster, Krall’s comments seem to further suggest what was already largely assumed — that the Reds aren’t likely to fill any of their numerous holes with a free agent of note or swing any sort of trade for established Major League talent. That fact is further reinforced by Nightengale reporting within the piece that the payroll, which has decreased in each of the past two seasons, is likely to be pared even further back in 2023.

The Reds spent $106MM on the roster in 2022, but with several in-season trades and now Minor, Solano and Strickland coming off the books, that figure will be easy to reduce. Votto and Moustakas, owed a combined $43MM, are the only guaranteed contracts remaining for the Reds next year. They’ll have a slate of players eligible for arbitration, but none who can be expected to command salaries of real note. Buck Farmer, Luis Cessa, Kyle Farmer, Lucas Sims, Jeff Hoffman, Nick Senzel, Tejay Antone, Justin Dunn, Aramis Garcia, Derek Law and Aristides Aquino will all be eligible for arbitration this winter, but several of those names are non-tender candidates — and the ones who’ll clearly be tendered (e.g. Antone) won’t have particularly high salaries.

Just how low the payroll will be stripped down remains unclear. The very presence of Votto and Moustakas means that even if the roster were rounded out solely with pre-arbitration players — which obviously won’t happen — the Reds would spend at least $60MM. They’ll very likely run out a heftier budget than that, but Krall’s end-of-season comments and the recent trajectory of the Cincinnati payroll don’t give fans much hope that reinforcements are on the way.

It’s been a brutal several years for Reds fans, who were subjected to six straight losing seasons from 2014-19. The trades made along the way, intended to rebuild the farm system, generally didn’t bear as much fruit as hoped, but the Reds still cultivated a strong rotation, spent on key free agents like Nick Castellanos, and made the playoffs in the shortened 2020 season. That looked to have set the stage for a return to prominence in the NL Central, but Reds ownership has instead been among the most aggressive groups in baseball at shedding payroll in the wake of the shortened 2020 season and the absence of gate revenue.

The latest rebuild looks to be off to a better start — the return from the Castillo trade, in particular, is viewed to be a strong one — but it’ll likely be a couple more years before the Reds’ system yields a viable Major League core. By that point, they’ll be approaching a decade of losing baseball, with the only respite being the two-month sprint in the midst of the pandemic — when fans weren’t even able to enjoy the success in person.

34 Players Become Free Agents

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The Wild Card round of the 2022 postseason begins today, but for the majority of teams and players, the offseason is now underway. With that will come plenty of roster formalities, including veteran players who’ve been outrighted off their respective teams’ rosters reaching minor league free agency. This week, there have been 34 such instances throughout the league, per the transactions log at MiLB.com.

None of these are a surprise, to be clear. Any player who is not on his team’s 40-man roster at season’s end but has three-plus years of Major League service time, multiple career outright assignments and/or seven-plus seasons in the minors has the right to elect free agency. Everyone in today’s group of players falls under that umbrella. The majority of the group will likely find minor league deals over the winter, although a few of the players in question could potentially find a big league deal as a bench piece or middle-inning reliever.

There will be several more waves of players of this ilk, and we’ll make note of them in bunches over the coming weeks as we await the launch of Major League free agency, when all unsigned players with at least six years of Major League service time will reach the open market. For now, here’s the first of what will likely be several waves of newly minted minor league free agents:

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Pitchers

Reds Part Ways With Hitting Coach Alan Zinter, Five Others

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The Reds are parting ways with a number of coaches on the heels of a disappointing season. The team announced Thursday that hitting coach Alan Zinter, bullpen coach Lee Tunnell, first base/infield coach Delino DeShields, advance scouting coach Cristian Pérez and assistant coach Rolando Valles have all been let go. Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that senior director of performance/health Geoff Head also will not be offered a new contract.

Manager David Bell will return in 2023, tweets Charlie Goldsmith of the Enquirer. It’ll be the fifth season at the helm for the 50-year-old, who signed an extension last September that runs through the end of next season.

Cincinnati’s coaching changes wrap up a frustrating year for the organization. The Reds lost 100 games in 2022, tying them with the Pirates for the third-worst record in the majors. They dropped 21 games in the standings relative to last year’s 83-79 mark. Cincinnati’s only postseason appearance since 2013 came as part of an expanded playoff field during the shortened 2020 season.

As one would imagine for a team that won just 62 games, the Reds underachieved in a number of areas. Both the starting rotation and bullpen finished 28th in ERA (4.97 and 4.75, respectively). Those dismal results weren’t unforeseeable. The Reds had one of the league’s worst relief units in 2021 and were without two of their better late-game arms — Tejay Antone and Lucas Sims — for most or all of this season.

Over the past calendar year, Cincinnati also parted with all four of its top starting pitchers. Wade Miley was waived to shed $10MM from the books last November, while Sonny Gray was traded to the Twins in Spring Training. Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle stuck on the roster until the summer but were flipped to the Mariners and Twins, respectively, before the deadline. Cincinnati wound up giving 62 combined starts to the rookie trio of Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo and Graham Ashcraft. While each of them showed promise, they all battled injuries and Greene and Ashcraft were up-and-down from a performance perspective.

The club’s issues weren’t limited to the pitching staff. Despite playing in one of the sport’s most hitter-friendly home environments, they finished the year ranked 23rd in runs scored. The Reds placed 21st in batting average (.235), 24th in on-base percentage (.304) and 26th in slugging (.372). By measure of wRC+, which accounts for the ballpark, Cincinnati’s lineup was 15 percentage points below league average. Only the Pirates, A’s and Tigers were less productive.

That’s certainly not all the fault of Zinter, who’d coached Reds hitters for the past three seasons. Cincinnati dealt Jesse Winker to the Mariners to get out from under the remainder of Eugenio Suárez’s contract this past offseason. (Somewhat ironically, Winker was just alright in Seattle while Suárez had his best season since his 49-homer campaign in 2019). Promising young catcher Tyler Stephenson suffered a trio of freak injuries that kept him to 50 games and derailed what looked like a breakout season.

Nevertheless, there were a number of disappointing performances throughout the lineup. Of the 14 Reds hitters to tally 200+ plate appearances, only three had a wRC+ above the 100 league average. Offseason minor league signee Brandon Drury was excellent and flipped to the Padres midseason. The only other above-average hitters on a rate basis were outfielders Jake Fraley and TJ Friedl, both of whom played just under half the team’s games. Reigning NL Rookie of the Year Jonathan India took a step back, hitting .249/.327/.378 through 431 plate appearances. Former top prospects Nick Senzel and José Barrero haven’t yet shown themselves capable of hitting big league pitching.

The Reds will go in a new direction on the staff in search of better offensive results going into 2023. Cincinnati is facing an uphill battle to compete next season, but they’ll hope a new voice can help unlock stronger play from a number of their young hitters.

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