9:35am: Miley’s deal pays him a prorated $2.5MM salary in the majors and comes with an additional $1.5MM available via incentives, Mark Sheldon of MLB.com reports.
8:57am: The Reds announced Wednesday that they’ve signed left-hander Wade Miley to a one-year, major league contract. The O’Connell Sports client recently opted out of a minor league deal with Cincinnati and briefly became a free agent, but he’s back in the fold and on the major league roster. To make room on the active roster, the Reds placed top starter Hunter Greene on the 15-day IL due to a groin strain. Top prospect Rhett Lowder, who’s been on the injured list all season due to a forearm strain, moves from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL to clear a spot on the 40-man roster.
Miley, 38, will return to the majors after a 14-month absence. The veteran southpaw made two starts for the Brewers last year but suffered a torn UCL during the second of those two outings. He openly contemplated retirement but wound up opting to undergo Tommy John surgery and give it one more go in the majors. He inked a minor league deal to return for a second stint with Cincinnati, where he pitched from 2020-21.
Miley’s 2025 season has been spent rehabbing from that UCL surgery. He’s had a rough stretch in the minors, though a disproportionate amount of the damage done against him came in his first game, when he yielded six runs in just 2 1/3 innings with the Reds’ High-A club. Some early rust is understandable, and while Miley hasn’t exactly dominated since that time, he’s pitched more effectively as he shakes off the rust. He’s lasted five innings in two of his past three starts, allowing two runs in one and keeping his opponents scoreless in the other. That pair of solid outings was encouraging, but they also bookended an ugly May 25 outing in which he allowed four runs and didn’t escape the first inning.
Overall, Miley has an 8.84 ERA on his rehab stint, but he’s been more good than bad recently. Clearly, the Reds felt his stuff looked good enough to place him onto the major league roster. They could’ve gone with top prospect Chase Petty or journeyman Aaron Wilkerson — both of whom are pitching well in Triple-A this season. Petty is already on the 40-man roster and has made a brief MLB debut already. Instead, Reds brass was encouraged enough by the work Miley has put in that they feel he merits a look in the majors.
Time will tell if Miley can still pitch effectively in the big leagues. He didn’t get much of a chance to do so in 2024 prior to that elbow injury, but from 2021-23, Miley logged a tidy 3.26 ERA across 320 1/3 innings between a trio of NL Central rivals: the Reds, Cubs and Brewers.
Getting back to that level is a tough ask for a 38-year-old coming off Tommy John surgery, but Cincinnati doesn’t need Miley to pitch like an ace. The Reds have received outstanding work from each of Greene (2.72 ERA in 59 2/3 innings), Andrew Abbott (1.51 ERA in 47 2/3 innings), Nick Lodolo (3.10 ERA in 69 2/3 innings) and Nick Martinez (3.89 ERA in 69 1/3 innings). If Miley can simply hold down the fort during Greene’s absence and pitch like a competent back-of-the-rotation arm, the Reds’ rotation would still be among the best in the sport.
Turning to the 25-year-old Greene, this will be his second IL stint of the season due to a groin injury. He missed two weeks in mid-May due to a similar injury. Greene was lifted from his most recent start due to recurring tightness, and he’ll now sit back down for at least another two weeks. He’s been among the best pitchers in the National League dating back to last year — combined 210 innings, 2.74 ERA, 28.5% strikeout rate, 8.4% walk rate — making his recovery a particularly notable one for the Reds. He’s in the third season of a six-year, $53MM contract extension signed in April 2023.
As for Lowder, his move to the 60-day IL is largely procedural. He’s already spent more than 60 days on the injured list, and the shift from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL does not reset his eligibility for a return. The 2023 No. 7 overall pick went out on a rehab stint from the forearm injury that’s plagued him in mid-May and looked to be trending toward a return before he suffered an oblique strain during one of his rehab starts. The Reds have since shut him back down from throwing. It’s notable that Lowder’s arm appears to be healthy again, but he’ll need to let that oblique strain mend for at least another couple weeks before starting from scratch on a new minor league rehab stint.
