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Offseason In Review: Cincinnati Reds

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The Reds swung a few notable trades to bring some new talent onto the roster, as manager Terry Francona will try to lead the team back into contention.

Major League Signings

2025 spending: $28.55MM
Total spending: $28.55MM

Option Decisions

Trades & Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

Notable Losses

Starting with some bigger-picture news from the Reds' winter, the club gained some slight stability on the broadcasting front when it signed a one-year contract with the FanDuel Sports Network, a.k.a. the rebranded Bally Sports Network.  The Reds' broadcasts were previously handed by Bally and parent company Diamond Sports Group, but Cincinnati was one of many teams whose TV future was thrown into question when DSG went into bankruptcy proceedings in March 2023.  DSG and Bally re-emerged under the Main Street Sports and FanDuel Sports Network banners, and several MLB teams chose to re-engage with their old partners under short-term agreements.

The Reds had reached a deal with Major League Baseball itself to handle broadcasts for the 2025 season, but in choosing to re-up with Main Street Sports, the Reds may be giving themselves some flexibility for future deals if all goes well this year.  It is also fair to assume that the Reds are getting at least a bit more money off this new deal than they were getting from MLB, even if terms of the new contract (or the terms of the MLB broadcast deal) weren't made public.

Here's the bottom line as it relates to the club's on-field endeavors --- the Reds had a bit more cash to invest in payroll, as president of baseball operations Nick Krall said in January.  Given the timing, it could be that the Reds might not have been able to trade for Taylor Rogers or sign Austin Hays without those extra funds coming into the team's revenue stream.

Team COO/CFO Doug Healy said in November that the Reds' payroll would either remain stable or go up in the aftermath of the broadcast deal with MLB, and that proved to be the case even with the change in broadcast partners.  The Reds finished last season with an approximate payroll of $100MM (as per RosterResource) and the club now has roughly $115.3MM committed to its 2025 roster as we approach Opening Day.

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Royals Acquire Mark Canha From Brewers

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March 24: Canha was officially added to the 40-man today, as announced by the Royals. No corresponding move was necessary because they had several vacancies, with their 40-man count now at 38.

March 21: The Brewers are trading first baseman/outfielder Mark Canha to the Royals, report Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of The New York Post. According to Anne Rogers of MLB.com, Milwaukee receives a player to be named or cash in return.

Canha signed a minor league deal with the Brewers last month. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams wrote yesterday, the 10-year veteran is one of a number of players who could soon opt out of that contract if not added to the major league roster. Kansas City evidently was more willing to carry him on the MLB club, as Rogers notes that Canha will join their bench. They’ll need to add him to the 40-man roster by next Thursday. He’ll lock in a $1.4MM base salary for this season.

The Royals have looked for a right-handed bat to add some balance to their outfield. They reportedly offered Adam Duvall a major league contract a few weeks ago, but he declined in search of a $3MM guarantee. Canha will now take that role after combining for a .242/.344/.346 slash between the Tigers and Giants last season. His numbers have trended down in three consecutive years, but he still takes plenty of walks while putting the ball in play a little more often than the average hitter.

Canha hits left-handed pitching well. He owns a .258/.356/.419 line across nearly 500 plate appearances against southpaws over the last three seasons. He should take a few at-bats from MJ Melendez and could spell Vinnie Pasquantino at first base against lefty pitching. Kansas City didn’t get much out of righty-swinging Hunter Renfroe in right field last season, either, so Canha could factor in there too in less of a strict platoon role.

Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript

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MLBTR's Steve Adams hosted a chat today at 3pm CT, exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers.

 

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Braves Release Dany Jimenez

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The Braves have released right-handed reliever Dany Jimenez, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. He was non-tendered by the A’s in November and signed a minor league deal with Atlanta back in mid-January.

The 31-year-old Jimenez appeared in three spring games for Atlanta but only totaled one inning. He faced ten batters, walked five of them and allowed a pair of runs to score. He was never a likely candidate to make the roster, but he’ll now look for new opportunities rather than head to Triple-A Gwinnett. The Braves selected Hector Neris and Enyel De Los Santos earlier this week, adding to a bullpen that was already anchored by several notable veterans (Raisel Iglesias, Pierce Johnson, Aaron Bummer, Dylan Lee). Atlanta’s general bullpen depth didn’t leave a particularly strong path toward earning a big league look.

Jimenez posted a 3.43 ERA in 57 2/3 big league innings from 2022-23 despite a pedestrian 23% strikeout rate and bloated 13.4% walk rate. His strike-throwing woes intensified in 2024, when Jimenez walked more than 16% of his opponents en route to a 4.91 earned run average across 25 2/3 frames. His average fastball also fell off noticeably, per Statcast, falling from his career-high 93.9 mph in 2022 to 92.5 mph in 2024.

Given the down year in 2024 and the pronounced struggles when he got his few looks in big league camp with Atlanta, Jimenez will likely be limited to a minor league deal wherever he lands. He does have two option years and another four seasons of club control remaining, but he’d need to pitch his way onto a 40-man roster with a nice performance in Triple-A before those factors much of a consideration.

White Sox Release Omar Narváez, Reassign Chase Meidroth

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The White Sox today informed catcher Omar Narváez and infielder Chase Meidroth that they would not be making the Opening Day roster. The news was relayed by James Fegan of Sox Machine. Meidroth, a prospect not on the 40-man roster, will start the season at Triple-A Charlotte. Narváez is a veteran who was in camp on a minor league deal. He had an opt-out in that deal and has now been released, though Fegan suggests it’s possible he re-signs on a new minor league deal.

Narváez, 33, has had some good seasons but is coming off a rough two-year stretch. He signed a two-year, $15MM deal with the Mets going into 2023 but that pact went south quickly. He suffered a significant left calf strain in the first season of the deal. He only got into 49 games and hit just .211/.283/.297. To start 2024, he put up a line .154/.191/.185 and was released in early June. A minor league deal with the Astros didn’t get him back on track, as he hit .196/.325/.304 for their Triple-A club down the stretch.

For what it’s worth, his numbers have been more respectable in camp with the White Sox. He had a .250/.400/.333 line in 30 spring plate appearances. However, the Sox are going to roll with Korey Lee and Matt Thaiss as their catching duo, which squeezed out Narváez.

He’ll now have a chance to see what opportunities are available to him in the next few days. He had a solid track record prior to that ill-fated Mets deal, with a .251/.334/.374 career batting line and 96 wRC+ through the end of the 2022 season. His defense wasn’t well regarded when he first made the big leagues but became stronger as his career progressed. Several clubs in the league are dealing with catcher injuries, so he might get a few calls, but it also seems possible he returns to the Sox to give them some non-roster depth.

As for Meidroth, he was just acquired from the Red Sox as part of the Garrett Crochet deal. He spent last year at Triple-A and hit .293/.437/.400 over 122 games. That perhaps gave him a chance to crack the big league roster out of camp but he hit just .154/.313/.179 here in the spring.

That will get him sent back to the Triple-A level to start the year but a midseason promotion should be attainable with a good stretch of play. He has spent a lot of time at the three infield spots to the left of first base and the Sox don’t have a lot of certainty in their middle infield right now, with guys like Jacob Amaya and Lenyn Sosa seemingly slated for a lot of playing time.

Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images

Cardinals’ Nick Anderson Clears Waivers, Will Report To Triple-A

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March 24: Anderson was not claimed and will open the season in Triple-A Memphis. He has a straight opt-out clause (as opposed to his current upward mobility clause) on May 30, per Alexander.

March 22: Anderson will indeed be exercising his upward mobility clause tomorrow, KPRC 2’s Ari Alexander reports.

March 18: The Cardinals reassigned righty Nick Anderson to minor league camp, but the right-hander has an upward mobility clause in his minor league deal, reports Katie Woo of The Athletic. Effectively, that forces the Cardinals to make him available to the 29 other teams and let him go if another club is willing to place him on its 40-man roster.

More specifically, MLBTR has learned that Anderson will be available to other clubs on March 23. They’ll have 24 hours to decide whether they want to claim him and place him on the 40-man roster. If another team is willing to do so, the Cardinals will have 72 hours to counter by placing him on their own 40-man roster; if they choose not to, they have to let him go. Anderson’s deal contains a $1.1MM base salary in the big leagues.

Anderson, 34, has had a rollercoaster career. At times, he’s been flat-out dominant, as was the case in 2019-20, when he pitched 81 1/3 innings of 2.77 ERA ball with a ridiculous 42.2% strikeout rate and 6.5% walk rate. He’s never quite recreated that success but has generally been effective when healthy. That, unfortunately, has proven to be a major caveat for the oft-injured righty.

Though he debuted in 2019 and has more than five years of MLB service, Anderson only has 158 1/3 innings of major league work under his belt. He’s been sidelined by a laundry list of injuries, including a shoulder strain, and internal brace procedure on his right ulnar collateral ligament, plantar fasciitis, a back strain and forearm inflammation. All of those injuries have occurred since 2020.

It’s been a mixed bag for Anderson this spring. He’s had a few solid outings but was tagged for four runs in one-third of an inning midway through camp. In his final appearance before being sent out to minor league camp, he gave up a pair of solo homers in an inning of work. Overall, he’s yielded eight runs on 11 hits and two walks and six strikeouts in 5 1/3 frames — a grisly 13.50 ERA. It’s a small sample that’s heavily skewed by that one particularly awful outing, but it’s still not an ideal set of results when hoping another club might come calling with a 40-man roster opportunity.

Rocky spring notwithstanding, Anderson touts a 3.18 earned run average in the majors and has paired that with plus strikeout and walk rates of 31.6% and 7.2%, respectively. If a club watched him during Grapefruit League play and felt his raw stuff outshined the small-sample run prevention numbers, it’s feasible that his track record and current health could prompt another team to take a look. His $1.1MM base salary is only $340K north of league minimum. However, because he has five-plus years of MLB service, Anderson would need to consent to be optioned with another team, which only throws another layer into the equation when weighing the possibility of adding him once he’s formally available.

Latest On Jordan Montgomery

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Diamondbacks left-hander Jordan Montgomery has been a logical trade candidate for a while but remains on the club with Opening Day just around the corner. It was reported last week that talks were still ongoing, perhaps make a late spring deal seem possible. However, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports today that the Snakes have asked at least one team to take on $13MM of the lefty’s salary this year.

Perhaps that is just an aggressive bargaining position, but if that’s what the Diamondbacks are looking to unload, they are unlikely to line something up. The starting pitching market was quite aggressive early in the winter but has cooled off in recent weeks. Since the middle of February, Andrew Heaney, Jose Quintana and Kyle Gibson have all signed one-year deals with guarantees between $4.25 and $5.25MM.

Montgomery theoretically has a higher ceiling than anyone in that group. From 2021 to 2023, he made 94 starts and logged 524 1/3 innings. He had a 3.48 earned run average, 22.5% strikeout rate, 6.2% walk rate and 44.5% ground ball rate. FanGraphs considered him to be worth 10.3 wins above replacement for that span. He was a key part of the 2023 Rangers team that won the World Series.

Quintana had some stretches like that earlier in his career but has been more of a back-end guy in recent years. Heaney has shown some occasional flashes but never been at that level for long. Gibson has been a back-end type for most of his career.

But the reason Montgomery is available is because his 2024 season was so awful. He lingered unsigned until very late and never really got into a good groove. His results were poor enough that he eventually got bumped to the bullpen. He finished the year with a 6.23 ERA in 117 innings. Owner Ken Kendrick publicly slammed the signing, pointing the finger at himself since he encouraged the front office to pursue Montgomery.

The one-year, $25MM agreement came with a vesting player option for 2025. If the southpaw made just ten starts last year, he would unlock a $20MM player option and could bump the value to $22.5MM at 18 starts, which he did. After his rough season, he made the obvious choice to trigger the player option.

There are several clubs around the league with pitching needs after some recent injuries but it would be a shock to see any club take on $13MM of the deal. Most teams are low on remaining payroll space at this point and that $13MM figure would be more than double the Heaney/Gibson/Quintana guarantees.

As mentioned, that could have just been an opening bid and maybe the Diamondbacks are willing to budge, but it also seems possible Montgomery will start the season in long relief. They have a rotation of Zac Gallen, Corbin Burnes, Merrill Kelly, Eduardo Rodríguez and Brandon Pfaadt. An injury could open up an opportunity for Montgomery but Ryne Nelson will also be in the mix after he posted a 3.23 ERA in the second half of last year. That will make it hard for Montgomery to get back into the rotation and in a good swing of things, which will subsequently make it difficult for him to build value as a trade candidate this summer or as a free agent this coming winter.

Photo courtesy of Rob Schumacher, Imagn Images

Ranger Suarez To Begin Season On Injured List; Taijuan Walker To Rejoin Rotation

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March 24: Suarez will indeed open the 2025 season on the injured list, per Zolecki. Walker will be the Phillies’ fifth starter. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski tells the Phillies beat that Suarez could potentially pitch in the majors sometime in April if he continues his current progression with no setbacks.

March 23: Ranger Suarez has been dealing with a bad back over the last week, and it seems like the Phillies will give the left-hander some extra time to recover by placing him on the 15-day injured list to begin the season.  Manager Rob Thomson more or less confirmed the move today, as MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki noted that Thomson told reporters post-game that the Phillies “expect Ranger to go on the IL,” but stated in an interview during the game that Suarez would definitively be placed on the 15-day.

The move seems largely precautionary, as Thomson said “We don’t want this thing to linger. So if we do officially IL him, we don’t think it’s going to be long.”  Zolecki notes that Suarez might just miss a single start if he spends only the 15-day minimum on the sidelines, due to the three-day backdating available for IL placements and the fact that the Phillies have three off-days within the first 12 days of the regular season.

Back problems hampered Suarez last year, effectively bifurcating what initially seemed like a breakout season for the left-hander.  Suarez had a sparkling 1.83 ERA over his first 98 1/3 innings of the 2024 campaign, and then a 6.54 ERA in his final 52 1/3 innings once his back started causing problems.  Suarez skipped the All-Star Game to spend the break resting his back, but Philadelphia ended up placing him on the 15-day IL anyway, which kept Suarez out of action for a month.

This early-season IL trip might well help Suarez get in front of any injury problems early, as trying to pitch through his bad back might’ve only worsened the issue last year.  The Phillies aren’t really losing much by resting him early, plus Taijuan Walker is on hand to step into the rotation.

Walker has looked good for much of Spring Training, though his last start saw the Yankees tee off for six earned runs over 3 2/3 innings of work from the right-hander.  As always, spring results aren’t necessarily as important as process, and Zolecki writes that Walker’s four-seamer has added over three miles miles per hours of added velocity, plus Walker’s splitter has also looked better.  In a sense, there’s nowhere to go but up for Walker after a dismal 2024 season that saw him post a 7.10 ERA in 83 2/3 innings.

Offseason In Review: Seattle Mariners

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Despite some glaring needs for offense, the Mariners only ended up tinkering a bit with their lineup after a pretty quiet offseason.

Major League Signings

2025 spending: $11.25MM
Total spending: $11.25MM

Option Decisions

Trades & Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None

Notable Losses

After a few months of scouring the free agent and trade markets for a replacement for second baseman Jorge Polanco, the Mariners ended up signing....third baseman Jorge Polanco, brought back on a one-year deal worth $7.75MM in guaranteed money, and with a vesting option that could guarantee Polanco at least $6MM in 2026.  Polanco has played the vast majority of his nine MLB seasons as a middle infielder, but he does have 24 games of experience as a third baseman, with 15 of those games coming as recently as the 2023 season when he was still a member of the Twins.

Polanco's defensive metrics as a second baseman were mostly subpar, and his lack of a strong throwing arm raises questions about how well he'll translate to the hot corner.  However, the bigger issue might be whether or not Polanco can rebound from a rough year at the plate.  The infielder hit only .213/.296/.355 over 469 plate appearances with Seattle in 2024, while also missing a month due to a hamstring strain, and undergoing surgery in October to correct a lingering left knee problem.

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Yankees Sign Ryan Yarbrough

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10:57am: The Yankees have formally announced the contract. Gil was placed on the 60-day IL to open a roster spot for Yarbrough.

9:45am: Yarbrough is guaranteed $2MM on the deal and can earn another $250K via incentives, ESPN’s Jorge Castillo reports. Since the Yankees are in the top tier of luxury penalization, that comes with a 110% tax. Yarbrough will cost them a total of $4.2MM.

9:16am: The Yankees and free agent left-hander Ryan Yarbrough have agreed to a major league contract, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The Excel Sports client opted out of a minor league deal with the division-rival Blue Jays over the weekend and was granted his release.

Yarbrough, 33, has spent the bulk of his career in the AL East, most of it with the Rays, for whom he pitched from 2018-22. He spent about half the 2024 season with the Jays, pitching well after coming over in a trade with the Dodgers. Yarbrough logged 31 1/3 frames with Toronto and notched a pristine 2.01 ERA with a 22.2% strikeout rate and 6% walk rate.

Yarbrough finished the ’24 season with a career-low 3.19 ERA in 98 2/3 innings, but that came with a paltry 16.3% strikeout rate and one of the tamest fastballs in the sport — averaging just 86.5 mph, per Statcast. Yarbrough sat 89-90 mph as a starter early in his career, but like new teammate Tim Hill, is now more reliant on an unusual delivery and soft contact. Yarbrough rarely allows hard contact (29.4%) and has plus command that helps him offset his lack of missed bats.

That reliance on soft contact does lead to some year-to-year inconsistencies in Yarbrough’s ERA, but the cumulative results have been solid. In 768 big league innings, Yarbrough has a 4.21 earned run average with an 18.7% strikeout rate and 5.5% walk rate. His history as a starter and more recent track record as a multi-inning reliever — last year’s 98 2/3 frames came in 44 appearances — surely held appeal to a Yankees club that has seen its rotation plagued by injuries this spring. Yarbrough probably won’t step into the rotation at any point, but he’s a nice long man to have on hand at a time when rotation depth is thinner than expected. His addition on a big league deal likely pushes waiver claim and fellow southpaw Brent Headrick to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to begin the season.

The Yankees will need to open a 40-man roster spot to make Yarbrough’s deal official, though given that just-mentioned slate of injuries, that shouldn’t be an issue. Gerrit Cole was already moved to the 60-day IL when the team selected Carlos Carrasco’s contract over the weekend, but the Yankees still have multiple 60-day IL candidates. Luis Gil will miss months due to a lat strain, and while an exact timetable for Giancarlo Stanton’s return from tendon injuries in both elbows, it doesn’t seem like he’s a candidate to make his 2025 debut anytime soon.

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