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Joel Kuhnel

Reds Return Aquino, Ashcraft, Motter To Minors

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MAY 23: As expected, Cincinnati announced this morning that Mahle, Almora, Kuhnel and Drury have been reinstated from the restricted list before tonight’s series opener with the Cubs. Aquino, Aschraft and Motter have been returned to the minors and are no longer on the 40-man roster.

MAY 20: The Reds announced a host of roster moves before their series against the Blue Jays. First baseman Joey Votto has been reinstated from the COVID-19 injured list. Outfielder Aristides Aquino, righty Graham Ashcraft and utilityman Taylor Motter have all been selected to the majors as designated COVID “substitutes.”

Cincinnati placed four players — Tyler Mahle, Albert Almora Jr., Joel Kuhnel and Brandon Drury — on the restricted list. That’s standard procedure for players who haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19 playing on teams that are headed to Toronto. The Canadian government prohibits unvaccinated players from entering the country, so that quartet will be unavailable for this weekend’s series.

Votto returns after missing more than two weeks because of virus concerns. The six-time All-Star began experiencing COVID symptoms during the first week of May, and he wound up missing enough time the organization sent him on a brief minor league rehab assignment. After a pair of appearances with Triple-A Louisville, the Toronto native returns for a set against his hometown club. He’ll look to right the ship offensively after the time off; Votto has opened the season in a dreadful .122/.278/.135 slump through 22 games.

Aquino, Motter and Ashcraft all occupy temporary spots on the roster. That the club specified they were COVID substitutes suggests it’s likely to be a brief stint for all three. Players whose contracts are selected with that designation can be removed from the 40-man roster and returned to the minors without passing through waivers as the team returns to full strength. In the Reds’ case, that’ll be after this series, so each of Aquino, Motter and Ashcraft is probably only up for three days.

The righty-hitting Aquino opened the year in the majors but got out to an awful start. He was outrighted off the roster earlier this month, but he’s tattooed Triple-A pitching (.314/.405/.743 with four homers) through ten games. Motter signed a minor league deal last month. The righty-hitting utilityman is hitting .245/.344/.566 with Louisville and offers some multi-positional depth in Drury’s place.

While this figures to be a brief stint for Ashcraft, the 24-year-old will probably play a notable role on the roster before too long. A sixth-round pick out of UAB in 2019, the 6’2″ hurler has quickly developed into one of the better arms in the farm system. Ashcraft split last season between High-A Dayton and Double-A Chattanooga, posting an even 3.00 ERA across 111 innings. He’s spent this year with Louisville, working to a 1.65 ERA over seven starts, albeit without great strikeout or walk numbers.

Baseball America recently ranked Ashcraft the #12 prospect in the Cincinnati organization, praising a mid-90s cut fastball that serves as his primary offering. Both BA and FanGraphs — which slotted him #17 in the system — suggest that Ashcraft’s below-average changeup and inconsistent control point to a long-term bullpen future, but he’s remained a starter to this point as a pro. Ashcraft will have to be added to the 40-man roster next offseason to keep him from selection in the Rule 5 draft, and potential trades by the last-place Reds could open an extended opportunity for him later this summer.

Cincinnati also announced that shortstop José Barrero will begin a rehab assignment with the Bats. The club’s anticipated regular shortstop, he hasn’t played this season after suffering a hamate injury during Spring Training. Position players can spend up to 20 days on rehab assignments, suggesting Barrero’s set to make his 2022 debut within the next three weeks assuming all goes well in the minors.

Reds Select Joel Kuhnel, Designate Robert Dugger

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The Reds announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Joel Kuhnel. Fellow righty Robert Dugger has been designated for assignment in a corresponding move.

Kuhnel got small bits of action with the Reds in 2019 and 2020, logging 12 2/3 MLB innings in total. In that small sample, he has a career ERA of 4.97 with a 21.8% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate. After the 2020 campaign, he was designated for assignment and outrighted to the minors. Last year, injuries limited him to just eight innings on the year.

This year, however, he appears to be healthy and off to a good start. Now 27 years old, he’s thrown 10 1/3 innings in Triple-A so far this season, with a 2.61 ERA. His 16.7% strikeout rate is a dip from previous seasons, but he’s got a tiny 2.4% walk rate and hefty 57.6% ground ball rate in that small sample.

As for Dugger, it will prove to be a very short stay on the Reds roster, as he was just claimed off waivers from the Rays on Wednesday. The Rays had selected his contract just before active rosters were about to shrink from 28 to 26. They threw him out out on the mound for 87 pitches of mop-up duty over 5 1/3 innings before designating him for assignment. The Reds put in a claim and treated him similarly, giving him a three-inning, 59-pitch appearance in the second game of yesterday’s doubleheader before cutting him from the roster. He’ll now likely head back onto the waiver wire and see if another team in need of arms will give him a chance.

Central Notes: Kuhnel, Reds, Tigers, Moreno, Jobe

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In 2019, right-hander Joel Kuhnel threw 53 2/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A with an ERA of 2.18, strikeout rate of 23.3% and walk rate of 7.4%. Just 24 years old at the time, he also made his MLB debut that year, logging 9 2/3 innings out of the Reds’ bullpen. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to build off that strong campaign, with injuries hampering him over the subsequent two years. In 2020, a shoulder issue limited him to just three big league innings. Due to the pandemic wiping out the minors, those are the only innings on his ledger that year. He underwent surgery to repair a torn capsule in his right shoulder in October of 2020 and was outrighted off the roster, then was rehabbing for much of 2021, throwing eight minor league innings on the year.

Kuhnel is now getting geared up in spring training for 2022, since he is not on Cincy’s 40-man roster and not affected by the lockout. Mark Sheldon of MLB.com checked in with the 27-year-old as he tries to get back on track. “Everything feels normal,” Kuhnel said. “It feels better than ever, really.” The Reds’ bullpen didn’t do them many favors in 2021, as their 4.99 ERA ranked 27th in baseball, only beating out the non-competitive Diamondbacks, Nationals and Orioles. Advanced metrics were a bit kinder, but not by much, with Reds’ relievers putting up a 4.56 FIP and 4.34 xFIP. The club has been rumored to be cutting payroll this offseason, making it unlikely they bolster their staff with a big free agent splash. That means that improvement from internal options like Kuhnel will be important for them as they try to walk a fine line of keeping spending down but staying competitive.

Some other Central notes…

  • Chris McCoskey of The Detroit News is at the Tigers’ spring training facility, even if none of the players on the 40-man roster are. One player in camp that caught his eye is Gerson Moreno, who was selected to the club’s roster after the 2017 season. 22 years old at the time, Moreno lasted just a few months on the roster as he required Tommy John surgery. The Tigers released and re-signed him in the summer of 2018. His rehab period wiped out most of his 2018 and 2019, then the pandemic wiped out the minors in 2020. Last year, Moreno was finally able to get some significant time on the mound, throwing 49 innings between Double-A and Triple-A. His 4.59 ERA doesn’t jump out, but his 33.2% strikeout rate is excellent. It does, however, come with an elevated 13.2% walk rate. The Tigers spent big already this offseason to upgrade their rotation and lineup with Eduardo Rodriguez and Javier Baez but haven’t made a big move in the bullpen. If the 26-year-old Moreno can take a step forward, he could give them a boost from within.
  • Other than Eduardo Rodriguez, the Tigers’ rotation consists of hurlers they drafted and developed: Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal, Matt Manning and Tyler Alexander. The next guy behind them on that path is Jackson Jobe, according to Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. Selected by the Tigers with the third overall pick in last year’s draft, Jobe is just 19 years old and isn’t close to the majors, but is already drawing rave reviews. MLB Pipeline ranks him the 46th-best prospect in baseball and Baseball America places him in the 79th spot. Petzold spoke to one scout, who had nothing but superlatives to offer about the right-hander, giving Jobe’s fastball and changeup 70s and his breaking ball an 80, on the 20-80 scouting scale. Jobe is still quite young, meaning Tigers fans will need to be patient, but the scout offers this as the ceiling: “If everything lines up, he’s the No. 1 starter in the big leagues on a championship team.”

Reds Outright Joel Kuhnel

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The Reds announced Monday that right-hander Joel Kuhnel has cleared waivers been assigned outright to Triple-A Louisville. Between Kuhnel’s outright and the Mets’ claim of Robel Garcia, the Reds have opened a pair of spots on the 40-man roster.

Kuhnel, 25, has pitched 12 2/3 innings with Cincinnati over the past two seasons, working to a combined 4.97 ERA with a 12-to-5 K/BB ratio and a 47.4 percent ground-ball rate in that limited sample. He averaged better than 96 mph on his heater in 2019 with a swinging-strike of 14.5 percent, though both those marks were down in 2020 — albeit in a minuscule sample of three innings (95.4 mph; 3.5 percent).

Kuhnel, an 11th-round pick by the Reds in 2016, obviously didn’t pitch much in a game setting this year thanks to the absence of a minor league season. His last extended minor league work came in 2019, when he notched a tidy 2.18 ERA with a 50-to-16 K/BB ratio in 53 2/3 frames between Double-A and Triple-A.

Reds Recall Joel Kuhnel, Place Jesse Biddle On IL

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The Reds placed Jesse Biddle on the 10-day IL after injuring his left shoulder, the team announced. Right-hander Joel Kuhnel was recalled to take his roster spot.

Biddle made just one appearance for the Reds this year. He entered the game against the Milwaukee Brewers in the sixth inning on Thursday night. He walked one and struck out one to end the sixth, stayed in the game to start the seventh and surrendered a single to Avisail Garcia before retiring Christian Yelich on a groundout.

The 28-year-old Biddle joined the Reds as a non-roster invitee this winter after seeing time in the majors the two seasons prior. He debuted with the Braves in 2018, but the southpaw made appearances for the Braves, Mariners, and Rangers in 2019. His stints with all three clubs were relatively short: He made 30 appearances split between the three, working 28 innings to a 8.36 ERA/6.46 FIP. Biddle has been a reverse-splits southpaw thus far in his short career with lefties hitting .301/.384/.469 across 165 plate appearances, while he’s held right-handed hitters to a triple slash of .235/.355/.357 over 257 plate appearances.

The Reds drafted Kuhnel in the 11th round of the 2016 draft, and he made his debut last season. He is currently the Reds #27 ranked prospect by MLB Pipeline. This season he made one appearance for the Reds out of the bullpen before being optioned back to the alternate training site on August 12th. The 6’4″ thick-bodied right-hander relies mostly on a two-pitch mix featuring a 95 to 96 mph heater and slide, also occasionally mixing in a change-up or sinker. He took the hill 11 times for the Reds in 2019, working to a 4.66 ERA over 9 2/3 innings. Command has been a problem at times for Kuhnel, and he doesn’t have overpowering swing-and-miss stuff, but he nonetheless made it work while marching steadily through the Reds’ system. He put together 41 appearances with a 2.18 ERA between Double-A and Triple-A in 2019.

Reds Select Joel Kuhnel’s Contract

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The Reds have selected the contract of right-hander Joel Kuhnel from Triple-A Louisville, and also called up righty Matt Bowman from their top affiliate, the club announced (Twitter link).  Kuhnel and Bowman will take the roster spots of righty Sal Romano, who was optioned to Louisville, and Jared Hughes, who was claimed off waivers by the Phillies.

This will be the 24-year-old Kuhnel’s first taste of the big leagues, coming a little over three years after being the Reds’ 11th-round pick in the 2016 draft.  Kuhnel pitched in both Double-A and Triple-A for the first time in 2019, quickly moving up the ladder thanks to a combined 2.18 ERA, 8.4 K/9, and 3.13 K/BB rate over 53 2/3 relief innings.  MLB.com ranks Kuhnel as the 24th-best prospect in Cincinnati’s farm system, noting that “his fastball touches triple-digits with ease and he mixes in an 89-93 mph slider and a low-90s changeup.”

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