Nine Players Elect Free Agency
Now that the season is over, we’ll start seeing several players choose to become minor league free agents. Major League free agents (i.e. players with six-plus years of big league service time) will hit the open market five days after the end of the World Series, but eligible minor leaguers can already start electing free agency.
To qualify, these players must have been all outrighted off their team’s 40-man rosters during the 2025 season without being added back. These players also must have multiple career outrights on their resume, and/or at least three years of Major League service time.
We’ll offer periodic updates over the coming weeks about many other players hitting the market in this fashion. Unless otherwise credited, these free agent decisions are all listed on the official MLB.com or MILB.com transactions pages, for further reference.
Catchers
- Eric Haase (Brewers)
- Chad Wallach (Angels)
Outfielders
- Akil Baddoo (Tigers)
- Dominic Fletcher (White Sox) (per Scott Merkin of MLB.com)
- Corey Julks (White Sox) (per Merkin)
Pitchers
- Carl Edwards Jr. (Rangers)
- Trevor Richards (Diamondbacks)
- Keegan Thompson (Cubs)
- Randy Wynne (Reds)
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Hui, Imagn Images
Reds Outright Randy Wynne
The Reds have sent right-hander Randy Wynne outright to Triple-A Louisville, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He had been optioned earlier this week but there was no previous indication he had been removed from the 40-man roster, so this would appear to drop the club’s count to 39.
Wynne, 32, was selected to the club’s roster on Sunday. Hunter Greene had only lasted three innings in Saturday’s game, forcing the bullpen to sop up five frames in a road loss. Wynne gave them a fresh arm for Sunday, with the Reds planning to do a bullpen game. They went on to win 24-2, with Wynne taking the final three innings. He allowed one run on three hits and a walk, while striking out three.
After throwing those three innings, he likely wasn’t going to be available for a few days, so the Reds optioned him back down to Louisville. It appears they also quietly put him on waivers and passed him through unclaimed. This is his second career outright, which gives him the right to elect free agency, though it’s not yet clear if he will do so. The Reds had done basically this same thing in 2023, bringing him up for one outing before outrighting him off the roster.
He now has 5 1/3 innings pitched across two major league appearances with a 3.38 earned run average. Dating back to the start of the 2021 season, he has thrown 406 2/3 minor league innings with a 4.91 ERA, 15.4% strikeout rate and 5.2% walk rate.
Photo courtesy of Daniel Kucin Jr., Imagn Images
Reds Select Randy Wynne
The Reds announced this morning that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Randy Wynne. Wynne is being brought in to replace righty Carson Spiers, who is headed to the 15-day injured list with a right shoulder impingement. No 40-man roster move was necessary to accommodate the addition of Wynne, though the Reds’ 40-man roster is now full.
Wynne, 32, was signed by the Reds out of the independent Frontier League back in 2019. He’s been working his way through the Reds organization ever since, climbing the minor league ladder and even getting a brief call-up to the majors back in 2023. He surrendered one run in 2 1/3 frames during his lone big league outing and was outrighted off the club’s 40-man roster not long after. Despite that relatively brief stint in the majors, Wynne has remained in the Reds organization as a swingman at Triple-A. He’s done fairly well for himself there in recent years, with a 4.16 ERA in 93 innings last season and a 3.06 ERA across his first four starts of the 2025 campaign.
He’ll take the vacated roster spot of Spiers, who threw 94 pitches yesterday over four innings of relief. The righty has a 6.08 ERA across 13 1/3 innings this year, his third season as a swing man for the Reds. Spiers’s work on the mound for Cincinnati has generally been serviceable but below-average overall, with most of those innings coming last season when he threw 90 2/3 frames of 5.46 ERA ball split between ten starts and 12 relief appearances. The severity of Spiers’s injury is not yet known, but he’ll miss at least the next two weeks as he nurses the injury.
The Reds are unlikely to need Wynne as a rotation piece as presently constructed given that Nick Lodolo should be back from the paternity list soon, meaning he’s likely to fill a similar long relief role to the one Spiers was slated for. It wouldn’t be a shock if the righty’s first appearance came today, given that reliever Brent Suter has been announced as today’s starter. Suter has looked solid this year with a 2.70 ERA despite a 4.52 FIP, but he last logged significant time as a starter back in 2018 and has maxed out at two innings to this point in the 2025 campaign. Given that Wynne is stretched out as a starter, it would make sense if the team’s plan against the Orioles today is for Suter to throw an inning or two before Wynne takes over as a bulk reliever.
Reds Outright Randy Wynne
Reds right-hander Randy Wynne went unclaimed on outright waivers and has been assigned to Triple-A Louisville, per a club announcement. He’ll remain with the organization but no longer occupy a spot on the 40-man roster.
Wynne, 30, made his big league debut earlier this month, tossing 2 1/3 innings and allowing a run on three hits and a walk. He’d been summoned from Louisville when a taxed and injury-riddled Cincinnati pitching staff needed a fresh arm, and Wynne found himself removed from the 40-man just one day after his debut in order for the Reds to get another fresh arm in the bullpen (righty Jake Wong, who’s now also been designated for assignment).
An undrafted free agent who spent three years in independent ball before the Reds signed him out of the Frontier League, Wynne is currently in his second season at the Triple-A level. He’s been tagged for a 5.12 ERA in 31 2/3 frames with Louisville this season and posted a 4.75 ERA in 133 2/3 innings there during the 2022 season. Wynne doesn’t throw particularly hard (89.4 mph average on his sinker) or miss many bats, but he’s displayed keen command of the strike zone throughout his time in pro ball, walking just 3.9% of his opponents between the minors and his brief big league tenure.
Reds Select Jake Wong, Designate Randy Wynne
The Reds announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Jake Wong and recalled righty Eduardo Salazar from Triple-A Louisville. In corresponding moves, righty Levi Stoudt was optioned to Louisville while righty Randy Wynne was designated for assignment.
Wong, 26, was drafted by the Giants and spent his entire career there prior to this season. In December, the Reds took catcher/outfielder Blake Sabol from the Pirates in the Rule 5 draft and flipped him to the Giants for cash or a player to be named later. About a week later, the Reds announced that Wong would be the PTBNL from that Sabol deal.
The right-hander had pitched in the lower levels of the Giants’ system in 2018 and 2019 but then missed two entire seasons. The minor leagues were canceled by the pandemic in 2020 and then Wong spent all of 2021 on the injured list. Last year, he tossed 97 2/3 innings at High-A over 25 appearances, including 17 starts, with a 4.52 ERA. His 10.3% walk rate was a bit high but he struck out 25.3% of opponents and got ground balls at a 53.3% clip.
This year, the Reds have essentially moved Wong to full-time relief work, as his only start was 2 2/3 innings. On the whole, he’s tossed 34 1/3 innings over 17 appearances split between Double-A and Triple-A, but has struggled in his first taste of the upper levels of the farm. He has a 7.60 ERA this year between those two stops, striking out 22.6% of opponents but walking 13%.
Despite the poor results so far this year, the Reds have called him up since they need fresh arms. In their three-game set against Atlanta over the weekend, they allowed 24 runs and none of their starters lasted longer than four innings, leaving relief corps to absorb 16 2/3 frames over that series. They now have a three-game series in Baltimore before their next off-day and have called up Wong and Salazar to help them push through.
In order to get those arms onto the roster, the Reds have bumped Wynne off of it. He himself was added as a fresh arm just yesterday and made his major league debut. He tossed 2 1/3 innings, allowing three hits, a walk and one earned run without registering a strikeout. Despite that respectable showing in his first big league game, he’s quickly been bounced due to the club’s overtaxed pitching corps.
The Reds will now have a week to trade Wynne or pass him through waivers. Prior to getting called up, he tossed 31 2/3 innings in Triple-A this year with a 5.12 ERA, 12.9% strikeout rate, 5% walk rate and 31.8% ground ball rate.
Reds Designate Silvino Bracho, Select Randy Wynne
The Reds announced a trio of roster moves, including the selection of Randy Wynne‘s contract from Triple-A Louisville. Cincinnati also called up righty Levi Stoudt from Triple-A, and Stoudt will get the start today against the Braves. To create roster space, the Reds designated right-hander Silvino Bracho for assignment.
Wynne will be making his Major League debut with his first appearance, and that personal milestone could come as early as today in relief of Stoudt. The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Charlie Goldsmith notes that Stoudt is just recently back from a ribcage injury and isn’t fully built up for a proper starter’s workload, so Stoudt might not last long no matter how he fares against the Atlanta lineup. Wynne has been a swingman for much of his pro career, and the Reds could employ something of a piggyback system between Stoudt and Wynne today.
Wynne is an undrafted right-hander who pitched in independent baseball for parts of the 2016-19 seasons before finally catching on with the Reds in 2019. He continued with the organization after the canceled 2020 minor league season, pitching at Double-A in 2021 and then at Triple-A in each of the last two years. Wynne doesn’t record many strikeouts or grounders, as he relies on soft contact and an impressive walk rate to keep batters in check. Over 164 1/3 innings at Triple-A, the 30-year-old Wynne has a 4.82 ERA over 164 1/3 innings, starting 29 of 38 games.
Stoudt and Wynne could each get some looks in the rotation as the Reds try to navigate multiple pitching injuries. Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, and Ben Lively are all sidelined, and while Graham Ashcraft was activated from the 15-day IL yesterday, the good news of his return was tempered by Lively heading to the injured list with pectoral soreness. Lively had been slated to start today’s game, which is why Cincinnati is turning to their latest backup plan of Stoudt.
This is the second time the Reds have DFA’ed Bracho this season, as he was previously designated and then outrighted off the roster back in May. Bracho’s contract was selected again just a few days ago, and over his two stints in Cincinnati has posted a 3.68 ERA in 7 1/3 relief innings, with an equal number (six) of strikeouts and walks. Bracho already passed on the opportunity to elect minor league free agency the last time he was outrighted off the Reds’ 40-man roster, but assuming he clears DFA waivers again, he still has the right to reject another outright assignment and test the open market.
Bracho has appeared in parts of seven MLB seasons, debuting with the Diamondbacks in 2015. After four up-and-down seasons, he underwent a Tommy John surgery that sidelined him for basically all of the 2019-20 seasons, save for one inning in one game with Arizona in 2020. Bracho then caught on with the Giants, Red Sox, and Braves before landing in Cincinnati on a minor league contract this past winter, though the right-hander’s only other Major League experience in 2021-22 was 4 1/3 innings with Atlanta last season.