The Reds have released utilityman Rob Refsnyder, per the International League’s transactions page. Refsnyder had been with the organization since it acquired him from the Diamondbacks on April 7.
Prior to his exit from the Reds, Refsnyder was a clear bright spot for their last-place Triple-A team in Louisville. The 28-year-old went to the plate 334 times as a member of the club and slashed .315/.377/.500 with 10 home runs. Even in the offense-happy International League environment, Refsnyder’s production was 25 percent better than average, according to FanGraphs’ wRC+ metric.
Solid Triple-A numbers aren’t anything new for Refsnyder, he of the .296/.372/.436 line with 35 HRs in 1,804 PA at that level. On the other hand, major league success has eluded the once-promising prospect, whom the Yankees chose in the fifth round of the 2012 draft. Across a combined 423 trips to the plate in MLB as a Yankee, Blue Jay and Ray from 2015-18, Refsnyder only managed to bat .218/.308/.302 with four homers.
Smh, what were the Reds thinking releasing this future Hall Of Famer?
Go get him Cash. Sprinkle that pixy dust on another reclamation project!!
(sarcasm)
The baseball gods will not like this
No!!! You can’t trade him if he’s not on your roster!
sign him to a $500MM deal and then trade him for Trout. who says no?
Refsynders new team. You can get Trout, Bellinger and Urlicj for Ref if they all played for the same team
*Yelich. I have no Idea how it corrected to Urlicj
Actually you can trade minor leaguers at this time. I think they released him, so that he could explore other options. He may have asked to be released. He doesn’t have a future with the Reds.
“The Nationals have agreed to a minor league contract with right-handed reliever Rob Refsnyder…”
He’s awful. Couldn’t hit or play defense.
The quad-A curse.
Overhyped Yankee prospect. AAAA player.
Best of luck to him. He should retire, do steroids and HGH,work out for 6 months, then unretire and then he might make a good major leaguer for a year or so.
Sound strategy. Not like MLB does drug testing or anything. And PEDs are proven to improve hand-eye coordination.
The tests are extremely difficult to beat nowadays but this is the type of 4A player who could make real money if he just got a bit better. Like Chris colabello did in Toronto a few years back. No player should do juice obviously but I can see why 4A guys are enticed.
Just my take on things. When I hear a Rob Refnsyder type gets popped for roids I can rationalize it a lot more than a guy like Robbie Cano who has the gigantic deal and has little to gain with so much to lose.
The test is being beaten a lot more than you think JBigz. Anyone who watches and follows the game would not be surprised. Drugs are still rampant.
If he retires there is no testing until he is clean and comes back.
For all you kids out there, “sound” advice from jbig and jimmer. Lap it all us before they crawl back under their respective rocks.
*up*
I don’t see where I ever condoned doing roids. But I can understand the motivation for those type of players. If you want to be willfully blind that’s your choice. It’s pretty clear that there is a tremendous payoff for a guy like that. If it scares you to talk about it I’m sorry.
He’ll need a consistent cycle for that to have any real effect, Jimmer. Simply retiring and getting on a couple cycles of juice wouldn’t do much for him long term. For it to have any real effect he’d need to run a couple cycles throughout the season. His body will start to catabolize the muscle fairly quickly once he’s off whatever cycle he’s running.
The testing has gotten stricter as they monitor players T/E levels. Any abnormally high level leads to a carbon isotope test to detect the synthetic testosterone.
Long short it’s increasingly difficult to maintain a cycle throughout the season. Could it be done? People always look for a work around so perhaps there is some way to get around it. But it’s a whole hell of a lot harder.
Jbig, I totally agree. I am coming from the perspective he doesn’t need long term. He needs a short term boost once he unretires and can chase that into a 2 or 3 year MLB level deal.
How many times have we seen a player have a career year as their contract is about up or as they head for free agency? Sure, not all of those are PED users but some are.
FYI Guestshere is correct. There are players now doing steroids now and not getting caught. As an example, for years I knew ARod was juicing, long before it came out in the media. Me and an educated friend nicknamed him “needleman” long before media attention And currently, I know of one older player that is actively juicing to maintain his elite status. I have no idea how he is beating testing.
He’s still pre-arb. He has a long way to go to get a FA contract. Not going to comment on any of the roid issues as this was just a hypothetical anyhow. And I wasn’t really talking about long term solely as multiple seasons but also over the course of a season. He’d lose most of whatever strength gains he made in a relatively short period without continuing cycles throughout the season.
Worked for Eric Thames!
Was supposed to take over SS for the Yankees.
Here we go again…
Did someone say Clint Frazier?
Why does everyone put down Frazier? He went down to work on defense. His bat was really good. Who wouldn’t want an outfielder who hit .283 with 11 HR in 191 PA? What part of that sounds like Ref? Pay attention to the game and not other people’s comments and you will learn a lot.
Commenter is nothing but a troll. Trolling this site is all his life has to offer.
Because people want to be comedians and hate on anything Yankee related
No Swihart. no Refsnyder….no reason to watch MLB this year…..
Yes there was, Peter O’Brein played 14 games this year.
Baltimore pick him up, he should be an upgrade.
Cut the kid a break. He’s 28 and made a living in pro ball for a few years. I doubt you’ve been that successful.
HOF shows strong interest in the suddenly available Refsnyder etc.
Obviously they need a Pastry Chef…….
(Especially if CC gets in 5 years from now…..)