The Reds have claimed catcher Deivy Grullon off outright waivers from the Red Sox, per announcements from both teams. Boston’s 40-man roster is full (following this afternoon’s signing of right-hander Matt Andriese), while Cincinnati’s 40-man roster is now at 33 players.
Grullon, 24, has made extremely brief appearances in the Majors with both the Phillies (2019) and Red Sox (2020) over the past two seasons. In 13 plate appearances, he’s collected two hits, including a double, with a walk and three punchouts. There’s little to glean from such a small sample, but Grullon carries a .283/.354/.496 slash in 457 Triple-A plate appearances and a .264/.302/.494 line in a similar body of work in Double-A.
Baseball America ranked Grullon among the best prospects in the Phillies’ system each year from 2014-20, right up until the Phils designated him for assignment in September and lost him on waivers to the Red Sox. While he never cracked the organization’s top 10 and was generally considered to be in the back half of the club’s top farmhands. Above-average power to his pull side and a strong throwing arm are regarded as his best tools.
Grullon still has minor league options remaining, so he can give the Reds an additional depth option behind veteran Tucker Barnhart (assuming he isn’t traded as part of the team’s efforts to pare back payroll), young Tyler Stephenson and utilityman Kyle Farmer. Cincinnati non-tendered Curt Casali earlier this month.
Kind of a no-brainer pickup here. Good for the Reds.
Boy, the not stove is burning today
WTF do you mean. Have you heard Red Sox signed Matt Andrise. HUGE PICKUP ngl
Kinda liked having him as depth in the Sox system as I’m worried about KP in that we might have seen the best of him in brief play last season.
WTH tigers..wth
Bob, not being snarky but asking what it is you expect the tigers to do this offseason? In my mind (I’m a white Sox fan) they just need to give their young pitching a year or 2 to develop and they will be very good. They can add some young bats between now and then to make them more balanced— I don’t see a need for them to go for broke this off-season. You may have more knowledge of them than me which I’d be interested to hear
They need to cut ties w/ the players that were given ample opportunity, and move forward. Greiner should be gone. Boyd and Fulmer should’ve been long gone through trade (yes, some return offers are known); Stewart, Schreiber, Funkhouser, Jimenez, should be on a short leash and as determined in 2021. What are we doing w/ Norris? What it honestly boils down to is I have zero confidence in Avila’s appraisal skills. What fans forget is Avila has been in a serious FO leadership role with the Tigers since 2002.
Grullon would be their best hitting C by a mile – which us saying something given how unproven he is.
annoyed the Phillies didnt pick him back up.
Why? From what i saw he cant hit i would rather have marchan.
he got all of 9 at bats in the Majors with us at the age of 23. I dont know how that makes him not worth keeping at least as depth with the options.
Doesn’t he take up a roster spot?
they have roster spots to spare.
Bethancourt better ..? I don’t think so..
Did I say anything about Bethancourt….? I don’t think so..
What happened to his arm? Was above 30% CS his entire career and then went down to 17% in 2019 and gave up a ton of steals that year
Is he that much of a prospect? I’ve never heard of him before this article
Backend top 20 prospect in Philly recently. Dropped off a bit, then restablished himself after a good season at Reading that also saw him win the Eastern League HR derby. Also hit well in 2019 at AAA. Honestly I dont know why the Phillies didnt keep him as depth.
Yeah I never understood them letting him go either.
Reds get Deivi!!! Woohoo!! Oh nm..
I like this comment haha.
This guy is huge. Reminds me of Bengie Molina and a lot of the other big boy catchers around the turn of the millenium.
A huge get for the Reds. At 5-11, 240, he is more of a Goliath than a Deivi. Television viewers circa 1960 will understand.
Grully raked in AA in 2018 and
AAA in 2019 (for a catcher).
I sense a sleeper breakout
candidate! He just needs to
lay off the doughnuts…..
I’m kind of disappointed the Red Sox let him go… he’s done nothing but produce in the minors and the Red Sox don’t really have a ton of catching depth behind Vasquez — sure they’ve also got Plawecki and then Wong who they acquired in the Betts deal. But having a young catcher who’s been pretty solid in AA/AAA AND has minor league options remaining seems like something you’d want to hang onto. I guess unless they feel Wong is ML ready in which case — if something were to happen to Vasquez or Plawecki they feel they’ve already got their replacement in AAA anyway. Still — he’s showed legitimate promise as a hitter in the minors and it just seems like this could be one that ‘got away’ if he does wind up being able to translate his minor league success to the majors.
He started a couple of games for us, won both and was hitting like 333, what more do you want? Meanwhile, the team keeps Dustin Pedroia on the roster knowing he is not going to play when they could have just released him and he wastes a very needed roster spot that we could have used for someone who could actually have a viable impact. As a fan, this is infuriating, we cannot just buy every player in free agency, we need to develop young guys into starters when they are affordable. We had a chance with a promising kid here and blew it.