Catching up on a pair of minor league moves from late August, the Reds signed left-hander Tommy Milone to a minor league deal and released outfielder Ender Inciarte. According to MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon (Twitter link), Inciarte opted out of the minors contract he signed with the Reds in early August.
Milone has already pitched twice for Triple-A Louisville as the veteran looks to work his way back to the majors. Milone made it an 11th MLB campaign when he suited up for the Blue Jays earlier this season, tossing 14 innings and posting a 6.43 ERA. Shoulder inflammation then resulted in a trip to the 60-day injured list, and Toronto released Milone last month after he began a rehab assignment.
Should Milone appear in a big league game with the Reds, it will mark the 10th different team of a journeyman career for the 34-year-old. Working mostly as a starter over his career, Milone offers Cincinnati some depth as a potential fill-in starter or perhaps as a long reliever out of the bullpen. It has been some time since Milone has been a truly effective hurler, as he has been plagued by the home run ball. Since the start of the 2016 season, Milone has a 5.83 ERA over 308 2/3 innings, with an 18.4% home run rate over that stretch.
The Braves released Inciarte in late July, ending a six-year run in Atlanta that included the highs of a 2016 All-Star nod and three Gold Gloves, plus the lows of an offensive swoon. Inciarte’s defense declined and his already below-average bat completely cratered, resulting in only a .200/.267/.277 slash line in 220 plate appearances since the start of the 2020 season. Inciarte is in the final guaranteed season of the five-year, $30.525MM extension he signed with Atlanta back in December 2016, so any team that signs Inciarte and adds him to their active roster for the remainder of the season will only owe him the prorated portion of a minimum salary (with the Braves footing the rest of the money owed).
poor Ender
He’s anything but. Paid quite handsomely to spend time with his newborn and stay in shape.
Mark, why were these missed? I’d cut back on the chats and have somebody like Tim Dillard or Chuck Wasserstrom do some chats. Let us chat with somebody who played the game or at least worked in a front office.
I mean, is it really major news? As an Atlanta fan who has seen plenty enough of both, they’re finished as Big Leaguers. It’s not as if they missed a major deal. The chats are awesome.
Yeah man, give me my free info about minor league deals faster & stop doing your other work and hey lemme insult you a bit, no extra charge.
I see it’s tool time early today.
You have some big demands on a free site. You must really feel cheated not getting enough value for the $0.00 required to participate at MLBTR. You know you can go pay for a subscription with the Athletic, right? High quality product right there.
The Athletic is far from high quality.
They did it solely to tick you off. And it worked.
@ Joseph McBrody – They are posted on the site, so I don’t think they missed anything. This is such minor news, who cares if the transactions happened a few days ago? This FREE site does an amazing job of keeping us up to date on major MLB news and transactions. I visit it every day and really appreciate all they do. You need to chill out, man. Start your own site if you’re really that upset about it.
How the hell does Milone keep finding work?
Rubbish like him fills up 2/3 of every team’s AAA rotation and a shame. Not for years has AAA been used for prospects, but bodies of little to no use and MAYBE half a dozen-10 actual kids with a chance and young prospects, rest are what term retreads and finished vets, just hanging around looking for a few days of mlb pay and meal money.
Love to see both AA and AAA go back to what they USED to be for.. REAL prospects and stop signing these wasted vets and 6-10y milb retreads, give them permanent walking papers.
Calm down; it’s a harmless signing. Rosters have to be filled in AAA, minor league games have to be played, and the games are enjoyed by fans just like they are in MLB. No team has enough prospects to completely fill minor league rosters without some veterans like Milone.
If the Reds are competing and Milone sniffs the mound in that launching pad — it’s a harmful signing. Even I can’t defend that AA trade deadline acquisition.
Those guys aren’t in AAA because teams have played significant value over any players year 1-3, even if they suck
Really, you’re upset kids are getting chances at the majors and therefore old guys get minor league deals. Isn’t that a working system?
Easy to explain why rather see kids, but teams go in opposite direction. Cut down draft this last season (half). Limit any signings afterwards to paltry 20k believe it is, where these UDFA’s used to just be included in total amount each team had to spend. Off course bit there..
Teams could go with youngsters at all development levels and of course MLB. Notice some teams have no issue running *2* DSL teams, pretty sure some are running 2 GCL teams as well? Kids promote on way up ladder should be more exciting to watch than some 30yo who has never played above AAA, exc for a handful of games 1-2 times at the MLB level for obvious reason said player was terrible is my point.
Fail to see why fans here defend this principle that just didn’t exist until 20-25y ago.
Lefty
Tigers: Jose Urena
Phillies: Vince Velasquez
Phillies: Matt Moore
Orioles: Matt Harvey
Orioles: Jorge Lopez
Rays: Michael Wacha
Padres: Jake Arrieta
All these pitchers are comparable to Milone’s production. Innings have to be pitched and there’s a lot of pitchers on the IL.
Smart clubs realize hitting, and hitting with power, is much more valuable than playing some light hitting CF who gives you defense. For some reason teams think the occasional diving catch out there adds something? I’d prefer a CF batting somewhere between 2-5 in the lineup than batting 8th.
Tommy Milone?!?! I really should have been a southpaw
This should be the end of Ender. He did quite well for himself (earnings wise) given his output. He should call it a career and get into coaching if he wants to stay in the game.
Ender didn’t last long, even in the minors.
did the reds know about these moves or did they have to wait until now to find out ? just asking, seems about right
I wish I could see why these guys opt out of their minor league contracts. Look, money is money. Money to play a game, lord. I don’t care how much you have… keep playing. This is likely the end of Enders career if I had to guess. Go play overseas
His contact rates won’t play well overseas. If he learned to bat-flip groundouts, he’d be a star in the Mexican league.
Bat flip groundouts. LOL!
It’s the Ender the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
What went wrong with Ender’s Game?
Ender would roll over to the right side every at bat. His tools were his speed and his glove in which both have declined. Bravos were trying to get him to slash the ball the other way due to the shift and over shift that is played today. A guy like Freeman gets away with the over shift because he has pop. Ender can’t and couldn’t it seemed due to that lack of power and decline in the other tools.