The Reds have placed Mike Moustakas on the 10-day injured list with a left calf strain and selected the contract of Colin Moran, per Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer (via Twitter).
Moustakas never really got going this season, contributing -1.0 bWAR and a .214/.295/.345 triple-slash across 285 plate appearances. The soon-to-be 34-year-old, in his third season with the Reds, has one year (at $18MM) remaining on the four-year, $64MM deal he signed in December 2019 as the Reds geared up to compete in the (ultimately pandemic-shortened) 2020 season.
The Reds have since traded away several of their most valuable assets, of course (including Luis Castillo, Tyler Mahle, and Brandon Drury at the deadline and Sonny Gray, Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suarez, and Tucker Barnhart in the offseason), with Moustakas one of only a few veterans remaining from the 2020 club that secured a wild-card berth in the shortened season. Beyond the financial commitment, Moustakas’ declining production and struggles with injury have made moving him difficult. Since arriving in Cincinnati, he’s compiled a .216/.300/.383 batting line — a substantial drop from his career .247/.308/.434 line — and he’s missed more than a third of 2022 already after appearing in only 62 games in 2021.
Moran, taken by the Marlins as the sixth overall pick in the 2013 amateur draft, will get his third taste of the bigs this season as Moustakas’ replacement. The corner infielder broke in with the Astros for short stints in both 2016 and 2017 before heading to Pittsburgh in 2018 as part of the package that netted Gerrit Cole. Moran had some success with the Pirates, compiling a .269/.333/.419 line across four seasons, but he was ultimately designated for assignment shortly before the lockout to clear a 40-man spot for Yoshi Tsutsugo.
In his prior two stints with the Reds this year, Moran has logged a comparatively meager .210/.299/.360 triple-slash in 117 plate appearances, well below his career .263/.327/.414 mark in a relatively small sample. He may well get a chance to build on those numbers for a rebuilding Reds squad, though. Moustakas and Donovan Solano had been sharing time at first since Joey Votto’s season ended in rotator cuff surgery, and Moran may well simply take over Moustakas’ share of the playing time there. The club may also opt to take a more extended look at him, as he’ll remain eligible for arbitration in 2023.
Wouldn’t they rather play short handed a little longer?
Maybe the Reds should release him this off-season? Eat the payroll — it’s a sunk cost. He’s clogging the roster at a time when young guys should be playing. Give them a chance
Possibly moved in a bad contract swap. Though not sure who makes similar money as him next year and is equally terrible.
Aaron Hicks? Less per year, but three extra years.
Madison Bumgarner? Bigger deal, Could help mentor young Reds starters
Marcell Ozuna? I don’t think even the Reds could do that. But if the Braves added enough prospects, maybe
Good list!
There might be a bad contract swap out there, but I’m skeptical of those deals. The Reds have lots of young talent who need time to develop, playing time in the majors when they’re ready, and good mentorship in the majors. They don’t need a veteran who deprives them of playing time or who has bad character. The Moustakas deal was lousy, but it’s a sunk cost. They can afford to let it go. They might save a nickel by swapping for another bad contract, but then they’re just extending the pain of the bad Moustakas deal. Eat the contract and end the pain now. The payroll next year will be really low, so they can afford to eat it. The goal is to compete in 2-3 years, so don’t mess that up by trying to save a nickel today.
The Reds just had Tommy Pham slap a guy in the face on the field and then basically pretend it didn’t happen the rest of the time he was there. I don’t think they are as anti-bad character as you think. Ozuna is a bad guy, but he is still allowed to play in MLB. And he is much better than throwing out Aquino again next year.
Bumgarner could easily replace and greatly improve upon Mike Minor. The Reds have potential in Ashcraft, Greene, Dunn, and Lodolo plus a couple of others in the minors, but they need someone to teach them how to be big league pitchers. Who better than MadBum?
I think I am using the sunk cost fallacy concept properly. The paycheck for Moustakas has to be paid no matter what. Giving him more playing time and a spot on the roster is tantamount to continued investment. That playing time and roster spot could go to someone with a future, therefore, there is a steep opportunity cost to having Moustakas in uniform. Eat the money and stop investing time and effort into getting a return on the deal.
gocincy: that’s a stretch. There probably isn’t anyone losing playing time because of him and it’s unlikely that the team is actually playing him for the reasons of recouping paid value. But that would be proper usage if you stretch it like that. But again, I really doubt that is the teams thinking process. He’s bad but there’s probably no one better to replace him with presently.
That’s fair. I think the thing we can agree on is that the team’s thinking process doesn’t go like this. In fact, it’s not evident that there’s much of a thinking process at all.
That’s not what a sunk cost is, if it doesn’t require additional resources being put in to make it potentially viable it’s not sunk cost fallacy. Sorry, I just hate how often misused that phrase is.
@cosmo – I believe they are using the term correctly. A sunk cost is a cost that has already been incurred. You are referring to a concept involving a sunk cost, where someone is inclined to continue to accrue more costs if they’ve already made a significant investment.
A career ending injury would make it a sunk cost. Just because the market value of your predicted production is less than your compensation does not make it a sunk cost.
Armament, Stud: you are both wrong. Sunk Cost refers to the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Keeping an already paid for, but disappointing asset is not that fallacy. The fallacy is continuing to put resources into the asset in hopes that you can at least break even or come close. Since Moustakis’ money is already guaranteed no new assets are being pumped in it doesn’t apply. Whether or not he gets injured the fact that the money is ALREADY owed precludes it from fitting into the category of this fallacy. If, for example, he had a cheap future option and the team picked it up on the hopes that they could at least get something out of him next year, THAT would be the sunk cost fallacy. Simply keeping a bad deal around, one that you’ve already committed to, is not sunk cost fallacy. Injury doesn’t enter into it.
Armament: thinking a bit more about it I see your point a bit more clearly. The bad contract is the sunk cost within the fallacy that you don’t want to pour future assets into, so you’re not wrong. Still, I just think that when one says “sunk cost” the reference is to the whole fallacy and so it’s a bad choice of words. Just say “bad contract”, or whatever.
Upon further research I would agree that the term itself may just not be appropriate for the situation. To apply the term at all would simply categorize every guaranteed contract a sunk cost regardless of the value provided by the players performance.
Again?
That contract with Moustakas hasn’t worked out well for the Reds.
Good news for Colin.
Everyone loves Colin Moran
Addition by subtraction
Will the Reds cut the Moose Loose??
Got it before me!
I remember the brewers offering him a contract 3 yrs/45M He turned them down to take the reds contract 4 yrs/64M The reds got fleeced on that deal
The brew made a good choice on that one.
The Brewers got lucky. To their credit, when they have good luck, they do a nice job of capitalizing on it.
The Reds have a SERIOUS issue with their medical/training/fitness staff. Huge amount of injuries for years!!!
The Reds have a SERIOUS issue with their medical, training and/or fitness staff. The amount of injuries over the last few years is staggering!
The Reds have a SERIOUS issue with their medical, training and,or fitness staff. The amount of injuries over the last few years is staggering!
The Reds have a SERIOUS issue with their medical, training and/or fitness staffs. The amount of injuries over the last few years is staggering!
How serious???
SERIOUS
Apparently so!!
Surprising that Donovan Solano is still with the cost-cutting Reds. Seems like any number of teams would claim him off waivers and take on his remaining salary for the season.
Seriously, Moran is a ML player, of at least the ham and egger ability. He could play for a lot of teams. Surprised he is still in the minors!
He’s a career negative WAR player, league average bat who can’t field. The teams that don’t want him are making a logical assessment, no surprises here.
Time to cut the Moose loose. Even if he were to play in all 162 games next season and hit 50+ Home Runs that contract is still sunk cost
“”Moustakas never really got going this season””…..or last season…..or the season before that. His contract is an unmovable albatross that, when added to Votto’s $25m, further hamstrings the penny pinching owner’s ability to field a team worth paying to watch play. The Moose’s productive years are passed and judging from his near constant presence on the IL, he may not be staying in the best of shape. Maybe trade him to a Sunday softball beer league team for a beer runner. Reds management is too cheap to eat their mistake and cut bait so he’ll be around again in 2023 – when he’s not on the IL of course.
Why Moran…why why why why…
This guy has played 184 games for the Reds in three seasons I would just pay him and send him on his way. It’s not like he’s ever going to give them anything useful. Let a young guy have that spot.
It never fails to amuse me how easily people around here are willing to spend other people’s money.
That money is already spent though, sending him on his way doesn’t cost extra.
You will still have to pay someone else to take that spot on the roster. So it will cost extra. You don’t get to just send him away and not pay anyone else.
Pro rated league minimum could fill that spot. I’m usually one to gripe about folks making flippant decisions with other folks money but in this case you are really nit picking. It’s the baseball equivalent of pocket change.
But pro rated league minimum is likely not going to produce any better than Moose. So why not just keep Moose?
I’m not necessarily advocating for getting rid of the guy. If there isn’t a youngster who can provide at least comparable production then, yea, you keep him.
His OPS+ with the Reds is 79 so he’s 21% below the league average and his cumulative WAR is approximately -0.7, so a replacement player would be an improvement. It was, and continues to be, a god awful signing. He was signed with the intent of playing 2B (a bad decision all on its own), but Jonathon India and his own propensity for injuries made him superfluous almost immediately. The light at the end of this tunnel is 2024 when he and Votto clear $43m off the books. Now if only the heretofore inept management can use it productively the team may have a fighting chance to be at least ‘not awful’.