The Reds announced today that they have selected the contract of right-hander Julian Aguiar. Righty Casey Legumina was optioned to open an active roster spot. To get Aguiar onto the 40-man, the Reds recalled righty Christian Roa and placed him on the 60-day injured list with a right shoulder sprain.
Aguiar, 23, was a 12th-round selection of the Reds in the 2021 draft. In 2022, he tossed 96 1/3 innings, mostly at the Single-A level but also with a brief look at High-A. He allowed 3.46 earned runs per nine innings, struck out 27.6% of batters faced, limited walks to a 6.6% clip and got grounders on more than half of the balls that were put in play against him. Last year, he made 25 starts between High-A and Double-A. In his 125 innings, he posted a 2.95 ERA, 26.8% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate and again got hitters to hit the ball into the ground about half the time.
Coming into 2024, Baseball America ranked him the #14 prospect in the Reds’ system. FanGraphs had him a bit higher, putting him at #7 in early April. BA highlights his pitch mix, describing it as consisting of a four-seamer, two-seamer, curveball, slider and changeup. FG doesn’t mention the two-seamer and also characterizes the slider and curveball as the same breaking ball, just shaped slightly differently, though they admit that this essentially leads to Aguiar having two different breaking balls even if they are the same speed.
Here in 2024, Aguiar has continued posting some decent numbers, though not quite as strong as previous years. He has thrown 116 1/3 innings over 22 starts between Double-A and Triple-A with a 3.79 ERA. His 6% walk rate still demonstrates good control but his 19.7% strikeout rate is well below his previous two seasons. His ground ball rate has also been just below 40% at both levels this year, a drop from what he was able to achieve at the lower levels.
The Reds have Graham Ashcraft and Brandon Williamson on the 60-day injured list. The former has a right elbow strain and an uncertain timeline. The latter has a shoulder strain and could be nearing a rehab assignment, per Charlie Goldsmith of the Cincinnati Enquirer on X, but hasn’t pitched in the big leagues yet this year. Even if he is able to start a rehab assignment soon, he’ll likely need a few weeks of ramp-up to get into game shape. Righty Hunter Greene landed on the 15-day IL this weekend with some elbow soreness and the club seems optimistic he can return after roughly a minimum stint, but it’s still a big blow to the rotation mix given that he’s pitched well enough to be in the Cy Young conversation this year.
Amid those injuries, the rotation is down to a core duo of Nick Lodolo and Andrew Abbott, along with swingmen Carson Spiers and Nick Martinez. Now they will be adding the rookie Aguiar into the mix. The Reds are six games back of a playoff spot at this point and clearly have at least some hope of making the playoffs as they recently claimed infielder Amed Rosario off waivers. Rosario is a veteran on a one-year deal and has no future impact, so they wouldn’t have made that move if they had given up on the season.
Perhaps Aguiar will get a few turns through the rotation to see how his stuff plays against big league hitters, at least until Greene or Williamson are able to come off the IL. The club also has Lyon Richardson and Connor Phillips on the 40-man roster but Richardson has a 4.58 ERA and 13.4% walk rate in Triple-A this year. Phillips, meanwhile, has a ghastly ERA of 10.11 in his 14 minor league starts and hasn’t pitched in official game action since June. Non-roster options like Justus Sheffield, Connor Overton and Brett Kennedy are either injured, putting up poor numbers or both. The club has an off-day on August 26 but then has a double-header on August 30, meaning they don’t have a ton of leeway with their rotation at the moment.
As for Roa, 25, he was added to the club’s 40-man roster in November to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. He has been on optional assignment all year and still hasn’t made his major league debut. He last pitched August 10 and it appears this shoulder strain will end his season. Based on this transaction, he won’t be eligible to return until the middle of October. That’s not a pleasant outcome for him but the silver lining is that he’ll now get a bit of major league service time and pay while spending the rest of the season on the injured list.
Welcome to the big leagues, young man! Good luck!
Reds are an embarrassment. No fans, blew a chance this year to compete
The fans are there. They came out in droves last year to support the team. But yes, this year was definitely wasted. The hitting took a turn for the worse after the losses of McLain, Friedl, and Encarnacion-Strand.
If they were actually Reds fans, sure they’re drawing 20K. When the cheers are just as loud for the opposition, it’s depressing.
We have tons of fans who will turn out if they’re playing good baseball and solidly in contention, but this season the writing has been on the wall from very early on that no money would be spent to get them over the hump. Combine that with season ending injuries to multiple key players, absolute boneheaded management and zero notable activity leading up to the deadline and most fans would rather save their money, especially these days.
Don’t you think the Reds would shell out more on established players, if the fans showed up now?
They do need to be wiser when shelling. The pitchers they signed for North of 10 million the last 3 years has been wasted shells.
I agree. The Jeimer and Pagan deals were total head-scratchers.
Excited to watch him pitch tonight. I think he’s gonna be a good arm for years to come.
Hope he’s not being rushed, as he has made smooth transistions with every promotion. I too believe Julian can be a quality innings eater on a staff of TOR pitchers.
The Reds roster is such a mess. Instead of paying Roa the prorated split minimum for a first time 40 man player – 60K$ the rest of the way they’ll now have to pay him the prorated MLB minimum of 740K$ the rest of the way. In essence they are taking on an extra 175K$ in additional salary in a lost season because they don’t know how to manage a roster properly..
They added a young arm to the roster without exposing anyone else to waivers
Seems like they’re doing ok managing
Giving mlb service time and salary to a player in the minor leagues, when you don’t have too is bad roster management. There are a half dozen guys on this team that can be put on waivers right now, it wouldn’t matter if they were claimed or not as they almost certainly won’t be part of this club in 90 days.
Na na na na na you showed him.
I think they just spent more than that claiming Rosario off waivers. Had he cleared waivers and then signed with the Reds, Dodgers would be on the hook for the rest of his $1.5MM contract less ML minimum wage for 6-7 weeks.
The Reds backdated Greene’s IL placement, so he’d be eligible to come off the IL for that August 30 doubleheader. Assuming he’s able to pitch.
Otherwise, if Greene ends up shut down for an extended period, that pretty much ends any shred of hope they had left for this season. At that point they can jettison Rosario etc to make room for the AAA arms to they’ll need to finish out the season.
He wont throw another pitch until august 25
If they do already have him throwing on August 25, he’ll probably be activated as soon as he’s eligible.
Hopefully they’re not going to DFA this kid in a week like they do so many.
“Meanwhile” needs to start the sentence. As a conjunctive adverb, it can’t come in the middle between commas.