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Reds Acquire Austin Romine From Cardinals

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The Reds have acquired catcher Austin Romine from the Cardinals for cash, per a team announcement.  Romine had been designated for assignment but didn’t last long on the DFA wire, quickly getting snapped up by the Reds.

Cincinnati will be Romine’s third different organization of the 2022 season, after he first signed a minor league deal with the Angels in March.  He was released in June but caught on with St. Louis on another minors deal a couple of weeks later, when the Cardinals were in need of some extra catching depth when Molina first went on the IL.  Overall, Romine has played in 14 total Major League games with his two teams this season.

Romine now joins another team trying to make do in the wake of a notable injury, as Tyler Stephenson could miss the rest of the 2022 campaign after undergoing surgery for a fractured collarbone.  With Aramis Garcia also on the IL, rookies Michael Papierski and Mark Kolozsvary comprise the Reds’ current catching corps, and thus an 11-year veteran like Romine brings some needed experience to the roster.

Padres To Acquire Brandon Drury

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The Padres are acquiring Brandon Drury from the Reds, according to Ken Rosenthal and C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic. Prospect Victor Acosta is going to Cincinnati, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

The Padres have seemingly been at the center of all the activity at this year’s deadline, extending Joe Musgrove, acquiring Josh Hader, sending Eric Hosmer to the Red Sox and making perhaps the most impactful baseball trade of all time, acquiring Juan Soto and Josh Bell for a pile of prospects.

The Reds, too, have been busy, sending Luis Castillo to the Mariners, Tyler Mahle to the Twins and Tommy Pham to the Red Sox. Now the two clubs have aligned on a deal that will send Drury to San Diego.

Drury, 29, showed enough promise in his early years with the Diamondbacks that he cracked Baseball America’s top 100 list in 2016 and then was traded to the Yankees after the 2017 season. Unfortunately, this was the beginning of a miserable three-year stretch wherein Drury struggled mightily with the Yanks and then the Blue Jays. He dealt with various injuries and struggled to produce when healthy, eventually getting designated for assignment at the end of the 2020 season.

The Mets took a flier on him last year, which worked out well, as Drury hit .274/.307/.476 in a bench role. That production was 14% above league average, by measure of wRC+. Despite that solid work, he was designated for assignment again at the end of the season.

The Reds brought Drury aboard on a minor league deal, which could hardly have gone any better. Drury is having a career year, already having hit 20 home runs and producing an overall batting line of .274/.335/.520 for a wRC+ of 132. He’s also done it while bouncing all around the diamond, playing mostly third base but also seeing time at the other three infield positions and right field this year.

It seems likely that the Padres want Drury to fill a super utility role on the team, bouncing around to various positions based on who needs a day off. The regular infield lineup would likely see Josh Bell at first, Jake Cronenworth at second, Ha-Seong Kim at shortstop and Manny Machado at third. When Fernando Tatis Jr. eventually returns from his injury, the picture will get a little more crowded, but the Padres also cleared out their usual designated hitter by including Luke Voit in the Soto deal.

In exchange, the Reds are getting Acosta, an 18-year-old switch-hitting shortstop. He had an excellent debut in affiliated ball last year, slashing .285/.431/.484 in the Dominican Summer League for a 153 wRC+ and adding 26 stolen bases. He has slumped a bit this year, hitting .243/.346/.360 in the Arizona Complex League for a 99 wRC+. He is still just 18, however, and was considered one of the better prospects in the San Diego system coming into today.

Reds Trade Tyler Mahle To Twins

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The Twins have nabbed their second notable arm of the day, acquiring right-hander Tyler Mahle in a trade with the Reds, the teams announced. Cincinnati is receiving infield prospects Spencer Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand as well as left-handed pitching prospect Steven Hajjar in the deal. Minnesota has had interest in Mahle dating back to the offseason, when they also picked up another Reds starter, Sonny Gray, in a swap that sent 2021 first-rounder Chase Petty to the Reds.

Tyler Mahle

Minnesota has been focused on upgrading its pitching staff, both in the rotation and in the bullpen. Having already landed Orioles closer Jorge Lopez in a trade with Baltimore earlier this morning, it seems their focus has shifted to Mahle, who’d reunite with Gray and give the Twins a starter they can control for the remainder of the current season and for the 2023 campaign.

Mahle, 28 next month, has shaken off a terrible start to the 2022 season and pitched quite well over the past two months. He had a brief stint on the injured list due to a shoulder strain in mid-July, but Mahle only missed minimal time and has made a pair of effective starts since returning. Dating back to May 29, he’s pitched to a 2.83 ERA with a 27.9% strikeout rate and 7% walk rate in 57 1/3 innings.

Since a breakout during the 2020 season, Mahle has pitched to a 3.93 ERA with a 27.4% strikeout rate and 8.9% walk rate in 332 big league innings. He’s averaged 94 mph with his heater along the way and leaned heavily on a splitter and slider that have both graded out as above-average pitches at times — more recently favoring the splitter (particularly as a means of neutralizing lefties).

Beyond Mahle’s solid ERA, it’s easy to be intrigued by how he might fare when finally escaping the homer-happy confines of Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park. He’s worked to an ugly 4.83 ERA and yielded an average of 1.69 home runs per nine innings over the past three seasons while pitching at home but boasts an outstanding 2.93 ERA and just a 0.52 HR/9 mark on the road. He also has above-average spin on his heater and rates in the 76th percentile or better, per Statcast, in each of the following metrics: expected ERA, expected batting average, expected slugging percentage and expected wOBA.

Mahle will give the Twins some desperately needed help in the rotation, which started the season on a surprisingly strong note but has floundered of late. Opening Day rotation members Bailey Ober and Chris Paddack are both on the injured list — Paddack lost for the season due to Tommy John surgery — and 2020 Cy Young runner-up Kenta Maeda is recovering from his own TJ procedure, performed late last season.

The Twins have leaned heavily on Mahle’s former Reds rotationmate Gray, rookie Joe Ryan and veterans Chris Archer and Dylan Bundy so far in 2022. Gray and Ryan have both been strong — a disastrous five-homer start for Ryan in his last appearance notwithstanding — and Bundy has been serviceable, if unspectacular, outside a pair of catastrophic starts of his own at the end of April and in early May. Archer has been limited to four or five outings per start throughout the season and begun to wilt in recent weeks, however, and the Twins’ overall rotation mix simply underwhelmed in July. Twins starters yielded an awful 6.49 ERA in July — third-worst among all big league teams.

Mahle is earning $5.2MM this season, making him plenty affordable even when factoring in his final arbitration raise for next season (or, as Dan Hayes of The Athletic suggests, in a potential long-term extension). Even absent an extension, he can be penciled into the 2023 staff alongside Gray, Ryan and (health-permitting) Maeda. That’s a much more solid foundation than the team carried into the current season.

Unlike this morning’s acquisition of Lopez, the Twins paid fairly extensively from the top end of their system to get this deal done. Steer, the Twins’ third-round pick in 2019, recently moved into the back end of Baseball America’s midseason top-100 rankings on the heels of a big first half.

Splitting his time between Double-A and Triple-A, Steer has turned in a combined .269/.361/.528 batting line with 20 home runs, 23 doubles, three triples, a 17% strikeout rate and a strong 10.8% walk rate. He’s split his time between second base, third base and shortstop this season, spending the bulk of his time at the hot corner (although Baseball America cites second as his best position). Given his breakout showing this year, it’s not unreasonable to think Steer could be an option for the Reds within the next year.

The 22-year-old Encarnacion-Strand, meanwhile was Minnesota’s fourth-round selection just last year. As with Steer, he’d having a huge season in the minors, logging a combined .302/.374/.612 batting line with 25 home runs, 25 doubles and four triples between Class-A Advanced and Double-A. Strikeouts have been more of an issue for Encarnacion-Strand than for Steer, as he’s fanned in about a quarter of his place appearances this season against a solid 8.7% walk rate. BA ranked him 14th in the Twins’ system, touting his plus-plus raw power but noting that he’s at best a fringey defender at third base and may need to move across the diamond.

Hajjar, 21, was the Twins’ second-round pick in last year’s draft and has had an impressive first full pro season this year. Minnesota has been limiting his workload, evidenced by 45 1/3 innings across a combined 13 starts, but the results have been strong. The former Michigan standout has logged a 3.18 ERA with a gaudy 39.2% strikeout rate so far, although his 14% walk rate is something he’ll obviously need to hone is he’s to ever realize his ceiling as a mid-rotation starter.

Hajjar can reach the mid-to-upper 90s with his heater, which he complements with a slider and changeup. Notably, Hajjar did spend more than a month on the shelf due to a shoulder strain, and his results since returning have been diminished. Still, he’s a clearly talented arm whom the Reds can add to the middle tier of a farm system they’re rapidly restocking.

With this trade, the Twins have now moved on from four of their top five picks in the 2021 draft since trading for Gray just prior to the season. That’ll take a toll on the system, which has also been harmed by a series of injuries to last year’s wave of top prospects (e.g. Josh Winder, Jordan Balazovic). That said, it’s also a testament to the strength of last year’s class. And, with the Twins receiving strong production from some recent graduates of the farm — including the aforementioned Ryan leverage reliever Jhoan Duran and slugging corner infielder Jose Miranda, among others — there’ll be a bit less pressure to tap into the upper levels of their system in the immediate future.

Time will tell whether the Twins have another move up their sleeve. They could certainly use another reliever and/or another starter, to say nothing of a backup catcher or an outfielder — all rumored to be on Minnesota’s wishlist. There’s about two hours left for them to find a way to pull together another deal (or deals). The Reds, meanwhile, will surely have other players on the move as general manager Nick Krall and his staff continue to restock the farm and simultaneously slash payroll.

C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic first reported (via Twitter) that the Twins and Reds were in “serious” talks regarding Mahle. The New York Post’s Jon Heyman tweeted that a deal was in place. Ted Schwerzler of TwinsDaily was first with the return (Twitter link).

Reds GM Krall: Brandon Drury Extension “Not On The Table”

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Brandon Drury has widely been seen as one of the top trade candidates of deadline season, and the Reds infielder seems even more likely to change teams now that a contract extension doesn’t appear to be happening.  As Reds GM Nick Krall told MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon, a long-term deal between Drury and the Reds is “not on the table as of right now.”

It frankly would’ve counted as a surprise if an extension was signed, for a variety of factors.  The Reds have already traded Luis Castillo and Tommy Pham as the latest in a series of cost-cutting/rebuilding moves, and it stands to reason that Drury (a free agent after the season) was a natural next piece to be moved, particularly since Drury has drawn interest from at least four teams to date.

2022 has also been easily Drury’s best full season as a Major Leaguer, as he entered today’s action with 20 home runs and a .275/.336/.523 slash line over 381 plate appearances.  Drury has more than delivered on the minor league contract he signed with the Reds back in March, which could be another reason why a trade is likelier than an extension — Cincinnati might prefer to sell high on Drury, rather than commit some notable money to a late bloomer who is just weeks away from his 30th birthday.

Still, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal raised the possibility of a Drury extension in a notes column yesterday.  It isn’t uncommon for teams to engage in some last-minute extension talks with pending free agents in advance of the trade deadline, as just in case the player is open to more of a team-friendly deal to stay in town.  Given Drury’s lack of a proven track record, he might well have been amenable to an extension, in order to lock in some guaranteed money and some stability after playing for five teams in eight MLB seasons.

Tyler Stephenson To Undergo Collarbone Surgery

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Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson is undergoing surgery to repair his fractured collarbone, manager David Bell announced this afternoon (via C. Trent Rosecrans of the Athletic). Bell indicated the surgery isn’t expected to affect Stephenson’s timetable, although the club nevertheless transferred him from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list to clear a roster spot for the reinstatement of outfielder Albert Almora Jr. from the COVID-19 list.

That suggests that, in any event, Stephenson was always likely to miss two-plus months. That’s little surprise after the young backstop suffered the clavicle fracture last week when he was hit by a foul tip. The earliest he’ll now be able to return is late September. Bell wouldn’t rule out seeing him again this season, but it’d be for a few games late in the year at best.

The Reds will be playing out the string at that point, although they’d presumably prefer to get Stephenson some game action to head into the offseason on a better footing. He’s had a trio of IL stints this year, all on generally freak plays. Stephenson suffered a concussion in a home plate collision, then twice was hit with foul tips that resulted in fractures. That’s kept him to 183 plate appearances, although he’s been a rare bright spot for the club when healthy. The 25-year-old (26 next month) has an excellent .319/.372/.482 showing, locking him in as a core long-term piece for the retooling franchise.

Red Sox Acquire Tommy Pham

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The Red Sox and Reds have announced a deal that will send outfielder Tommy Pham to Boston. Cincinnati will receive a player to be named later or cash considerations in return.

It’s a bit of a surprising move for a Boston team that just agreed to deal away its primary catcher, Christian Vázquez, to the Astros. Yet Red Sox president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom has maintained they’re not approaching the deadline with a strict “buyer’s” or “seller’s” mentality. Rather, Boston has taken a flexible approach that has seen them ship out Vázquez and listen to offers on designated hitter J.D. Martinez while bringing in players like Pham and backstop Reese McGuire. The Sox enter play Monday 3 1/2 games out in the American League Wild Card race, leaving them to navigate a difficult position for the stretch run.

Boston is trying to thread a needle of gaining some long-term talent while not completely punting on the 2022 campaign, and it stands to reason further moves are on the horizon. In Pham, they add a right-handed bat to a corner outfield mix that has been very disappointing. Left fielder Alex Verdugo has underwhelmed to the tune of a .269/.308/.376 showing with just six homers in 402 plate appearances. The club’s right fielders — primarily Jackie Bradley Jr. — are hitting .199/.262/.316.

Pham, who signed a one-year deal with the Reds in Spring Training, has been a bit more productive than Boston’s incumbent corner outfielders. The 34-year-old owns a .238/.320/.374 line with 11 homers in 387 trips to the plate. His 10.9% walk rate, while a career low, is still a bit better than league average. He consistently makes a fair amount of hard contact, although his power output hasn’t aligned with his above-average exit velocities. That’s largely because Pham hits plenty of ground-balls, but he should nevertheless represent an offensive improvement over the Sox’s internal options.

With Cincinnati, Pham played exclusively left field or designated hitter. He figures to see the bulk of his playing time in Fenway in left, with Verdugo presumably kicking to right field and curtailing Bradley’s playing time. Bloom was in the Rays front office during Pham’s peak days with Tampa Bay, and he’s clearly hopeful the veteran outfielder can rediscover something resembling that productive form.

Pham is making $6MM this season, with a bit more than $2MM of that left to be paid. There’s no mention of cash considerations, so it seems Cincinnati will save a bit of money for stretch run. The Reds are likely to get a minor prospect for a player who’d been slated to hit the free agent market after this season.

Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic first reported the Reds were in agreement on a Pham trade. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com named the Red Sox as one of two finalists for Pham. Jim Bowden of the Athletic first reported the Red Sox were acquiring Pham. C. Trent Rosecrans of the Athletic reported the Reds were receiving a player to be named later.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Mariners, Braves Among Teams Interested in Brandon Drury

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The Mariners, Braves and Dodgers are among the teams interested in Brandon Drury, reports Jon Morosi of MLB Network.

Drury has seemed like an obvious trade candidate for a few months now, due to a variety of factors. He’s an impending free agent with a modest salary who is playing for a basement-dwelling team. Beyond that, he’s having the best season of his career and is capable of playing multiple positions, making him a fit for many clubs. He is slashing .275/.336/.523 and just hit his 20th home run. That production is 33% better than league average, according to wRC+. He’s also taken the field at all four infield positions this season, in addition to a brief cameo in right field.

The interest from the Dodgers, as well as the Giants, was reported a few weeks ago. As for Seattle and Atlanta, they are likely interested in Drury primarily for second base, despite his ability to play elsewhere. Most of Drury’s work this year has been at the hot corner, with 53 starts there, though he’s also manned the keystone in 20 different contests.

For the Mariners, they’ve given the bulk of this year’s playing time at second base to Adam Frazier, who is having a down year at the plate. After a strong 2021 where he hit .305/.368/.411 for a wRC+ of 114, the Mariners acquired him from the Padres in an offseason trade. Unfortunately, he’s only been able to muster a .244/.304/.312 line for Seattle, amounting to a wRC+ of 81. He’d likely be the infielder most at risk of losing playing time in the event of a Drury trade, with Eugenio Suarez, J.P. Crawford and Ty France occupying the other spots around the diamond. There’s also the possibility of a platoon, as Frazier hits from the left side of the plate and Drury the right.

As for the Braves, their need for help at second base arose when Ozzie Albies suffered a foot fracture in June. He’s been on the shelf about six weeks already and could return in about a month, though he still hasn’t begun a rehab assignment. With Albies out of action, most of his playing time has gone to Orlando Arcia, who is hitting .238/.316/.371 on the year. That amounts to a 92 wRC+, which is just 8% below league average but well below Drury’s work on the year. With Dansby Swanson, Austin Riley and Matt Olson taking up the other spots in the dirt, second base would stand out as the most obvious spot to plug Drury if he were to be put into an Atlanta jersey.

For the Reds, they’re well out of contention and have already begun their deadline selloff with Friday’s Luis Castillo trade. Drury seems highly likely to follow him out the door, with Tyler Mahle, Donovan Solano, Tommy Pham also among those that the club will exchange for prospects. The trade deadline is in about 48 hours, 5pm CT on August 2.

Reds Notes: Mahle, Drury

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The Cardinals’ search for starting pitching has taken them inside their division, as MLB Network’s Jon Morosi (Twitter link) reports that St. Louis is one of the many clubs interested in Reds righty Tyler Mahle.  With the Cards looking at all options for rotation help, it only makes sense that they’d be at least checking in on Mahle’s services.

The Phillies, Twins, and Mets are among the clubs linked to Mahle since the start of the season, while the Rangers also reportedly had interest during the offseason.  With Luis Castillo already off the board, it’s fair to guess that most pitching-needy teams have spoken to the Reds about Mahle, and on paper the Cardinals have the kind of young talent that the Reds would surely demand.  However, it is possible Cincinnati might want a higher price for moving Mahle to a division rival — as Morosi notes, the Reds and Cardinals haven’t completed a player-for-player trade since 1997, so it would count as a surprise on some level if Mahle ended up in St. Louis.

  • Just because Castillo has been traded doesn’t mean the Reds are necessarily likelier to hang onto Mahle, since CBS Sports’ R.J. Anderson hears that Mahle and Brandon Drury are expected to both be on new teams after the deadline.  Drury is a free agent after the season and thus an obvious trade chip, though Mahle is still under team control through 2023.  But, it now seems like Cincinnati is going to dive into something close to a full rebuild, a process that really started over the winter when they moved several other veteran talents.

Latest On Phillies’ Pitching Search

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The Phillies are looking to add a front-of-the-rotation type of arm, with The Athletic’s Jayson Stark (Twitter links) writing that the Phils want “a starter who can start a playoff game.”  To this end, the club has been linked to such arms as the Reds’ Tyler Mahle, the Angels’ Noah Syndergaard, and the Pirates’ Jose Quintana — three of the most prominent starting pitchers remaining on the trade market.

Mahle is controlled through the 2023 season, while Syndergaard and Quintana would be pure rentals as players who are scheduled for free agency this winter.  As such, Mahle would surely cost the most in a trade, and Syndergaard carries a bit of a financial hit, with roughly $7.2MM still owed to him over the remainder of the season.  By contrast, Quintana is owed only around $675K for the rest of 2022, but Quintana also has a shaky track record over the last few seasons before righting himself this year in Pittsburgh.

Dave Dombrowski, Philadelphia’s president of baseball operations, suggested earlier this week that his team was hoping to bolster the rotation, but the Phils were also hesitant about dealing any of their top prospects.  Stark backs up that assertion, noting that the Phillies haven’t been willing to move any of Mick Abel, Andrew Painter or Logan O’Hoppe (the Phils’ consensus top-three prospects in the view of Baseball America and MLB Pipeline), or right-handed pitching propects Griff McGarry or Ben Brown.  BA ranks McGarry fourth and Brown seventh in their ranking of Phillies prospects, while Pipeline is a little less bullish, ranking McGarry eighth and Brown 26th.

Since the Phillies’ system isn’t considered to be too deep overall, it isn’t any surprise that the front office isn’t keen on parting ways with any of the relatively few premium names on hand in the minors.  However, as Stark observes, the Phils will find it difficult to obtain higher-tier pitching unless they’re open to trading prospects.  Given the amount of interest Mahle has received from around the league, and given what the Reds just obtained from the Mariners in the Luis Castillo deal, it would seem almost impossible for the Phillies to land Mahle without at least one of the blue-chip prospects.

Syndergaard and Quintana would come at a lower price tag as rental players, but Stark notes that Dombrowski also prefers controllable starters.  This was Philadelphia’s strategy in landing Kyle Gibson from the Rangers at last year’s deadline, and landing a starter who is controlled through at least 2023 would give the Phillies some cover since Gibson and Zach Eflin could both be free agents this winter.

The rotation seems to be Philadelphia’s top priority at this point, as Stark says that the Phillies aren’t focused on any bullpen moves for the moment.  This is a little surprising given the Phils’ longstanding needs in the relief corps, but it could be that Dombrowski is first exploring his options with the starter market before turning to the (relatively) easier route of adding relievers.  Also, virtually every contender in baseball is looking for relievers right now, so Dombrowski could be opting to make some late strikes after the first wave or two of bullpen trades have been made.

Latest On Frankie Montas

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TODAY: The Yankees, Cardinals, and Blue Jays seem to be the top suitors for Montas, as Jon Morosi of MLB Network writes that the right-hander’s “market is focused on” these three teams.

JULY 30: With Luis Castillo now on his way to Seattle following last night’s trade to the Mariners, Frankie Montas stands out as perhaps the best and likeliest arm left to be traded before Tuesday’s 5pm CT deadline. The majority of teams that held interest in Castillo are involved, to varying extents, in the Montas market, so it’s possible that last night’s deal begins to accelerate the pace of the pitching market overall.

The Yankees, for instance, were known to be Castillo suitors but have now made Montas their top target according to both Bob Nightengale of USA Today and Jon Heyman of the New York Post (Twitter links). The Cardinals, who never seemed likely to be able to land Castillo from a fellow NL Central club, are continuing their pursuit of Montas, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. Their pursuit, however, is complicated a bit by simultaneous interest in Nationals superstar Juan Soto; Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic writes in his latest column that some of the Cardinals prospects the A’s are targeting in return for Montas are also coveted by the Nationals.

Several other clubs were linked to both Montas and Castillo in the past week, including the Twins, Padres and Blue Jays. There are also surely other clubs on the periphery of the market whose presence isn’t publicly known. Both Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News and Rosenthal have indicated, for instance, that the Rangers had engaged with the Reds in talks regarding Castillo. Whether the A’s would seriously entertain sending Montas to a division rival isn’t clear, but it’s telling that Texas is in the market for arms that can be controlled into 2023.

The Athletics’ asking price on Montas was reportedly quite high even before last night’s trade of Castillo potentially upped Oakland’s leverage in talks. In profiling the Cardinals’ current rotation needs, Katie Woo of The Athletic wrote (prior to the Castillo deal) that Oakland is believed to be seeking a pair of top prospects and “potentially a currently rostered player with substantial team control remaining.” It’s a steep ask, to be sure, though not an unrealistic one given Montas’ trade value.

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