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Delino DeShields Jr. Elects Free Agency

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Reds outfielder Delino DeShields Jr. has refused an outright assignment and become a free agent, reports MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon (via tweet).

The speedy outfielder bounced around a few organizations this year after signing with the Rangers on a minor league deal. Owing to a robust walk rate and strong base stealing numbers in their Triple-A affiliate, Texas found a trade partner in Boston to take in DeShields as outfield depth and a potential playoff weapon. Cincinnati found similar appeal in DeShields and plucked him from the Red Sox in an early August deal for cash.

DeShields’ minors production included solid numbers, including 21 stolen bases (in 24 tries) and a .750 OPS. With the Reds, however, he saw big league action for the first time in 2021 and had a nice showing in sample size of 25 games, producing a .255/.375/.426 slash (105 OPS+) with almost as many walks as strikeouts.

Despite solid production down the stretch, the Reds likely didn’t view DeShields as an indispensable part of their future. The 29-year-old could have been retained via arbitration but will instead head to the open market in search of more steady Major League work. With plenty to like about DeShields’ profile, there are plenty of teams, including the Reds themselves, who may come knocking in the offseason to fortify their outfield ranks.

Michael Lorenzen Hoping For Rotation Opportunity In Free Agency

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For seven seasons with the Reds, right-hander Michael Lorenzen was utilized in rather unique fashion. The 29-year-old former No. 38 overall pick started 21 games as a rookie before settling in as a reliever. He also spent 96 innings in the outfield, 81 of them in center, and even played a handful of complete games as a center fielder down the stretch in 2019. He’s not Shohei Ohtani, but Lorenzen’s .233/.282/.429 batting line and seven career home runs in 147 plate appearances make him one of the game’s most productive pitchers with a bat in his hands.

At various points in his career, Lorenzen was set to audition for another opportunity in the Cincinnati rotation, but Spring Training injuries intervened. Now, as he sets out into the free-agent market, the 29-year-old righty hopes to sign with a club that will give him the chance to compete for a spot in the starting rotation, writes Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The 2021 season was a rough one for Lorenzen, who sustained a shoulder strain in Spring Training at a time when the Reds were planning to give him another chance at starting. As the right-hander explains to Nightengale, he suffered a Grade 3 hamstring strain while fielding a bunt against the Pirates on Aug. 8 — not long after returning from the shoulder injury. Rather than go on the injured list, Lorenzen somehow found a way to pitch through the injury down the stretch. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t a productive run, but with so many injuries elsewhere in the Cincinnati ’pen, Lorenzen gutted things out.

A look at Lorenzen’s 2021 numbers won’t generate much excitement. The right-hander finished out the year with a 5.59 ERA, a 16.8 percent strikeout rate, an 11.2 percent walk rate and a 44.8 percent grounder rate. The ERA is rather heavily skewed by Lorenzen’s final two appearances of the season, during which he yielded a combined eight runs in just 1 2/3 frames. Prior to that, he’d worked to a solid 3.62 ERA with an 18.9 percent strikeout rate and a 9.0 percent walk rate. Given that he was never (or only briefly) at full strength, it was a rather impressive showing up until that final pair of games.

Lorenzen figures to draw interest in a variety of roles, and plenty of teams will surely be more keen on plugging him into the bullpen than giving him a legitimate chance to start. From 2016-20, Lorenzen racked up 331 innings out of the Cincinnati bullpen and pitched to a cumulative 3.48 ERA with a 21.6 percent strikeout rate, nine percent walk rate and 44.8 percent ground-ball rate. He missed the first two and a half months of the ’16 season with an elbow strain and missed six weeks in ’18 with a shoulder strain, but Lorenzen still averaged 66 2/3 innings per season — and that’s including last year’s shortened schedule.

Given his track record in the ’pen, one would imagine that Lorenzen’s most-lucrative offers will be to pitch in relief next season. The right-hander tells Nightengale, however, that he’s “willing to bet on [himself]” in free agency this winter if the right situation comes along. Presumably, any starting opportunities would be on a low-cost deal with a fair bit of incentives — perhaps some based both on starting and relieving.

This year’s injury-marred results notwithstanding, Lorenzen has a strong track record in the bullpen, as many as six different pitches (headlined by a heater that averaged 96.9 mph in 2021), an excellent bat relative to other pitchers, and strong defensive skills in the outfield. Statcast pegged him in the 95th percentile in terms of sprint speed in 2017, and his 28.8 ft/sec speed in 2019 tied him for 68th among 564 big league position players. Beyond the raw speed, Statcast pegs him at +2 Outs Above Average as an outfielder, while Defensive Runs Saved has him at +1 in those 96 career innings. A rough 2021 showing will probably keep the price down, but he’ll be one of the more interesting buy-low options on the offseason market, regardless of what role he lands.

Reds Outright Delino DeShields Jr. To Triple-A

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The Reds have outrighted Delino DeShields Jr. off their 40-man roster and assigned the outfielder to Triple-A.  After being acquired in a trade from the Red Sox on August 31, DeShields hit .255/.375/.426 over 58 plate appearances for Cincinnati.

Albeit in a small sample size, it was a positive showing to conclude a busy 2021 season for DeShields, as the veteran outfielder played for three different organizations and didn’t see any MLB action until landing in Cincinnati.  DeShields rejoined the Rangers on a minor league deal back in February and was subsequently traded to the Red Sox in early August, before Boston sent him to the Reds.

DeShields put up some solid numbers (.252/.385/.366, 21 steals in 24 chances) over 381 combined Triple-A plate appearances with the Red Sox and Reds’ top affiliates.  Between his impressive speed and defensive ability, DeShields saw regular work with the Rangers from 2015-19 but simply didn’t deliver much offensive production, leading Texas to trade him to the Indians in the 2019-20 offseason.

The Reds still have a year of arbitration control remaining on DeShields, though today’s outright would hint that the Reds are prepared to move on from the 29-year-old (whose father is Cincinnati’s first base coach).  DeShields could potentially return to the Reds on a fresh minor league contract or perhaps sign with another team for a minors deal, as his base-stealing and glovework should get him looks from several teams in need of outfield depth.

Nick Castellanos Undecided About Opt-Out

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Reds outfielder Nick Castellanos says he has not made a decision about his ability to opt out of the remainder of his contract this winter. He recently discussed the matter with Mark Sheldon of MLB.com and said, “I don’t know what I want… There is so much information that I’m going to take in. I also have to take into mind the status of the game. The Collective Bargaining Agreement is now coming up. Once I take a step back from the season and have some days at home with my family and I’m able to just hang out with my wife, dog and kid, and we can just talk about what happened and get as much information as I can.”

At this point, it would be incredibly surprising if Castellanos decided not to opt out, given that he’s enjoying the best season of his career. Going into the last day of the campaign, the 29-year-old is currently hitting .308/.360/.574. That all adds up to a wRC+ of 139 and 4.0 wins above replacement, according to FanGraphs. Both of those numbers are well beyond his previous best season of 2018, when his wRC+ was 129 and he was worth 2.9 fWAR. In 2019, he was almost as good, putting up a wRC+ of 122 and 2.8 fWAR.

After those two consecutive excellent campaigns, he signed with the Reds on a four-year, $64MM contract that contained opt-out provisions after both 2020 and 2021. He didn’t use that first opt-out opportunity as last year proved to be a slight down year for him, hitting just .225/.298/.486, wRC+ of 100. But when that shortened season is combined with the full campaign of 2021, his numbers are right in line with his previous production. His 2020-21 slash line is .283/.342/.548, wRC+ of 127.

The contract contains two more guaranteed years, with a salary of $16MM in each of 2022 and 2023. There’s also a $2MM buyout on a $20MM mutual option for 2024, meaning that Castellanos, if he opts out, would be leaving two years and $34MM in guaranteed money on the table in exchange for the open market. If he does, the Reds would certainly extend him a qualifying offer, which will be in the range of $20MM.

Even with that taken into consideration, it seems likely Castellanos could find more money in free agency now as a 29-year-old than he would if he waited until the end of this contract, when he would be 31. For example, Marcell Ozuna has a similar bat-first outfielder profile. He turned down a qualifying offer after a mediocre 2019 season wherein he hit .241/328/.472 for a wRC+ of 110. He was still able to get himself a one-year, $18MM contract with the Braves for his age-29 season. Then he had a tremendous campaign in the shortened 2020 season and parlayed that into a four-year, $65MM contract to return to Atlanta.

However, as Castellanos himself points out, this coming offseason has the added uncertainty of the CBA negotiations. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement between the league and players’ union expires December 1st, which leaves the door open for all kinds of unknown paths for the offseason to take. Perhaps Castellanos would rather not go through all of that while temporarily unemployed, even if that means potentially limiting his overall earning power somewhat. As he himself put it, “You have to balance everything that you possibly can: How much you like where you’re playing, how close it is to home because I’m co-parenting, where the organization is in the spot to compete, and obviously, the financial part of it is important as well. It’s a balance of all of that.”

Reds Promote Riley O’Brien

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TODAY: The Reds officially promoted O’Brien, and left-handed Cionel Perez was optioned to Triple-A.

SEPTEMBER 27: The Reds are planning to recall Riley O’Brien to start tomorrow evening’s game against the White Sox, manager David Bell told reporters (including C. Trent Rosecrans of the Athletic). It’ll be the right-hander’s major league debut. O’Brien was added to the 40-man roster last offseason to keep him from being exposed in the Rule 5 draft, so no corresponding move will be needed in that regard.

O’Brien was originally selected by the Rays in the eighth round of the 2017 draft out of the College of Idaho. He worked his way up to Double-A Montgomery over the next few years before being sent to the Reds last summer for lefty reliever Cody Reed. O’Brien spent the rest of the 2020 campaign at Cincinnati’s alternate training site.

Each of Baseball America, Keith Law of the Athletic, MLB Pipeline and FanGraphs slotted the 25-year-old in the back half of the Reds’ top thirty prospects last offseason. Public evaluators generally suggest O’Brien’s likely to settle in as a back-of-the-rotation starter or multi-inning relief option in the relatively near future. The 6’4″ hurler draws praise for his low-mid 90s fastball and athleticism, but his command and the quality of his secondary offerings has been less consistent.

That’s been borne out in O’Brien’s first crack at Triple-A this season. Over 112 2/3 frames with Louisville, he’s worked to a 4.55 ERA with a solid 24.7% strikeout rate but an elevated 11.2% walk percentage. While the Reds clinched their second consecutive above-average season this afternoon, they won’t make it to the playoffs. They’ll get a look at O’Brien for a start or two in the season’s final week, and he figures to be in the mix for some sort of role on next year’s season-opening staff.

Reds Designate Beau Taylor For Assignment

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The Reds announced Monday morning that catcher Beau Taylor has been designated for assignment in order to open a roster spot for lefty Reiver Sanmartin, whom they’d already announced as today’s expected starter. Cincinnati also placed righty Luis Castillo on the family medical emergency list.

Taylor, 31, was claimed off waivers out of the Indians organization back in April and has spent the season with Cincinnati’s Triple-A affiliate in Louisville. He’s appeared in 75 games for the Bats, tallying 234 plate appearances with a .232/.339/.333 batting line and four home runs. He didn’t get a call to the big leagues with the Reds and has just 60 Major League plate appearances under his belt in total, which he’s split between the A’s, Jays and Indians.

Taylor hasn’t hit much in his limited MLB time, but he’s been posted a solid line in parts of four seasons in Triple-A, where a huge 14.5 percent walk rate has helped him to a .251/.366/.373 in 1032 plate appearances. Defensively, he’s drawn average or better marks both in pitch-framing and pitch-blocking in the upper minors, per Baseball Prospectus. He’s also thrown out 29 percent of would-be base thieves throughout 10 professional seasons.

Solid defensive skills and a knack for drawing walks and getting on base could give Taylor some appeal on the waiver wire for clubs hoping to add some catching depth this offseason. If he does go unclaimed, he’ll have the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency by virtue of the fact that he’s previously been outrighted in his career (with the A’s in 2018).

Reds To Promote Reiver Sanmartin For Monday Start

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The Reds announced that left-handed pitching prospect Reiver Sanmartin’s contract will be selected tomorrow, so the 25-year-old can start Cincinnati’s game against the Pirates.  A corresponding move is forthcoming to open a 40-man roster spot.

Sanmartin will make his MLB debut following a minor league season that saw the lefty post a 3.32 ERA over 100 1/3 combined innings for the Reds’ top two farm affiliates (18 IP at Double-A, 82 1/3 IP at Triple-A).  Starting 17 of 25 appearances, Sanmartin had a strong 27.4% strikeout rate and 6.8% walk rate.

Sanmartin has consistently done a good job of limiting walks over his pro career, though his strikeouts have been on the rise over his two seasons in the Reds’ farm system (sandwiched around the lost 2020 minor league season).  The increase in missed bats hasn’t come at the expense of Sanmartin’s quality groundball rates, as he has continued to generate grounders well over half the time.

For all of the positives of Sanmartin’s 2021 season, he also had a rather ignominious distinction as the first player in either the minor or major leagues to be suspended for use of an illegal substance after MLB’s “sticky stuff” crackdown in June.  Sanmartin was suspended for 10 games after umpires found a foreign substance under the brim of his cap while conducting a post-inning check.

Neither MLB Pipeline or Baseball America rank Sanmartin among the Reds’ top 30 prospects, but he will nonetheless get his first taste of The Show as the replacement for the injured Wade Miley, who was originally slated to start Monday.  Sanmartin was originally signed by the Rangers as an international free agent in 2015, and he and Sonny Gray came to the Reds from the Yankees as part of a notable three-team swap (also involving the Mariners) in January 2019.

Reds Place Wade Miley On 10-Day Injured List

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The Reds placed left-hander Wade Miley on the 10-day injured list due to a neck strain, with the placement retroactive to September 22.  Southpaw Cionel Perez was called up from Triple-A to take Miley’s spot on the active roster.

Though the timing works out for Miley to make one more start before the season is over, it seems possible that the veteran lefty has thrown his last pitch of the 2021 season.  The Reds will need at least one replacement for Miley’s rotation spot in the short term, as Miley had been scheduled to start Monday’s game against the Pirates.

Miley has an 8.35 ERA over four starts and 18 1/3 innings in September, putting a sour finish on what has otherwise been a very solid season for the 34-year-old.  Miley has 3.37 ERA over 163 frames for Cincinnati, with a 49.4% grounder rate and an above-average walk rate to go along with a lot of soft contact.  Never a big strikeout pitcher, Miley has only an 18.1% strikeout rate this year, just about matching his career average.

After signing a two-year, $15MM free agent deal back in December 2019, Miley barely pitched in his first year with the Reds, as shoulder and groin injuries limited him to 14 1/3 innings in 2020.  This season’s nice bounce-back effort will now greatly increase the chances of Miley remaining in Cincinnati next year, as the Reds hold a $10MM club option ($1MM) buyout on Miley’s services for the 2022 campaign.

Tyler Naquin Expected To Miss Rest Of Regular Season

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Outfielder Tyler Naquin is expected to miss the remainder of the regular season, Reds manager David Bell tells Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

This news is most unwelcome for the Reds, as Naquin has been a pleasant surprise for them this year. After being non-tendered by Cleveland in December, he latched on with the Reds on a minor league deal in February and then had a great spring, vaulting himself onto the Opening Day roster. Since then, he has gotten into 127 games for the Reds, hitting .270/.333/.477, good enough for a wRC+ of 111. Despite subpar defense, he’s still been worth 1.4 wins above replacement on the season, according to FanGraphs. Unfortunately, on September 11th, Naquin and teammate Jose Barrero collided while attempting to trying to catch a fly ball. Naquin came out of that game with bruised ribs and was eventually placed on the IL a few days later.

If Cincinnati were to go on a lengthy playoff run, Naquin’s chances of returning would surely improve, though that seems very unlikely at this point. The club has gone on an ill-timed slide here in September, with a record of 7-13 in the month so far. When combined with the incredible 12-game win streak of the Cardinals, the Reds are now 5 1/2 games out of a playoff spot with just over a week remaining in the season.

Longer term, the team will now have to decide whether to tender Naquin a contract for 2022. He will finish this season with just over five years’ service time and can be controlled for one more season via arbitration. Naquin played the 2020 season on a prorated $1.45MM salary and was let go by a Cleveland team that didn’t think he was worth an arbitration raise. Now Cincinnati is in a similar position, paying him $1.5MM for this year. However, Naquin was coming off a disastrous campaign in the shortened 2020 season, hitting .218/.248/.383, a wRC+ of 65.

The Reds are likely to see Nick Castellanos opt out of the last two years of his contract and return to free agency. That would leave Jesse Winker as the only lock for next year’s outfield, along with unproven options such as TJ Friedl, Max Schrock, Nick Senzel, Shogo Akiyama and Aristides Aquino. Keeping Naquin around for another season and giving him a modest arbitration raise could be a good way to provide the club some extra cover as they navigate the offseason outfield market.

Reds Extend Manager David Bell Through 2023

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The Reds and manager David Bell have agreed on a contract extension that runs through the end of the 2023 season, Bell himself told reporters (including Mark Sheldon of MLB.com). Bell anticipates his entire coaching staff will return next season as well.

Bell has led the Cincinnati dugout for the past three seasons, with the team posting a cumulative 184-190 record (.492 winning percentage). Before landing his first managerial gig, he’d worked in a few different capacities, serving on Mike Matheny’s coaching staff with the Cardinals for five years before spending a season as the Giants’ vice president of player development.

The Reds hired Bell in October 2018, signing him to a three-year guarantee. That deal contained a club option for the 2022 season. Rather than exercise the option and potentially enter next season with Bell in a lame duck capacity, Cincinnati struck early to guarantee Bell’s position for another two years. It’s not clear whether his new deal also contains options beyond 2023.

At the time of Bell’s initial hiring, the Reds were still amidst a multi-year rebuild. They’d posted below-average records in each of the five prior seasons, finishing last in the NL Central every year from 2015-18. The club dismissed skipper Bryan Price early in 2018, with Jim Riggleman taking the reigns on an interim capacity for the remainder of the year.

The team made some progress in Bell’s first year at the helm. After winning between 64 and 68 games in each of the prior four seasons, the Reds went 75-87 in 2019, surpassing the Pirates to get out of the basement of the division. They flipped the switch completely into win-now mode late in the year, acquiring Trevor Bauer at the trade deadline with an eye towards 2020 and pushing payroll to a franchise-record height that winter. The front office signed Mike Moustakas and Nick Castellanos to matching $64MM guarantees and also added Shogo Akiyama and Wade Miley on multi-year deals.

The organization clearly envisioned 2020 as the opening of a new competitive window. Obviously, the pandemic-necessitated shortened season threw a wrench in those plans, but the Reds did at least finish 31-29 last year to earn a spot in the expanded playoff. That snapped a six-year postseason drought, but Cincinnati was quickly dispatched by the Braves in the Wild Card round. The club then had a relatively inactive offseason, entering this year with a significant question mark at shortstop and some concerns about the relief corps.

Those issues impacted the club’s early-season play, particularly as Eugenio Suárez struggled badly in an attempt to move from third base to shortstop. Cincinnati hovered right around .500 through the season’s first half before catching fire coming out of the All-Star Break. Not too long ago, they looked as likely as anyone to claim the NL’s second Wild Card spot, but the club has stumbled to a 7-12 record in September. Coupled with the Cardinals’ recent surge, Cincinnati now sits four games back of St. Louis for the final playoff spot. According to FanGraphs, their postseason odds are down to 5.9%.

Missing the playoffs would certainly be a disappointing outcome for a Cincinnati club that expected to contend this season. GM Nick Krall and the front office nevertheless believe in Bell’s ability to lead the club back to the playoffs over the coming years. Despite their up-and-down play this season, the Reds have seen homegrown, controllable players like Jesse Winker, Jonathan India and Tyler Stephenson emerge as above-average regulars during Bell’s tenure. That trio will work with the resurgent Joey Votto and a talented pitching staff led by Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray and Tyler Mahle to form what the club hopes to be a competitive core in 2022 and beyond.

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