Reds Awaken with Trio of Pre-Christmas Transactions

On Thursday, the Reds broke the silence hanging over their quiet offseason with three notable moves. The club inked both former Rookie of the Year Wil Myers and veteran backstop Curt Casali to one-year deals with mutual options. The former is guaranteed $7.5 million; the latter will take home at least $3.25 million. To make room for Casali, the Reds DFA’d Mike Moustakas, who was heading into the last season of a four-year, $64 million contract he signed prior to 2020.

After blowing it up when their previous rebuild resulted in merely a Wild Card contender, Cincinnati’s current reconstruction period is entering just its second season; at best, the team has an outside shot at the playoffs. That said, these moves don’t strike me as pure roster-filler or eye-toward-July transactions. Instead, they make real sense as supplements to a young team, potentially aiding in the development of up-and-comers in concrete ways.

Let’s start with the Casali deal. Since his call-up in 2014, the right-hander’s 1,358 plate appearances make him one of 63 catchers to amass at least 1,000 during that timeframe, and his career wRC+ of 92 comes out just above that group’s 91 average. But a lot of that damage has come versus lefties, against whom he has put up a 108 wRC+ in 452 plate appearances. There have been 62 catchers who have hit at least 300 times against lefties since 2014; Casali’s 108 comfortably bests that group’s average wRC+ of 98.

But the Reds’ incumbent catcher, Tyler Stephenson, is also a righty and is still slated for the lion’s share of reps behind the plate. In fact, his emergence in 2020 is part of what made Casali expendable, with his first Reds tenure coming to an end after that season. This past season, however, Stephenson dealt with three serious injuries: a concussion and fractures to his thumb and clavicle.

All of Stephenson’s injuries were freak in nature; the fractures came on foul tips, and the concussion on a home plate collision. Still just 26, he has the potential to come out the other side with no residual issues. But adding Casali to the mix allows the Reds to take some of the pressure off of Stephenson, avoiding the battering that catchers take with extra DH (where his bat still plays) or rest days. And the club can work this plan as long as he is still developing and still preparing for the next run, with the option for him to return to catching full-time when the time comes.

On Stephenson’s rest days, the Reds won’t be sacrificing too much offensively and might actually be upgrading defensively: Casali’s been a better framer (according to Statcast) and pitch-caller (by catcher ERA runs saved, a component of DRS) throughout his career. In this way, having him around can help further the confidence and development of young Reds’ starters such as Nick Lodolo, Hunter Greene, and Graham Ashcraft, not to mention potential backend-bullpen arm Alexis Díaz. The Reds also have Luke Maile under contract as their third-stringer; while he is the worst hitter of their three backstops, his arm is the best by stolen base runs saved, he’s a good pitch caller, and he had the best framing stats this past season. He could be especially helpful if the Reds choose to lean into the pitching-development angle.

Additionally, while Joey Votto is on track to be ready for spring training after surgery for a torn rotator cuff this summer, the Reds would be hard-pressed to rely on his performance and health as he enters his age-39 season. Stephenson also has experience at first; a logical way to keep both him and Votto healthy would be to shift Stephenson to first against lefties, either benching Votto or moving him to DH. Casali could then slot in at catcher and tee off on southpaws, and the right-handed Stephenson wouldn’t lose reps against them either. In his career, the left-handed Votto has hit 22 points worse against southpaws by measure of wRC+; if he puts up another sub-100 overall wRC+ mark next year, his line against lefties could get ugly. Maybe the Reds will also try out some of their other young hitters at DH or first base, with Stephenson occupying one of those two spots, when Votto sits against lefties.

Speaking of young Reds hitters, Spencer Steer’s late-season audition at third base seemingly inspired enough confidence in the club’s front office to declare him the 2023 starter there weeks ago. Acquired in the Tyler Mahle deadline deal, the right-handed Steer put up a 127 wRC+ across 492 Double-A and Triple-A plate appearances this year but slashed just .211/.306/.326 in 108 major league trips to the plate. But it’s a small sample, and he’s only displacing Moustakas, whose .211/.289/.356 line over the past two years wasn’t any better. Moose dealt with injuries that hindered his performance in 2021 and ’22, and his 113 wRC+ from 2015–20 hints at his potential for a rebound, but the Reds decided to exclude him from their roster rather than bet on one.

While Moustakas’ primary position is third base, he could have backed up Steer there and Jonathan India at second, his next most frequented position. He has experience at first, too, so he could have also factored into the Reds’ mix there on days when Stephenson and Votto weren’t available. And this is to say nothing of his potential to contribute at DH. In other words, the Reds could have kept him around in a utility role in order to evaluate his ability to rebound; if he did perform, they could have tried to flip him at the deadline instead of cutting him for what will probably be nothing. But they have gauged interest in a Moustakas trade before to no avail; perhaps they exhausted all avenues and were ready to hand the reins over to their young position players.

Except that they also signed Myers in the same breath as they DFA’d Moustakas. He figures to factor into the Reds’ first base mix, too; he’s played over 3,000 innings there in his career. Heck, even Steer has played at first. If they really wanted yet another option there, why not just keep Moustakas? Well, Myers has played more in the outfield recently, and that’s where he will probably spend most of his time in Cincinnati, which has a dearth of truly exciting major league-ready options there at the moment. In his ZiPS projections for the Reds, Dan Szymborski compared their pre-Myers outfield to a “B-squad spring training roster.” With Myers in right, some combination of Nick Senzel, Jake Fraley, TJ Friedl, and Stuart Fairchild will probably round things out in center and left.

Every one of those four has something interesting about them. Senzel is a former no. 2 pick, and the three Fs all posted above-average wRC+ marks this season. Fairchild is only 26, and the rest are 27; another argument against the Myers signing is that, if the Reds don’t plan on competing, they could have conceivably rolled out one of them in right to test their upside at length instead of a 32-year-old who is a finished product. What’s more, in a contract provision I’ve never seen before, Myers will be entitled to a $500,000 bonus if he’s traded; it seems to me that the Reds have a plan for him beyond just using him as deadline bait.

Maybe Myers is part of the Reds’ thinking that they have an outside shot at October if everything goes right. After all, he’s a productive player who could be had at a bargain price. A lot of people dismissed him after a disastrous 76 wRC+ sophomore season that followed a brilliant rookie year, but in the eight years since then, he’s quietly put up a 111 wRC+ with an above-average .198 ISO (the league average never topped .183 during that time) despite playing that entire span in spacious Petco Park. He also has relatively even platoon splits, putting up a 119 wRC+ against southpaws and a 106 versus righties, so he can be pencilled into the lineup everyday.

The Reds will have to figure out their outfield of the future soon, but Myers represents a good stopgap option in the meantime. He allows for them to be more competitive at the position without taking any playing time away from blue chip prospects. The club does have a glut of enticing up-and-coming infielders, headlined by the 60 FV Elly De La Cruz and Noelvi Marte, but most are relatively far from the majors; De La Cruz and Marte have an ETA of 2024. Often, the best athletes in a minor league system will begin on the infield before transitioning to wherever they’re needed in the majors; infielders by trade like Mookie Betts and Joey Gallo have gone on to be Gold Glove outfielders. So it’s entirely feasible that the Reds might eventually move some of their young infielders to the outfield grass, and with Myers entrenched in right field and some other interesting mid-20s players to test out, they have plenty of time to orchestrate an outfield transition for any prospects they deem suitable.

All three of the Reds’ moves were made with their rebuild in mind, but none of them made me groan in the way standard salary dumps and veteran placeholder signings usually do. The Reds have protected the health of their cornerstone catcher, improved their catching defense to build up their young pitching staff’s confidence, cleared a path to playing time for a promising third baseman, and solidified their outfield without blocking any of their important prospects. They made not only their future more promising, but also their present.