Cincinnati Reds Could Bolster Key Weakness By Making Trade With American League Team

The Cincinnati Reds have some needs and there should be some options to pursue to fill those needs. Let’s pinpoint a few ways Nick Krall and company can attack this trade deadline.

In this series, I am going to focus on players who closely fit a few criteria. I have already nailed down a perfect target for the outfield.

Firstly, they have to be available. It’s easy to say “go trade for Mike Trout!” or someone like that, but it’s likely the Angels feel they are buyers and have a shot at a weak AL Wild Card race. Is the current team a player on a likely seller at the deadline?

Second, does the cost make sense? A trade idea floated out into the ether by former GM Jim Bowden suggests the Reds should make a deal with the Baltimore Orioles for Ryan O’Hearn. While I don’t disagree that O’Hearn would be an upgrade, I also HATE the proposed cost. Chase Petty-plus other prospects is way too much for O’Hearn. If that’s what it will take to get him, then I’m not interested in that particular player.

To be clear, I do not mind trading Chase Petty-plus other prospects for a big time player, but O’Hearn is not that.

Lastly, the player must be a proven player that fills a need. I will not be covering any trades where the Reds swap a major leaguer for prospects.

The next part of a good trade deadline for the Reds would be to shore up the bullpen. This is where Krall needs to be on the phone with the Orioles. They have five pitchers that, if the Reds could just get one, would really improve their bullpen.

Relief pitcher stats are difficult because the sample size can really affect ERA, making it an unreliable way to evaluate a reliever. Instead, I will focus on strikeout percentage, walk percentage, ground ball percentage, and Walks-Plus-Hits per Innings Pitched, or WHIP.

The reason I am focusing on these stats is simple. Strikeout and walk rates are just the percentages of batters that a pitcher faces that they either strike out or walk. Ground ball percentage is very important in Great American Ballpark. Then, when you factor in WHIP, that’s just the average number of base runners a pitcher allows per inning.

A league average strikeout rate is 22% while a league average walk rate is 8.5%. League average rate for ground balls sits at 42%.

Felix Bautista: 33.6% strikeout rate, 15% walk rate, 50% ground ball rate, 1.120 WHIP all in 27 2/3 innings pitched

Seranthony Dominguez: 32.3% K-rate, 14.6% BB-rate, 43.5% GB-rate, 1.295 WHIP in 31 2/3 innings pitched

Gregory Soto: 29.3% K-rate, 8.1% BB-rate, 45.9% GB-rate, 1.172 WHIP in 29 innings pitched

Bryan Baker: 31.9% K-rate, 5.9% BB-rate, 35.7% GB-rate, 0.991 WHIP in 35 1/3 innings pitched

Yennier Cano: 27.4% K-rate, 7.1% BB-rate, 52.8% GB-rate, 1.388 WHIP in 26 2/3 innings pitched

Any one of these five pitchers would raise the profile of the Reds bullpen. Bautista is the current closer and past All Star at that position, so he will be the most expensive out of the three. 

Cano is the oldest of the bunch at 31 years old, while the rest of them are 30.

Dominguez and Soto are free agents next year. Dominguez is making $8 million this year while Soto is making $5.35 million. Bautista hits arbitration next year while both Cano and Baker won’t hit arbitration until 2027.

I like Cano the most out of this bunch. He has the highest WHIP, but that is puffed up by an unlucky .363 batting average on balls in play. He has been consistent over the last three years as a reliable pitcher in the latter half of games for Baltimore.

He also should be reasonably obtainable. The Orioles will be looking to get bigger returns for other players (see the O’Hearn note above) and won’t be expecting it from Cano. Plus, this feels like a Sam Moll-type trade that the Reds would go out and get a good reliever with multiple years of control.

I don’t think Cano would cost the Reds a prospect like Chase Petty, either. Bautista might be the only one on this list that would.

To be clear, though, any one of these guys would have me excited about the bullpen, if the Reds made a deal.