The Reds signed Josh Anderson to a minor league deal Tuesday with an invitation to spring training. As Mark Sheldon wrote Monday, this is the best of what we can expect for this Reds offseason.
General manager Walt Jocketty will be trolling the market to seek players open to Minor League deals with non-roster invites to camps. “We’ll definitely be looking at the types like that,” Jocketty said on Monday…As expected, he noted that the [Rolen] move was not made to clear space to add a high-priced player. “It was a move to keep our team as much intact as we can,” Jocketty said. “We’re still not in position to add more to the club.”
Josh Anderson is a 27 yr-old left-handed outfielder, who came up as a centerfielder, but has seen time in all 3 outfield positions in his limited time in the majors. He has 519 plate appearances over 3 major league seasons, posting a slash line of .272/.313/.352. He is coming off his worst offensive season, rivaling Willy Taveras, with a .240/.276/.304 line. His career numbers in the majors and minors appear very similar to Taveras, posting a slightly worse OBP and a slightly better SLG.
Unless Jocketty surprises us with a trade of Aaron Harang, Bronson Arroyo, or Francisco Cordero, these are the types of signings we will see over the next two months. I’m hoping we’ll see more high-upside signings like we saw with Laynce Nix and Jonny Gomes last year.
No reason was given, but Sheldon’s blog post on Monday also indicated that the Reds have lost interest in signing Noah Lowry.