Baseball’s Winter Meetings in Orland wrap up today. Check here to see the latest developments, such as they are.
10 am: The Brad Keller Era came and went. The Reds chose Keller, a RHP from the Diamondbacks, in the Rule 5 draft. Then they traded him to the Kansas City Royals. Brad, we hardly knew ya. Reds remain at 38 spots filled on the 40-man roster.
11 am: The Reds made a pick in the minor league part of the Rule 5 draft. They also lost a couple players. From Zach Buchanan:
“In the minor-league portion of the draft, the Reds took Toronto Blue Jays minor-league third baseman Mitch Nay, and lost two others — right-hander Eduardo Rivera, signed in free agency earlier this winter, and righty Sandy Lugo, who has been in the organization since 2014.”
11:10 am: Dick Williams told the media while the Reds didn’t make any moves, he was pleased with the discussions they had. From Mark Sheldon:
“I feel good about the conversations that we had and the discussions we had, back and forth, with other teams. A lot of good information was exchanged,” Williams said as he departed. “Whether it gets us any closer to a transaction remains to be seen, but there was a lot of good dialogue.”
Wrapping Up: As we said before the meetings started, in recent years, the Reds have used the couple weeks right after the meetings to finish up deals. The Reds never intended to be active in the upper-tier of free agency. Less expensive purchases wait until the market clears a bit later.
Again, measure this offseason not by shiny new acquisitions, but whether the Reds can find valuable fits for moving established players. Adam Duvall and Scooter Gennett are likely at their peak value and the Reds have to clear playing time for Jesse Winker and Nick Senzel. Billy Hamilton is a somewhat different case. This is probably the right time to trade him with respect to his value. But the Reds don’t have a CF ready to take over.
The one exception to relatively sleepy expectations is if the Reds find a trading partner for Raisel Iglesias.