The Cincinnati Reds made three roster moves this afternoon before their game against the St. Louis Cardinals. The team picked off catcher Beau Taylor off of waivers from their spring training roommate Cleveland. To create room on the 40-man roster the team designated catcher Deivy Grullón for assignment. Earlier in the week the team designated right-handed pitcher Edgar García for assignment. He cleared waivers today and was outrighted to the alternate training site.
Beau Taylor has seen very limited action in the big leagues over the previous three seasons while playing for Oakland, Toronto, and Cleveland. He’s played in seven, 11, and seven games in each of those seasons and picked up a grand total of 60 plate appearances. Those 60 plate appearances have not gone well, though. The 31-year-old has a career line of .118/.237/.255. If you were wondering about his minor league hitting – it’s certainly better, but there’s not a ton to get overly excited about with it, either. Back in 2019 he played in Triple-A Las Vegas and Triple-A Buffalo. That was the season where Triple-A used the MLB baseball and teams (and players) were shattering records for power. Taylor, as a 29-year-old, hit .247/.391/.430 with eight home runs, 52 walks, and 78 strikeouts in 279 plate appearances.
Deivy Grullón spent five games in the big leagues with the Phillies and Red Sox over the 2019 and 2020 seasons. The now 25-year-old went 2-12 with a walk and three strikeouts in that time. In the 2019 minor league season he was also in Triple-A, playing for the Phillies affiliate Lehigh Valley. He hit .283/.354/.496 with 24 doubles, 21 home runs, 45 walks, and 133 strikeouts in 457 plate appearances.
Of course when it comes to the catching position, right or wrong, teams care far more about what they do when they are behind the plate rather than what they do when they are at the plate. Neither catcher has much of a track record in the big leagues of catching, making it tough to have a good idea of how they truly stack up in many areas. But given the differences in their age and their production at the plate in the minor leagues, it would seem that Cincinnati felt that Taylor was a better bet to be a catcher of some kind at the big league level.
Edgar García will head to Louisville and join the alternate site for April. You can see the entire alternate site roster here.
Should we read anything into this or is this just a depth thing?
I’m just reading into it as a “they thought Taylor was an upgrade to Grullón” thing. Nothing more than that.
Gotcha.
Thought Grullon looked pretty good in Spring Training. He was average defensively and showed pretty good offensive power. Okey should be at Louisville and is average defensively. Would like to have an offensive guy for the 4th, 5th or sixth catcher on the depth chart. I would go Barnhart, Stephenson, Farmer, Okey, Kolozsvary, Robinson and now Taylor.