The Cincinnati Reds made three roster moves this afternoon. While Aristides Aquino was already on the injured list after having surgery to remove the hamate bone in his left hand, the team moved him to the 60-day injured list on Sunday to create a spot on the 40-man roster for Vladimir Gutierrez. The team also added outfielder Dwight Smith Jr. to the alternate site roster.
For Aristides Aquino it doesn’t change a whole lot. The general diagnosis for return from this injury is 4-8 weeks. Adding him to the 60-day injured list just means it’s going to be at least 8 weeks. He will now be eligible to return on June 15th at the earliest. He will be eligible to begin a rehab assignment in the minor leagues prior to that. With position players rehab assignments only being 20 days long (or less), that would mean he could begin a rehab assignment during the final week of May if he were ready to get on the field by that point.
With regards to Vladimir Gutierrez it means that for the next week he’s eligible to pitch in games at the various alternate sites. While he was serving out his 80-game suspension for testing positive for the PED stanozolol in spring training of 2020 he was not allowed to pitch in front of paying fans. While the Reds alternate site has been playing games he hasn’t been eligible to pitch at home in Louisville since they were allowing fans to purchase tickets. He also wasn’t able to pitch in certain road ballparks, either, due to the same stipulation. Gutierrez was staying on a regular starters schedule, but he would throw live batting practice/simulated games if his throw day fell when he was ineligible to pitch in a game due to fans being present. That is now behind him as his suspension is up and he’s been activated. He’ll remain with the alternate site team for now and is expected to begin the year with Triple-A Louisville when their season begins on May 4th if he doesn’t get called up to the big league roster prior to then to fill a need.
Dwight Smith Jr. was invited to big league spring training on a minor league contract, but when spring training came to an end at the end of March he was not brought north with the alternate site team and remained back in Goodyear. He’ll join the team in Louisville for now, with the regular season in the minor leagues set to begin in 10 days.