The Cincinnati Reds and Chase Anderson are reuniting. Robert Murray of Fansided is reporting that Anderson is signing a minor league deal for the 2023 season. While Murray’s report didn’t note if Anderson would be getting an invite to spring training or not, it’s tough to believe a 35-year-old would sign a deal without one. If he is indeed getting one that would put the Reds spring training roster at 67, including Hunter Strickland who also re-signed with Cincinnati on Saturday.
Cincinnati picked up Anderson near the end of August last season after he was released for the third time during the season (Detroit released him twice, and then Tampa Bay released him at his request in August). Anderson didn’t pitch in the big leagues for the Tigers or the Rays, but the Reds added him to the taxi squad after signing him and a few days later officially called him up to join the rotation. Things didn’t go well for him in his seven starts and two relief appearances. Anderson posted a 6.38 ERA in 24.0 innings while walking 15 batters, hitting three more, and striking out 23.
In the previous two seasons it was more of the game as he had a 7.22 ERA in 33.2 innings with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2020. In 2021 he found himself with the Philadelphia Phillies and in 48.0 innings he posted a 6.75 ERA. From 2017-2019 he was quite good for the Milwaukee Brewers, posting a 3.63 ERA in 87 games where he threw 438.1 innings. There’s been some changes since then, though. He’s lost about 1.5 MPH on his fastball, and he’s throwing it less often now while he’s increased the frequency in which he is using his cutter. His walk rate has been quite a bit higher in the last two seasons than it was ever before, too.
The 35-year-old will likely join the handfuls of other pitchers vying for the 4th and 5th spots in the Reds rotation. While the top three spots seem to be locked down for second-year pitchers Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, and Graham Ashcraft, the final two spots don’t really seem to have any “favorites” – just a whole bunch of guys who if they have a good spring could get their opportunity.
You can see Chase Anderson’s career stats here.
The reds have also invited as non roster invitees to spring training roger garrett and Mark Moore
Hot off the press
Who, me? 😀
Mark, I think you will do great you just need one more pitch buddy!
Time to turn off the grill. You’re on the way to the show.
I think they invited you just to make sure they had some good place to go for dinner. 🙂
Maybe two?
Very happy to see this signing. Been hoping they’d get him back on a minor league deal for awhile now.
Insanity- doing the same thing again and expecting a different result.
In Anderson’s 5 September starts for Cincinnati he had a 2.18 ERA and batters slashed the following against him (.138/.256/.212)
His first appearance and his last start in October skewed his year end stat line. He was pretty solid outside of that.
His 2 best years in Milwaukee were also during the period DJ was there so I think it’s a solid add on a minor league deal. Don’t understand how this can be spun negatively
Or how it can be spun positively. So he was good except when he wasn’t? That’s your sales pitch? Aquino was really good in August 2019 and a couple of streaks last year. Sometimes performance doesn’t cut it. Maybe you’ll be right. Maybe he’s a steal. I hope so. But, there’s no reason to expect your outcome to be any more likely than mine. You notice that none of the other 29 clubs had bothered to sign him or Strickland. And BTW, given the damage to the Reds pitchers, I’m not sure DJ is a a selling point either.
He was good in 5 of his 7 starts and good the 2 years he was in Milwaukee with the same pitching coach he’d have in Cincinnati. Signing him back on a minor league deal is a smart choice by the reds here.
If he doesn’t work out then he won’t get called up. 0 downside here
LDS, my friend, I feel that I need to point out that your constant stream of angry comments about the Reds signing over-the-hill players skates perilously close to meeting your definition of insanity. It’s not too late, I hope, to take a measured step back from the precipice…
Perhaps, as does the relentless cheerleading of mediocrity that many on here engage in. I fired bad managers, not rewarded them for doubling down on failure. Some folks here are dreamers (Votto is going to bang, etc.) and others are simply fanboys. I view things more objectively. I’m still waiting for that individual who claims the Reds are better this year than last to give me a concrete example. Is a rotation of Greene, Lodolo, Ashcraft, and 2 PTBNL actually better than Castillo, Mahle, Greene, Lodolo, and Minor? And of the PTBNLs, who in that list is even competitive with last year’s starters. So yeah, I’m a broken record often, but as I’ve said bad management really ticks me off.
After the eyes and the knees, objectivity is the next to go. We’ve had the conversation about the importance of MLB managers so often that–entertaining as they no doubt are for us–it seems unfair to further inflict them on everybody else.
My comments on management are not limited to Bell. The FO has not distinguished them either. Regardless of the enterprise, sports or otherwise, a manager has a responsibility to provide the team/organization the tools it needs to succeed. I don’t see anyone in the Reds’ organization fulfilling that obligation. Accountability matters. The Reds’ organization doesn’t have any.
If you are including ownership in your indictment of management, then I give you a qualified bingo for that comment. It’s apparent that ownership is unwilling or unable to fund the team at the level required to make them competitive this season. They’ve said as much. The only reason I have any interest or hope is that they’ve amassed a good number of promising young players. It may well prove to be fool’s gold and there are many ifs, but I think it’s worth paying attention. I’m too old to start following another team; the Reds are a habit I can’t quite break. For now.
As am I. But the Reds make it very hard to be optimistic.
The Reds do, indeed, discourage optimism. As does advanced age, so I have no expectation of it.
LDS seems to be a bigger fan of his opinions than he is of the Reds. He’s to the point where he is rooting for them to show no progress this year.
Most of us are fully aware of the holes in this year’s roster, but MLB is now a young man’s game. For example, it is not a stretch to believe that in 2024, if not this year, that Greene and Lodolo (ages 23 and 25 in 2023) will be better than the Mets’ Scherzer and Verlander (ages 38 and 40).
Greene and Lodolo were certainly the better pair at the end of last seaon. Verlander had a post-season ERA of 5.85 (WHIP of 1.55) in 20 post-season innings. Scherzer gave up 7 runs and 4 homers in his one post-season game, then couldn’t answer the bell for his next potential start. Greene, meanwhile, pitched 23.1 innings in Sept/Oct, struck out 37 and gave up 2 earned runs, with a WHIP of 0.826. Lodolo in 36.1 innings struck out 49, had a WHIP of 0.881 and an ERA of 2.48. Yes, they need a 5th starter, but so do the Yankees.
And there is no player on the Mets roster for whom the Reds would give up Elly De La Cruz in a straight-up deal. EDLC’s contract is one of the most valuable in baseball.
To me, this year shapes up as one of the most interesting years in a long time for the Reds organization. While I understand the argument that they coulda/shoulda spent $40 million this year to fill some holes, I think that the wiser choice was to use this year to find out what Steer, the F-Troop outfielders, Senzel and a few others can actually do, particularly in the mid-minors. In 2023-2024, they will have almost zero future salary commitments, and can use that to fill more specific needs.
It seems to me if, 1 year from now, we are still having issues of ownership/management not spending on the roster, then we as fans have legitimate concern. I don’t think they could have or should have spent resources on 2022 or 2023. The two bad years were baked in starting with moves made in 2014 and 2015.
I look forward to watching the young guys this year.
Good comment, OBE. You neatly explain why I can retain hope and interest, if not optimism. And Greenfield also makes a critical point: It’s one thing to commit to the young talent, but it will amount to little if ownership is unwilling to spend the money to bolster that talent with quality players, Don’t be too hard on LDS: He obviously cares and thinks he’s identified the source of the team’s malaise; I get his reasoning but usually disagree with it.
Paging Jeff Hoffman, please pick up the nearest courtesy phone.
he had a couple of good outings last September but if he makes any appearances, it’s not a good sign for the team’s fortunes in 2023
I wonder if Eric Milton will answer his phone
Okay, now that there’s just plain funny. It just is.
This series of events, Strickland, Anderson et al, hurts too much too laugh about and I am too old to cry over stupid baseball moves.
The Reds are making dumpster diving into a fine art
I couldn’t agree more. Apparently they didn’t get to see enough of these two last year.
I’m starting to think that my prediction for the Reds to win 70 games was way too optimistic. Other than Lucas Sims (can he even stay healthy for more than a month?), It’s basically the same pitching staff from last season.
Yeah but Sims has issues on the mound too. On his Post (alternative to Twitter) account, Bobby Nightengale wrote this note from live batting practice yesterday
“Lucas Sims looked like himself after missing most of last season with a back injury. His fastball peaked at 95-96 mph and hitters raved about his slider. Wil Myers lined one hanging slider that one-hopped the center field wall.”
Bobby says it all in those 3 sentences. Sims has a great breaking stuff; but, how many times do we see him get burned in game situations because he favors it too much over his more than adequate fastball? He still seems to have the mindset of a starter.
I am hoping Casali can lead him toward being more pitch efficient by leading with well placed fastballs and using the slider moving out of the hitting as a put away pitch.
https://post.news/article/2LvYW45k5AXf2SqEjCLvsWQkizL
You conveniently left off the next sentence of the report on Sims regarding his slider, as well as Casali’s comments about the stint. Cherry-picking to support a pre-established position, it appears to me.
It’s early, Spring training just opened.
Nobody is really sharp and consistent yet.
But the question about “all these guys” invited to Spring training as pitchers, argues the question of consistency. Any given pitcher may look great against one batter, and then he hangs a change-up or slider to the next one and gets hammered.
Really good ML pitchers don’t do that…too often. Some of these guys have physical talent, but make too many mistakes…inconsistent is the key buzzword.
The Reds shop the waiver wire, etc., as do many teams. But relying on it to fill out your roster begs the question….why were all these guys there in the first place? They do have ML quality “stuff”, but leave good pitches over the plate. Inconsistent.
The Reds BP staff in 2023 is, in short (like last year), going to be largely made up of pitchers from the left-hand side of the bell curve of MLB quality. And I don’t know about the rest of the starting pitchers that they end up with. Maybe Mike Minor is as bad as it will get.
And that’s how you manage to lose a lot of games.
@doc, The sentence I dropped was somewhat redundant as the section I quoted had already noted hitters had “raved about his (Sim’s) slider.”
Doesn’t matter if he has the best slider in the world when it is not hung because he uses it so much he often ends up hanging it at worst possible times. Relievers who can throw 95+ shouldn’t be risking getting beat in leverage situations by throwing sliders where they can get hung for serious damage.
This really upends those Pecota projections. Vegas set into turmoil.
Here’s my take on optimism. There are six starters who can reasonably be expected to be better than last year, and potentially a lot better – meaning they contribute a lot more – in 2023. Greene, Lodolo and Ashcraft will all be a year older, smarter, and more confident. Most players, including most starting pitchers, take a little while to translate potential into production at the major league level. I expect at least Greene and Lodolo to eventually be really good, and Ashcraft could be almost as good. So yes, they’re the same guys this year but likely better versions. That’s an upgrade.
And would I like to have Castillo and Mahle again? Of course. But Mahle pitched just 19 games for the Reds with a 4.40 era, and Castillo was terrific, but only made 14 starts. So let’s not pretend that those two guys were carrying the Reds last year and now leaving an unfillable hole.
And without looking at prospects who may or may not contribute, three high level starters should be much better this year than last. India, Stephenson and Votto all had basically lost years and all should be healthy again. All should contribute a lot more than in 2022. And to the “Votto is a pipe dream” crowd, he got MVP votes all the way back in… 2021. Is he older? Yes. But I’d say it’s at least a 50-50 chance that he’s solid again this year. Of course it’s all speculation so maybe let’s just wait and see how that goes.
Projections pretty much assume that players will all repeat their most recent performances. But there are at least six solid Reds who I expect to have markedly better years than 2022. That’s cause for optimism. Not wild World Series ring expectations, just optimism that 2023 will be a better year for the Reds.
What is a “fanboy” not sure if I have heard that phrase before.
Adolescent like enthusiasm for a sports team.
Unreasonable enthusiasm not based on reality.
I really don’t know what to make of how good the Reds will be in 2023. I hope for the best but frankly it’s all guesswork. Maybe Hunter Greene has a Cy Young season, wins 25 Games (Steve Carlton won 27 games for a lousy 1972 Phillies team), but is even that enough? The Reds need so much more talent.
I would honestly be enthusiastic about them if they brought up all the young guys to get experience, even if they lost 100 games.
Based on who’s reality Dave? Some people on a blog?
I agree though reds won’t be good this season, however who am I to judge someone’s enthusiasm.
This minor league signing is in line with most all of the minor league signings. Reds hoping to find a diamond in the rough. There is very little risk and a chance at reward. Everyone knows Reds will most likely win between 65-75 games. Everyone knows that the Reds are rebuilding and will not be spending any significant money this year. There will be inevitably be posters who do nothing much more than complain each time Reds make a signing like this. We all feel your pain. We all wish we had better ownership. Since reality is that we do not it boils down to finding a light at the end of the tunnel and every cloud has a silver lining. ( I am out of cliches)
If I find myself am unable to do that then at least I would stop visiting these chat sites and the most find myself a new team to root for.
Anderson made five starts in September none over 5 innings, 2.18 era and two wins.
I would believe those stats are worthy of an invite .
exactly…..I thought Anderson acquitted himself quite well in September. His 1st 2 starts in August were terrible and skewed his statistics. We had several starters before him that performed much worse – Sanmartin, Dunn, Guittierez, and Zeuch.
I wouldn’t want him starting 30 games for us but he is good depth for that emergency 5 start period to cover for one of our top starters out for a short stay on the disabled list. He is a good insurance policy.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
If we get a half season of servicable pitching from Anderson, Weaver, or whoever, that’s added development time for Williamson, Stoudt, Abbott, and the likes.
Brandon Williamson turning heads in Arizona. If he’s back to his 2021 self then he’ll find a spot in the rotation sooner than later. Very good news
I am hereby removing any blame or fault for the current status of the Reds roster from Nick Krall. Hear me out …
He’s done what he’s been ordered to do in terms of cost slashing. He could have just left the roster as it was. But instead, he has signed more non-roster players than any Reds team in recent (or non-recent) memory. Bringing 30 non-roster players into camp gives you more chance of having one or more making a difference than if you bring in 5, 10, 15, etc. I think he’s trying to do everything he can within his budgetary constraints to give the Reds a chance to succeed.
Instead of giving up and packing it in, he is bringing in players with major league experience. It’s unlikely to make a big difference, but I salute the persistence to at least try.
Well one has to admit that it’s hard to think of any GM in any sport past or present that has been handcuffed more than Krall has. Someone on here said recently that Big Bob & Son were not happy with the last CBA and they’re mad about it. More than anything else I believe what’s happening is them having a pity party for themselves and throwing a temper tantrum. They really don’t care about winning or the fans much at all. Krall has to live in that atmosphere while trying his best to look like a legitimate GM so that he can land a “Real GM Job” with another team eventually.
I agree Tom. This club needs to “churn and burn” through as many players as possible to hopefully find that Brandon drury for 2023. Kudos to Krall for not standing pat and continuing to give out spring training invitations.
I am still surprised that Tyler Naquin is still out of work.
Naquin is on the Brewers’ roster as a NRI
@Tom> I agree with your central premise that Krall isn’t responsible for the underlying problem. However, I wish he had taken a different tact in trying to deal with the constraints placed upon him.
By the time many, perhaps even most, of the prospects he has acquired are good to go at MLB, the window to pair them with the likes of Stephenson, India, Greene, and Lodolo will have passed unless the Reds loosen the purse strings and buy out their arbitration years upfront.
I would have preferred Krall to have gone for less quantity in trade returns and instead tried for guys who would have been MLB ready this year or next to pair with the guys I called out above plus EDLC who should be ready in that time frame. One or two more guys similar to Spencer Steer in development and projected ceiling would have suited me more than the army of SS prospects who will have to be sorted or flipped.
Along the same lines, pool whatever money is available and gamble on a couple of legitimate MLB pitching candidates versus throwing mud at the wall and hoping one toss sticks. If the gamble blew up, the likes of Anderson and Strickland would still be around somewhere to come running for their shot then.
Jim, it would obviously depend upon the quality of the near-ready talent. In recent years the Reds have seemed to lean in that direction and many of us have blamed that as a factor in the mediocrity. I do take your point about the timing of the young guys’ emergence; the whole plan–if it is a plan–hinges on adding the pieces needed as Greene, Lodolo et al come into their own.
Trading for major league ready talent in 15 and 16 is a primary reason the Reds are in the position they are now. No thanks.
I am concerned about the Mahle trade for this reason.
No it’s not. Brandon Finnegan’s shoulder blowing up and the complete lack of any of Stephenson, Garrett, Reed, Romano, Davis, or Lamb becoming even a #5 starting pitcher is the reason that never worked out.
With all due respect Doug, you make my point. All those guys and the others were major league ready. Yet all those guys had significant issues that kept them from being servicable let alone all stars.
I remember Dilson Hererra was going to be a great ML player… Just gotta get over this little shoulder thing. The Reds took the bait and got nothing for Jay Bruce.
Some great pictures from Goodyear today at the enquirer. Really liked the conner phillips and Curt Casali pic discussing live BP
Big Bob Uncle Walt and Krall also watching together