The Jason Vosler era in Cincinnati is over, at least for now. The Cincinnati Reds have designated Vosler for assignment and called up outfielder Henry Ramos from Triple-A Louisville – adding him to the 40-man roster in the process.
Jason Vosler got out to a torrid start with the Reds. In the first five games of the season he went 5-15 (.333) with a double, triple, and three home runs. He drove in seven runs and scored four runs. His OPS was 1.467.
But things went about as cold as cold can be after that. From April 7th through today, Jason Vosler played in 15 games and started 12 of them. He went 5-47 with a double, three walks, and he struck out 20 times. He hit just .106/.160/.128 in that time period. That dropped his line for the season to .161/.200/.371 in his 65 plate appearances.
If Vosler clears waivers he’ll have the choice to head to Triple-A Louisville and remain in the Reds organization or he can choose to test the free agency waters and see if someone else in baseball can present him with a better opportunity.
Taking the place on the roster will be Henry Ramos. After signing with the club in January, the outfielder hit very well in spring training for the Reds. In his 13 games he went 13-29 with three doubles and two home runs. He also walked twice and struck out just two times. All of that led to him hitting .448/.469/.759 during his time in Arizona. Ramos also spent time on Team Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic.
When the regular season began Ramos began serving a suspension for his involvement in a fight in Triple-A back in 2021. Minor League suspensions for such incidents do not carry forward into the Major Leagues, and before the suspension was announced in late 2021, Ramos was called up by Arizona. Then in 2022 he played in Korea, so he never had the opportunity to serve his suspension last year, either.
Once he sat out a few games for the Louisville Bats, Ramos joined the lineup and began hitting just like he had during spring training. The 31-year-old has played in 11 games with Louisville and he’s gone 11-35 (.314) with as many walks, five, as strikeouts. He’s also homered twice.
Ramos has only spent one month in the big leagues. As noted above, he was called up by Arizona in late 2021 and he played in 18 games with the Diamondbacks that season, hitting .200/.255/.300. In Triple-A that year he hit .371/.439/.582.
You can see the career stats for Henry Ramos here.
Ramos hitting 7th as the DH.
Myers 1b with Fraley,Friedl,Senzel in the OF.
They need to get Ramos up to speed at 1B (and hope he isn’t Vosler v2.0).
Your thoughts on not calling up McLain? As many have said he is part of the future Romos isnt.
How does not calling him up mean he isnt still part of the future?
@2020ball.
I never said he wasn’t part of the future.
At age 32, Ramos is unlikely to be around too long, be it a few months or a year or two.
That said, he’s a very good defensive OF, and is a decent hitter. His story points to a fair to good possibility that he might make some contributions.
In high school, he was a soccer and tennis athlete and didn’t play much baseball, especially by today’s youth baseball standard. Also, he was moving up in the Red Sox then broke his kneecap on a foul ball and got kind of lost, bouncing around.
So, he was sidetracked by an injury and may be finding himself later in his career. He’s really athletic, so he may be able to contribute as a 5th OF/platoon guy and DH.
OS>>> You were wondering about Votto. If you haven’t seen, this afternoon multiple media folks tweeted Votto is at GABP and took batting practice on the field but there is no change in his official status. I’m thinking the Reds would not have made the Ramos move if they thought JV was close to being ready.
Thanks Jim. It would seem he would want the full 20 days again so a pre Memorial day return seems like a long shot if he doesn’t head to AAA soon
Can Ramos play 1B, too?
With Vosler gone, another piece of the “Bell Shuffle” goes along with him.
I was hoping Vosler was a Drury style catch…his MiLB numbers showed some promise.
HR was one of the feel good stories out of ST.
I hope he can hit ML pitching.
If it somehow translates into more playing time for Newman, Bell at least will be happy.
Oops did not see this when I commented above. Agree about Ramos and 1B. I don’t think he is OF material.
Ramos is a very good outfielder, based on his scouting report. He’s a big athletic guy, not unlike Benson, but with a better hitting track record. I don’t see 1B in his future whatsoever. Senzel is a much more likely candidate there.
Ramos is an outfielder and played all three positions. Very happy to see him here. Good move.
Good start. Now if they can just figure out that three catchers and David Bell also aren’t helping the team win any games…
Well, at least it’s something. Next in line should be Maile or Casali for Robinson.
Good move by Krall. Now deal with Newman and Bell. They’d should start Fairchild instead of Senzel. Find a trade partner for Senzel or option him back to Louisville. With each passing game, it seems more and more likely that Senzel isn’t going to come close to meeting his original expectations. And like someone wrote yesterday, much of that falls to the coaching staff after he was called up.
Senzel has a career .237 batting average and .654 career OPS. Curious how that is anyone’s fault except his own. I hope he starts to turn it around starting tonight. A 3 hit game would do wonders for his confidence.
He hit a solid 254 his rookie year and a overall good year. Then they started tinkering with his batting style. His launch angle, get his power numbers up. Ever since it’s been a struggle
My hunch is that Senzel rues the day he was drafted by the Reds.
Players can’t blame coaches for tinkering with their batting style. I think playing CF defense and all of the injuries messed with Senzel’s head a bit but he should have been able to overcome that to at least be an average hitter over the last 3 seasons and he has been getting worse. I was a huge fan as a rookie and he had promising numbers.
In his rookie year, they put him in CF from 3B with about 8-10 games experience there. Then, mid season they not only tinkered with his batting style, they changed it wholesale. Rookies aren’t the most likely to refuse to make changes brought to them by the coaching staff.
Given Senzel’s vertigo issues and the like, none of this was helpful and was likely the opposite.
I think two things can be true at the same time. The Reds screwed around with Nick Senzel and he is not a very good hitter.
Votto4Life, I agree.
And, failure to develop the No. 2 overall pick in this day and age of scouting and endless data is likely one of the lesser recognized pieces of the last rebuild’s failure. That and getting only one starter out of Stephenson, Garrett, Mahle, Romano, Traveiso, Howard, Davis, and, later, Antone carved a big piece out of a longer run of playoff caliber baseball. These guys were thought of being the next stage after Cueto, Bailey, Latos, and Leake.
Tend to agree. We kinda know who Senzel is, we really don’t know yet about Fairchild.
Me personally I would release him and here is why. He seems to hit triple A. I don’t have the stats in front of me, however let him find a new team. Sounds silly maybe, however truly seems like a waste of talent. Of course he isn’t the first big prospect to struggle. Bradly Zimmerman, or Zimmer comes to mind
Fairchild has been let go by 3 organizations other then the reds.
@Jimt
Understand that, however has he been given a chance like Senzel? Gonna say no he hasn’t. Give Fairchild 200 abs see what happens
Fairchild has a grand total of 173 ML PAs. No one knows what he can do. He has a career OPS+ of 100. So even if he’s only ML average, that’s light years ahead of Senzel who has over 1000 ML PAs, and a career OPS+ of 71 – 9 so far this year. Fairchild right now has an OPS+ of 93 for the season with few PAs. After tonight’s game, he and Senzel will have about the same numbers of PAs, +/- 1. Senzel’s WAR is negative, and Fairchild’s is positive. There are few categories where Senzel leads Fairchild. He strikes out less but walks at half the rate. Statistically, it’s not much of a contest. But Senzel is more expensive and was drafted higher. So that’s what matters on the Reds.
Baseball people seem to differ with your opinions. I hope they are wrong but the odds are not good.
I hoped that Fairchild would take advantage of his opportunity of increased playing time but it isn’t happening. His overall numbers aren’t bad at all but he needs more run production if he’s going to stay on the team much longer.
@JimT, we can be analytical and look at the numbers, as many here advocate or fly by instinct and rules of thumb as Bell seems to. And how’s that working out? As for baseball people, the Reds dumped Jose Siri as did Houston. He’s doing pretty well in Tampa Bay. Being traded multiple times means nothing. The list of such players includes folks like Luis Castillo, Darrel Evans, and a host of others. Being shuffled early in one’s career is frequently not a reflection of a player’s potential.
@LDS I understand there are exceptions. Fairchild has shown me very little to indicate this will be one of those instances. If it turns out that he becomes a very good player I will be a very happy reds fan.
@Mario, I agree with you. Fairchild missed a huge opportunity Sunday when Bell went with him vs an RH pitcher off of his 2/4 plus a walk appearance Saturday night.
It seems to me like SF does NOT have the whippy snap in his swing right now like he did last year and at times in the 1st couple of weeks of 2023. His OBP is still up at .356; but, his slugging average has dropped nearly as low to only .371.
He, or anybody on the Reds, would get priority for playing time right now if they went on a slugging run like SF had last year with the Reds.
It will be extremely interesting to see who gets the call to be Fraley’s platoon replacement the next time the Reds face a LH pitcher.
I am not sure what anyone sees in Senzel or Fairchild to be honest. Guys with their talent level are on the waiver wire every, single day during the summer.
Maybe so Kevin, but that’s not established with Fairchild, at least not to the same degree as Senzel. Regardless, I don’t expect much from the Reds until they move on from Bell.
Jimt>> Even with his scuffling at the plate the last 2 weeks Fairchild still has a .356 OBP for this season and a .331 OBP for his MLB career. Add in that he tends to put on a clinic every game on how to play OF; and, that will keep him employed somewhere in MLB for a while.
However, he may bounce among teams and back and forth between AAA and MLB if can’t get his slugging into the .440-.460 range.
Wait? I was told during spring training that Ramos was to old and was only AAA fill in material. Shocked that somebody on here was wrong.
LOL Ramos over McLain. Reds fail again..
Ramos is nominally a switch hitter which is likely why he’s taking Vosler’s place as the designated left hand hitter in Bell’s world view.
I’d love to see him thrive.
McLain won’t be called up as long as Bell’s Newman-Barrero shuffle can still be danced.
I’m sure Bell would rather have Reynolds up than McLain as well.
CES, DLC, McLain, Marte, maybe even Arroyo are in the Reds Twilight Zone.
I really don’t see much of a shuffle going on. It appears that Barrera is the regular SS. Hope he can continue to build on his recent production.
So now we don’t even wait for a small sample size. We determine team’s success or failure of the move based on whether it aligns with somebody’s wishes, even though the odds of the wisher having ever had to make a personnel decision in a professional capacity in MLB or MiLB are between slim and none, and slim is on life support.
I know, Doc. But they seem to enjoy it.
I saw several Ramos’ AB’s during ST and WBC and looked very solid hitting approach.
Exactly. See my post above re his history and scouting.
“At age 32, Ramos is unlikely to be around too long, be it a few months or a year or two …”
Lots and lots of productive players age 32 and higher in MLB.
They didn’t promote my boy Andy Fisher. Better be soon. SOON.
Senzel down – McClain up / Fairchild DFA
Meile DFA -add Robinson
Reynolds up – Newman DFA
Anderson up – Cessna to pen – Law DFA
Reds aren’t going to eat Newman’s contract
so early in the season. Maile’s salary is less but can’t see that happening either.
They don’t need to eat his contract. He is a utility player.
Sad we’ve become a team of “let’s give this guy 200 at bats and see what happens”. This attitude with below average ball players and hoping to catch lightning in a bottle is not a strategy. Why are some so afraid of bringing up our young players. If they succeed great, if they’re so fragile that failure ruins them, then that speaks volumes (Sorry former commander coming out). Give the young guys the at bats.
It’s a good move as long as it’s the first of many. I was thinking Bell was kicking and screaming because off giving up a LH bat but then realized Ramos is a switch hitter. Those who think giving up on guys like Newman, Maile, and Myers or even David Bell won’t happen because of money already spent. Look at it this way. This season has the potential and is heading in that direction of making last years 100 losses look like a good year. If getting rid of those guys helps keep that from happening then it’s a small price to pay. Like I said, there are a lot more moves that need to be made Mr. Krall. Keep going and show what you’re made of.
Good move. I think its clear that Will Myers best outfield days are behind him and he is mainly a DH/first baseman. An extra outfielder – and a switch hitter at that – is nice.
If McClain were more flexible about playing the outfield, I think he may get called up sooner. He has made it clear he is an infielder – and that’s his option to do that this early into his career. My humble opinion, he needs to give center field a try to increase his utility.
The team is exhibiting zero home run power currently – so my guess is that CES is the next hitter called up. Reds have a serious lack of power and Votto may never get it back.
I think if McLain gets a chance to come up earlier by playing the outfield he’ll take it. He can always move back to the infield. If he hits like we think he will he’ll probably move to 2B. Indiana will move to outfield. If things pan out SOMEONE(S) will have to be traded eventually.
the only place India would move to is his natural position at 3B,
Steer to 1B, Myers OF/DH (until traded)
That only happens if mcLain forces his way up and into the everyday lineup at @ 2B.
Then when Elly De Le Cruz and Christian Incarnation-Strand are ready… Barrero to the OF/utility and steer would become a heavily used utility and DH some