The Cincinnati Reds have signed MLB veteran outfielder Dominic Fletcher to a minor league contract and have assigned him to Triple-A Louisville. The left-handed hitter has spent part of the previous three seasons in Major League Baseball, but has not made a big league appearance in the big leagues this season.
He made his debut back in 2023 with Arizona. In 28 games with the Diamondbacks he hit .301/.350/.441. The following winter he was traded to the Chicago White Sox in a deal for pitching prospect Cristian Mena. During the 2024 season things didn’t go well for Fletcher with Chicago as he hit just .206 with one home run in 72 games for the White Sox. Last year he only played in 12 games with Chicago and hit .219/.265/.469 – six of his seven hits on the season were extra-base hits.
Following the season he was designated for assignment and outrighted to the minor leagues and he chose to become a free agent (he had previously been outrighted earlier in the season). In the winter he signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates on a minor league deal. He went on the injured list after just five games and missed nearly all of April and then half of May before he returned to Triple-A Indianapolis. In his first game back he went 4-4 and was a double shy of the cycle. He would go 6-35 the rest of May but turned things around in June and didn’t really look back as he hit .318/.406/.497 with more walks (23) than strikeouts (22) in 46 games before he opted out of his contract in mid-August and became a free agent. He was hitting .301/.386/.485 on the year at the time. You can see his career stats here.
Cincinnati has now picked up the outfielder and will give him a look in Triple-A and see if it makes sense to keep him around beyond there. He has experience playing all three outfield spots and could potentially provide some depth as a 4th/5th outfield type.
I guess he stays at AAA this season, not on the 40 man, and gets an invite to Spring Training, and chance to latch on.
More waiver wire feeding by Nick Krall. Maybe the guy has something…but…probably not more than a AAAA player.
Was hitting nearly 0.500 in his first dozen major league games.
But has been a lite hitting 0.200 hitter ever since.
It’s cool to see him reach for that one last chance to draw a brief major league paycheck before the game passes him by.
Reds taking an early look to the OF roster potential for next season with this move, plus the previously announced promotion of Jorge. Bleday, Myers and Rodriguez are locks so far, and Dunn coming back from injury, we’ll see.
If Dunn is healthy in 2027 the outfield may be OK. Although, I would like more offense from right field. The Reds need to find a way to bolster their offense at 3B. Another year of Ke’Bryan Hayes is unacceptable. Also, they need to find a way to sign Tyler Stephenson.
The front office needs to start with the premise that you can’t field a team with 3 nine hole hitters (Hayes, Trevino and McLain.). If those three are all in the starting line up in 2027, it will be another long year.
Sho nuff be sweet if reds had the Orioles 3rd baseman,oh wait they did,but I guess they gonna go with hayes
For all the criticism he has taken, one area Krall has excelled at is signing “fringe” roster guys that help team. See Bleday & Lowe this season. The Reds need some OF depth inAAA and he didn’t cost anything to sign and it looks like he has been hitting well recently. You always look and kick the tires when it doesn’t cost much.
Bleday is still hitting under .200 since June. As for this signing? Well, when you’re signing Pirate rejects, that about sums up your strategy – finish last but do it cheaply.
Pirate rejects? I’m sure Pirate fans are saying Reds rejects since they are the better team and have actually tried to get better this year.
Pirates are better by about 1.5 games as of today. That’s big progress, I guess.
So the Pirates tried to get better, but still only 1.5 games ahead of the Reds, in fourth place, 18 games out of first.
The Reds have a schedule of playing a lot of good teams in September, so it is unlikely that they catch the Pirates.
But really, not much separating the two teams.
Fletcher was signed to fill out the minor league roster for the last month of the season. This signing has nothing to do with the Red’s strategy.
And yet it aligns so well. Imagine that
He is filling out the AAA roster to field a team down there. We have raided Louisville and they need bodies. If he gets lucky with a flyer, great. Nothing more than that.
There are no impact players available this time of year. Every player available is somebody else’s DFA, foreign or independent League players. The expectation that we are going to be able to improve our team at this point is misguided.
I’m unhappy with Krall too, and feel he is not the type of leader a small market, small payroll team needs, as evidenced by his results. He is the dead horse at this point, beating on him is pointless
At this point in the season, the greatest GM ever couldn’t make our team any better by acquiring available talent.
Let’s watch the young guys, keep what we have healthy, let recovering players like Lodolo, Ashcraft, Santillian Williamson etc. , get better and surprise some teams until the season ends.
Most of all let’s hope we play a full season next year. Summer without Reds baseball, even bad Reds baseball, is brutal.
Very, very well said.
The Reds have a system of calling up player after player. Unfortunately, most of them do not last long.
this makes no sense, the bats are terrible anyway, just use Austin Hendricks as your left handed hitting outfielder for the rest of the season. If he has a good last month, he will be exploring his options this off season and will not be in the reds org. This does nothing for team at all.
There’s nothing to be upset about here. They signed a former prospect to a minor league deal so they can give him a look. Happens all the time throughout baseball.
Exactly. Everyone does this. Even the good orgs. I wish they could find more Julien Garcia’s.