CINCINNATI — San Francisco Giants right-hander Tyler Mahle will make his 55th career start at Great American Ball Park on Wednesday night. It will be his first in anything other than a Cincinnati Reds uniform.
Mahle, 31, signed a one-year deal worth $10 million with the Giants in January, his third team since the Reds traded him to the Minnesota Twins in 2022.
In return, the Reds acquired three players — Spencer Steer, Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Steve Hajjar. Though only one of those three, Steer, is still in the Reds organization, the results of the team’s teardown from the end of the 2021 season until the trade deadline in 2022 are evident in the current Reds team.
In Tuesday’s 2-1 victory over the Giants, both runs came from players acquired directly from the results of that teardown — Steer hit a solo home run in the third inning off Giants starter Robbie Ray, and Sal Stewart hit another solo homer the next inning. The Reds drafted Stewart, 22, with the first-round compensation pick (No. 32) acquired when outfielder Nick Castellanos exercised his opt-out clause after the 2021 season.
Tuesday’s game ended with defensive replacement Will Benson, acquired in exchange for Hajjar ahead of the 2023 season, running down a long drive by San Francisco’s Daniel Susac to secure the victory.
The Mahle trade was part of a flurry of moves that began with the trade of two-time Gold Glove-winning catcher Tucker Barnhart in November 2021 and culminated in five deals near the 2022 trade deadline that sent Mahle and five others out in return for 11 players.
With hindsight, some of the deals worked better than others, and only one — Tommy Pham for Nicholas Northcut — can be fully evaluated. (It was a push.)
Those deals, even in retrospect, show the ripple effects just one move can make, especially in one of the wildest offseasons we’ve seen in years as a result of the lockout from Dec. 2, 2021, to March 10, 2022.
After a record $165 million spending spree ahead of the 2020 season, the Reds broke the team’s six-year playoff drought. However, the 2021 Reds finished a disappointing 83-79, seven games behind the St. Louis Cardinals for the fifth and final National League playoff spot. The Reds had the sixth-best record in the NL that season, the final season before the playoffs expanded to six teams per league.
On both sides of that offseason’s lockout, the Reds made it clear they were not going to compete for a playoff spot in 2022 and instead looked toward the future.
Castellanos criticized the Reds’ ownership for not spending after he opted out and signed a five-year, $100 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. Though he might have had some valid arguments, it turned out the Reds benefited from their decision not to bid for Castellanos, who was released by the Phillies this spring with a year left on that contract. The Reds turned that decision into Stewart, who has become one of the favorites for National League Rookie of the Year over the first month of the season.
Spring training started with some big trades, including three All-Stars — Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suárez and Sonny Gray.
Winker has never reached the highs he experienced in Cincinnati, and Suárez resurrected his career with the Seattle Mariners and Arizona Diamondbacks, only to return to Cincinnati this offseason. Gray made an All-Star team with the Twins before signing a free-agent deal with the St. Louis Cardinals. He was traded to Boston this offseason. The Reds beat him in their second game of the season.
The Reds received four players from the Mariners in exchange for Suárez and Winker, two of whom are no longer with the organization (outfielder Jake Fraley and pitcher Justin Dunn) and two more who are part of this team, lefty starter Brandon Williamson and reliever Connor Phillips.
Gray and a minor-league pitcher were traded to Minnesota for former first-rounder Chase Petty, who made his big-league debut last year and, at 23, is still among the team’s top prospects.
Even during the lockout, when teams couldn’t sign major-league players, the front office made moves that helped down the line. On Feb. 1, the Reds signed right-hander Fernando Cruz, a one-time Kansas City Royals draft pick as a shortstop who hadn’t played in affiliated baseball since 2015. Cruz, who put up a 1.4 bWAR in three seasons with the Reds, was traded to the New York Yankees for Platinum Glove-winning catcher Jose Trevino after the 2024 season.
The Reds’ first trade in July ahead of the 2022 deadline didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but it turned out to be a steal. Outfielder Tyler Naquin and lefty Phillip Diehl were traded to the New York Mets for a pair of minor leaguers in Class A, second baseman Hectór Rodríguez and right-hander José Acuña. Rodríguez was moved to the outfield and is one of the team’s top prospects. Acuña missed a season with an injury but is 1-0 with a 2.70 ERA in two starts at Double-A Chattanooga.
The biggest deal was made July 30, just days ahead of the Aug. 2 deadline that year, with the Reds sending right-hander Luis Castillo, the top pitcher on the market, to Seattle for shortstops Noelvi Marte and Edwin Arroyo, along with right-hander Levi Stoudt and lefty Andrew Moore.
Praised at the time, even after Castillo signed an extension and made the 2023 All-Star team, the judgment on the return is still up in the air. Marte has had ups and downs since his debut in 2023, including an 80-game suspension for violating the league’s drug-testing policy before the 2024 season. He made the Opening Day roster this season but was sent to Triple-A after Sunday’s game. Arroyo missed all of the 2024 season after undergoing shoulder surgery. He is in Louisville.
Stoudt pitched for the Reds in 2023, but hasn’t pitched in the majors since then. Moore is in the San Diego Padres’ system.
Bookending the Mahle trade were the moves of Pham and Brandon Drury, both for minor leaguers. Pham went to Boston for Northcut, a Cincinnati native who is no longer in affiliated baseball, and Drury netted Victor Acosta, a highly touted international signing given a $1.8 million bonus by the Padres who hasn’t played above High A for the Reds.
For Mahle, who had been on the injured list for most of July that year, the Reds received Steer and, eventually, Benson, along with Encarnacion-Strand.
Since debuting in the 2022 season, Steer has accumulated 4.3 bWAR with the Reds. Encarnacion-Strand hit 13 home runs in 63 games in 2023, but struggled with injuries before he was designated for assignment last week and traded to the Baltimore Orioles on Monday. Hajjar never reached the majors and has since retired.
The Reds went 21-39 over the final two months of the season. Although the Reds were one of four teams with 100 or more losses, that was the first year of the draft lottery. Instead of picking fourth, the Reds fell to seventh. They were tied with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who won the draft lottery and took eventual Cy Young-winner Paul Skenes. The Reds picked seventh, selecting right-hander Rhett Lowder, who will start against Mahle on Wednesday.
