The Reds have activated Emilio Pagan from the 60-day injured list, the team announced on Saturday. To free up a spot on the active roster, Yosver Zulueta was optioned to Triple-A Louisville. The team had two open spaces on the 40-man roster, so no additional corresponding move was necessary.
Pagan, 33, signed a two-year, $16M contract with the Reds this past offseason. Before reaching free agency, he spent the first seven seasons of his career pitching for the Mariners, Athletics, Rays, Padres, and Twins. Despite being traded four times in less than five years, Pagan put up solid numbers, pitching to a 3.71 ERA and 3.39 SIERA across 369 appearances. What’s more, although he compiled 22 wins, 32 saves, 60 holds and a 1.80 ERA in 11 postseason appearances. His most impressive accomplishment in that time was, perhaps, his durability. From 2017-23, he only took one trip to the injured list: a brief stint on the 10-day IL with right biceps inflammation in 2020. He pitched at least 50 innings in every full season. Only five players threw more innings in relief over those seven years: Raisel Iglesias, Hector Neris, Miguel Castro, Adam Ottavino, and Kenley Jansen.
Unfortunately, the injury bug finally caught up to Pagan in his first season with Cincinnati. The veteran righty landed on the IL with a right lat strain in mid-June, and he was transferred to the 60-day IL later that month.
Results-wise, Pagan has had his ups and downs throughout his career. He put up a strong performance in his walk year last season, tossing 69 1/3 innings for Minnesota with a 2.99 ERA. Yet, there were warning signs that his success wasn’t entirely sustainable. His 23.8 percent strikeout rate was a career-low, his 5.3 percent HR/FB was well below his career average, and his 4.01 SIERA was more than a full run higher than his ERA. Nonetheless, he managed to secure a $16M guarantee from the Reds. He is making an $8M salary this season and he has an $8M player option for 2025.
Pagan looked solid but unspectacular over his first 22 appearances with Cincinnati. His strikeout rate climbed back up to 29.9 percent, but his home-run rate jumped up too; he gave up four long balls in just 22 games. His 3.06 SIERA is a marked improvement from last season, but his 4.43 ERA is not. Most concerningly, his velocity is down by at least one-and-a-half miles per hour on all three of his pitches (a four-seam fastball, a cutter and a splitter). He has also allowed hard-hit balls (95+ mph EV) at the highest rate of his career. Then again, his SIERA, xERA, and xFIP are all significantly better than the league average, and pitch modeling systems like Stuff+ and PitchingBot agree that Pagan remains an above-average arm. Ultimately, what this tells us is that 20 1/3 innings is a pretty small sample size with which to evaluate a pitcher. With seven weeks remaining in the season, it will be interesting to see if Pagan performs well enough that he might choose to reject his player option this offseason and return to free agency.
Cincinnati has had one of the better bullpens in baseball all season, and Nick Krall bolstered that group with Jakob Junis at the trade deadline. Even so, the Reds will need all the help they can get if they want to stay alive in the NL Wild Card race; they’re currently five games back of the third Wild Card spot, with six teams standing in their way.
The Reds claimed Zulueta off of waivers from the Blue Jays on Opening Day, and he made his MLB debut with Cincinnati in late June. The 26-year-old has already been recalled and optioned several times this season, pitching to a 3.09 ERA and 3.63 SIERA over eight low-leverage appearances. He will return to the Louisville Bats, with whom he has pitched 40 1/3 innings this year with a 2.23 ERA and 3.24 FIP.