The Reds went to Winter Meetings searching for outfielders whether it be trade or free agency. President of Baseball Ops Nick Krall stated on Thursday of this past week while wrapping up Winter Meetings that he had felt he had more discussions with teams than he did with free agents.
When It’s Time To Pivot
After awhile, if trades aren’t working, and teams aren’t willing to take your offer, or worse, you aren’t willing to include additional prospect(s) or pieces, it’s time to pivot. That’s why we’re creating this article, we want to look at who can fit should the Reds HAVE to pivot to a free agent, which sometimes isn’t the worst case scenario. We’re building out realistic options, Randal Grichuk fits the ‘realistic’ category, and one that makes a whole lot of sense, especially monetarily.
How Does Randal Grichuk Fit?
The Reds, in need of an OF and on the cheaper spectrum, fits perfectly. They need someone with average defense, and one that can hit. Randal exhumes both of those traits that have been long needed for the Reds. Though way better against LHP, he has shown the ability to hit for power against RHP, too, which primarily piques my interest as Grichuk would likely not be an everyday player, and that trait is very valuable to employ off the bench.
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| PAs | .AVG | .OBP | .SLG | .OPS | wRC+ | |
| v LHP | 184 | .319 | .386 | .528 | .914 | 151 |
| v RHP | 95 | .242 | .274 | .528 | .801 | 116 |
This is some great production in a limited role leading to less than 300 PAs for the year due to starting a bit late battling his right ankle injury and his role with the Diamondbacks organization. He was worth 2.2 Baseball Reference WAR, and 1.5 FanGraphs WAR. He would’ve been the most productive Reds outfielder, per those numerics. The Reds clearly have an issue hitting LHP, still, granted their bottom 10 offense against it, and Randal would plug perfectly in.
One of my favorite “metrics” to use and fantasize about is expected Homerun per park (xHR). Per statcast. Randal Grichuk would’ve hit 19 homeruns in GABP versus his 12 actual. That right there gives some insight on what we could expect from Grichuk should he play at GABP 81 games (and, hopefully, more) at GABP. 20% of his hits in 2024 in limited roles went for extra bases, 20 doubles, 2 triples, and 12 homers.
So What Will He Cost?
Randal opted out of his $6,000,000 guaranteed from the Arizona Diamondbacks, signaling his desire to lock up more than that, and he will get more than that, in my opinion. As of now, the only team publicly in on Grichuk are the Orioles. It’s unknown if they’ve offered him or not yet. It’s also worth mentioning that as of now, the Reds are not known to be “in” on him, and that could be corroborated with the fact that Nick Krall even mentioned that he spent more time talking to other teams about trades than he did with agents discussing free agency players.
The market has not been set for role players, so putting a guestimate on Randal is all we can do here:
Randal Grichuk
Total Contract: $13,000,000 guaranteed, potential $21,000,000
2025: $6,500,000
2026: $6,000,000
2027: Mutual Opt – $8,500,000 $500k buyout
