The curtain rose late last week to unveil the 2022 MLB season, fresh off a nearly 100 day pause due to the lockout. That meant a flood of transactions that would’ve normally flowed steadily all winter was set to break loose, and the recent days have done nothing to diminish that expectation.
Of course, the Cincinnati Reds managed to jump into that fray, continuing along the path they began down in the winter of 2020-2021, with salary-shedding their primary (and perhaps only) true goal. That time has seen them effectively give away each of Raisel Iglesias, Tucker Barnhart, and Wade Miley to save coin, and while the individual merits of keeping each of those players around can be debated, the general consensus (with the advantage of hindsight) is that the Reds didn’t get nearly enough in return for just letting those players go.