Reds pursuing Nicholas Castellanos, select Mark Payton in Rule 5 Draft

The Winter Meetings are now officially over. The Rule 5 Draft wrapped up just before 1pm ET and was the final event to take place – sending everyone back to their homes. The Reds were busy in the Rule 5 draft, and you can read about that below. Perhaps the biggest news as it relates to the Cincinnati Reds, though, came from Jon Morosi of MLB Network early in the morning when he reported that the Reds were still showing interest in free agent outfielder Nicholas Castellanos.

For a team that is looking to add offense, Castellanos is probably the best hitter remaining on the free agent market. From 2016-2018 he posted a 120 OPS+ for the Detroit Tigers. In the first half of 2019 that was just a…