Photo: Doug Gray
The Cincinnati Reds are trimming down the number of players on the 40-man roster this week. Ian Gibaut was outrighted to the minor leagues earlier this week and on Friday afternoon the club outrighted infielder/utility man Santiago Espinal to Triple-A. As a player with more than five years service time, Espinal has the right to refuse his outright assignment to the minor leagues and can become a free agent. He could also choose to accept the assignment and remain with the Reds as a minor leaguer. His choice has not yet been announced.
An All-Star in 2022 when he was with the Toronto Blue Jays, Espinal joined the Cincinnati Reds near the end of spring training in March of 2024. The Reds sent right-handed pitching prospect Chris McElvain to the Blue Jays in return for Espinal. That was right around the time that Cincinnati found out that Matt McLain’s shoulder injury was going to cost him plenty of time on the injured list and the team needed some depth to help cover the infield because without McLain and with Noelvi Marte having to serve a suspension the team was running short on players capable of stepping into the big leagues.
In his two seasons with the Reds Santiago Espinal certainly did his part on defense. A quality fielder, he was able to step in at first base, second base, shortstop, third base, left field, and right field for Cincinnati. He played in 232 games with the team.
But for as useful as he was in the field, he struggled in the batters box. Espinal had 719 plate appearances with the Reds over the past two seasons and he hit a combined .245/.294/.322. In the 2025 season he stepped to the plate 328 times and didn’t hit a single home run. That led to his slugging percentage dropped down to .282. His OPS of .575 was the lowest by a Red with at least 300 plate appearances since Billy Hamilton’s .563 mark in 2015. His isolated power (SLG-AVG) of .040 was the lowest by a Reds hitter with at least 300 plate appearances since 1986 when Kurt Stillwell had a .029 mark.
This move, in theory, saves Cincinnati a little bit of money. After making $2,400,000 in 2025 for the Reds, Espinal was projected to get $2,900,000 in arbitration for the 2026 season according to the projections from MLB Trade Rumors.
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