The Cincinnati Reds are signing left-handed relief pitcher Caleb Ferguson to a 1-year deal according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer. There are no details yet on how much his contract is worth.
Caleb Ferguson made his debut in 2018 with the Los Angeles Dodgers and spent the next six seasons with them, though he did miss all of 2021 after undergoing Tommy John surgery late in the 2020 season. The Dodgers traded him just before spring training in 2024 to the Yankees, who then traded him five months later at the trade deadline to the Astros. Ferguson then became a free agent and signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates for $3,000,000 for one year. They then traded him at the deadline to the Seattle Mariners.
During his career he’s pitched in parts of seven big league seasons. He’s thrown 327.0 innings with a 3.66 ERA – which has translated to an ERA+ of 113 (essentially 13% better than the league average once ballparks factors are accounted for). The lefty has struck out 365 batters with 129 walks.
In 2025, though, his strikeout were way down. He entered the season with a 10.8 strikeouts per 9-innings pitched rate for his career. In 2025 he struck out 7.0 batters per 9-innings pitched. His ERA didn’t suffer, though, as he posted a 3.58 mark between his two stops (116 ERA+). A big part of that is that he allowed just two home runs in 65.1 innings.
The groundball rate is above-average for his career. It was 48.7% in 2025. That’s good, but it’s not elite. It’s also not the best rate of his career, either. Ferguson gave up home runs about 25% as often in 2025 as he has in his career per fly ball allowed. That’s probably not the best sign moving forward when it comes to keeping the ball in the park at the same rate, but he also had a career best 84.8 MPH exit velocity against.
With that said, he did drastically change his pitch usage in 2025. He used to overwhelmingly throw his 4-seam fastball. From 2018-2023 he threw it anywhere from 67-78% of the time. In 2024 he began to throw it less, while adding in both a cutter and a sinker. In 2025 he doubled how often he was throwing his sinker, eliminated his slider completely, and his 4-seam fastball rate dropped to 32%. So perhaps there’s something to see in there where he’s got better control over his batted ball outcomes now than he has in the past. Still, it’s very unlikely he’ll only give up two home runs again in 2026 if he’s on the mound for most of the year.
You can see the career stats for Caleb Ferguson here.
While the Reds have two lefties in their rotation, there were only two other left-handed pitchers on the 40-man roster before bringing in Ferguson. Sam Moll, who the Reds kept in the minor leagues in the final month and for the playoffs, and Brandon Williamson who missed the entire 2025 season as he recovered from Tommy John surgery.
The bullpen is likely to look a bit different for the Reds next season, though the back end could look familiar after the team brought back Emilio Pagan on a free agent deal. Tony Santillan and Graham Ashcraft are both likely to serve in their set up roles, too. But beyond that, things felt up in the air for a lot of the spots remaining. Ferguson should fill in one of the empty spots and could be used along with Santillan and Ashcraft in the latter innings depending on the match up ahead.
