Photo: Doug Gray
Spring training is still about a month from getting started, with pitchers, catchers, and players who will be playing in the World Baseball Classic all reporting to Goodyear on February 9th and position players showing up on the 14th. While we know that all players on the 40-man roster will be in big league camp, the Cincinnati Reds announced an additional nine players from the minor leagues that will also be in big league camp.
Among that group the split is pretty even between position players and pitchers. Five pitchers have been extended non-roster invites to big league camp while there are four position players on the list.
Right-handed pitchers Tejay Antone, Hagen Danner, Lyon Richardson, and Carson Spiers along with left-handed pitcher Joel Valdez were all given invites. On the position side of things it’s catcher Will Banfield, infielder Michael Chavis, and utilitymen Garrett Hampson and Michael Toglia that will be arriving earlier than the rest of the minor league counterparts.
Eight of those nine players have some big league experience. Hagen Danner has only recorded one out and he only faced one batter in his only time on the mound in a Major League Baseball game, but that still counts.
Left-handed pitcher Joel Valdez is the lone player from the list who has never reached the big leagues. In the winter of 2024 the Reds took him in the minor league version of the Rule 5 draft and he broke out in 2025 with Double-A Chattanooga where he pitched in 26 games with a 1.38 ERA while throwing 45.2 innings, giving up just one home run, walking 20, and striking out 55 batters. He struggled in his 12.0 innings with Triple-A Louisville as he allowed eight earned runs on 16 hits and five walks while hitting three batters and striking out 12.
This likely isn’t the last of the non-roster invites that the club will hand out. At this point there are no minor leaguers that aren’t on the 40-man roster that have officially gotten big league invites yet outside of Joel Valdez, who while a solid relief prospect, is not among the team’s top 30-something prospects. Expect some of Cincinnati’s prospects to get invites announced soon enough because it’s just highly unlikely that they won’t give out some more in the next couple of weeks.
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