Last week the Cincinnati Reds designated Christian Encarnacion-Strand for assignment to clear a spot on the 40-man roster for catcher P.J. Higgins when he was added to the roster to take over for an injured Jose Trevino as the club’s backup catcher. Five days later we know the fate of Encarnacion-Strand. It was announced this afternoon that he had been traded to the Baltimore Orioles for cash considerations.
For Encarnacion-Strand, he’s headed to his third organization. He was drafted and signed by the Minnesota Twins in 2021. 54 weeks later he was traded by the Twins to the Reds along with Spencer Steer for right-handed pitcher Tyler Mahle. A prospect at the time who was mostly playing third base, he had strong minor league numbers and he finished that 2022 minor league season with a combined 32 home runs to go along with 31 doubles and five triples.
In 2023 he headed to Louisville and hit .331/.405/.637 for the Bats in 67 games. Right after the All-Star break he was called up to join Cincinnati and he performed well the rest of the season, putting up an OPS of .805 with 20 extra-base hits in 63 games played.
The next season was one where he got out to a slow start. In the first five weeks he hit just .190/.220/.293. He was hit by a pitch on April 27th that year and then got an X-ray that didn’t show a fracture, but that the image did show a previously undiagnosed fracture in his wrist. Two weeks later he was placed on the injured list with a fractured wrist. That injury would cost him the remainder of the season as he would undergo surgery later in the summer to try and repair it.
When he returned in 2025 he got out to a hot start, but quickly went into a slump and by mid-April he was on the injured list with lower back inflammation. He missed five weeks before starting a rehab assignment. After he returned to the Reds he continued to struggle and five weeks after that he was optioned to Triple-A and spent the rest of his season there.
The power threat has always been there with Encarnacion-Strand. But after a strong debut in a half-season in 2023 he simply was not able to repeat that. Whether it was the wrist injury, the back issue, both, neither, the league adjusting to him, or his struggles with controlling which pitches to swing at and which ones to take – the hitting just never got back to those same levels.
He’s going to get a fresh start in Baltimore. The good ole “change of scenery”, as they say. Maybe that’s just what he needs to get back on track. As for Cincinnati…. well, they eventually get an undisclosed amount of cash.
You can see Christian Encarnacion-Strand’s career stats here.
