It’s Hot Stove Monday here at Red Reporter, a recurring feature that likely won’t recur often.
Despite the title of this using the name ‘Austin Wynns,’ this is really an ‘Adley Rutschman’ article.
Despite this being Red Reporter dot com, this is actually a Baltimore Orioles article. It’s a Garrett Hampson article, too, even though we’ve already been through Austin Wynns and Adley Rutschman.
This is a Cincinnati Reds roster article. That I will promise you.
Rutschman, the two-time All Star and face of the Orioles, left yesterday’s game early after taking a foul ball to the face, and while the move has been deemed ‘precautionary’ from the Orioles according to Jake Rill of MLB.com, there’s the obvious worry that he’s got enough concussion symptoms to be shut down for at least a time. Pair that with backup catcher Gary Sanchez on the injured list, too, and suddenly the catching position (that Baltimore surely considered a strength heading into the season) becomes one where Maverick Handley is now suddenly the everyday guy.
Enter the Reds, who know this story well.
The Reds had resident stalwart Tyler Stephenson as their go-to backstop entering 2025 yet still moved to acquire Jose Trevino to buttress their backstop options – even going to far as to extend Trevino before the season began. Stephenson immediately got injured, Trevino was thrust up the pecking order, and Austin Wynns – who the Reds DFA’d roughly a dozen times last year – suddenly found himself getting more run than he’d ever envisioned.
Catching depth is a precious commodity, as the Orioles situation reveals; it can go south incredibly quick, and remedying the situation with a quality option is as difficult as it gets mid-season. That’s a major reason why the Reds are currently still carrying a trio of catchers, as Wynns is now out of options and would almost certainly be claimed on the waivers where he’d be placed should the Reds try to sneak him back to the minors.
So, the Reds are carrying more catchers than they’re using, the kind of roster-bending decision that helped them decide to sign Hampson – a super-utility guy who can effectively ‘cover’ multiple would-be roster spots – in the first place last week. That is, of course, unless they can finally find a team whose catching situation is enough dire straits to need to trade for a catcher, giving the Reds something of tangible value for their catching depth instead of waiting for them to simply blink and place Wynns on waivers.
That could be Baltimore. If you’d ignored the standings so far this year, you’d scream it’d be Baltimore. They’re good! They won 100 games a minute ago!
These Orioles are terrible, however. Somehow they’ve fallen to just 18-34 on the season, fired their manager, and drawn into question whether it’s already time for another rebuild there despite the endless talent on their roster. So, would they really give up literally anything of value for catching depth right now if Rutschman were to miss time?
Baltimore, to their credit, have Samuel Basallo raking in AAA and sitting atop their own prospect rankings. But Basallo, still just 20 years old, has only 51 games at AAA under his belt and it seems unlikely the O’s want to burn a full big league season of service time of his given where they are in the standings.
This is an Austin Wynns article, however, and not a Tyler Stephenson article. The Reds aren’t going to trade the latter in any situation right now, and certainly not this early in the year. In Wynns, though, they might well be able to flip a guy who once occupied waivers as fodder for something that fits their organization right now a little bit more. They might be able to flip him to the team that drafted him back in 2013, to the team that gave him his big league debut back in 2018, to a team that needs catching help without opening up the flood of long-term problems they’d be hit with if they called up Basallo right now.
That’s not going to be much, even if Baltimore watched Wynns post a six-hit game against them earlier this season. Still, it could be a flyer of an arm that needs a bit of reeling in, a toolsy outfielder who’s still years away, someone, anyone other than a guy who has been good enough to not let slip away for nothing yet not good enough to every actually play anymore.
Something tangible for the ability to use a full 26-man roster and not limit it to just 25 – and for the purpose of the 25th man to not simply be ‘can kind of be 75% of the 23rd and 24th man, too.’ That, though, depends on whether Baltimore actually needs catching help should Rutschman miss time, and whether or not Baltimore has already reached the point in this dismal 2025 season where they’re trying to lose more games than they win.
It seems like a cash-in moment for Cincinnati, one that would make their roster more flexible and render Hampson irrelevant immediately, too. That is, of course, until they face the need for catching depth again…