The Reds announced Friday that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Zach Maxwell from Triple-A Louisville. Fellow righty Ian Gibaut, who’s been out since late June due to a shoulder impingement, was transferred from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL to create space on the 40-man roster.
Maxwell, 24, was Cincinnati’s sixth-round pick out of Georgia Tech back in 2022. The hulking 6’6″, 275-pound righty ranked 24th among Reds prospects on the post-draft updates from both Baseball America and MLB.com. He’s spent the entire season in Triple-A so far, tossing 49 2/3 innings out of the bullpen and recording a 4.17 earned run average. Maxwell boasts a plus-plus fastball and slider/cutter, per those scouting reports, with Baseball America noting that he can “look unhittable” when his command is dialed in.
That’s a prominent caveat, however. Maxwell has poor command and has struggled with walks dating back to his college career, when he walked a combined 20.6% of his opponents in his final two years before being drafted. He’s scaled that back a bit, but he’s still doled out a free pass to an untenable 14.5% of opponents this year in Louisville.
Maxwell can miss bats in droves, as one would expect from a massive righty whose velocity climbs as high as 102 mph (and likely appears even faster to opponents, given the extension he can get on a 6’6″ frame). If he can continue to make incremental gains with his command — he’s scaled back from a 16% walk rate in ’24 to this year’s 14.5% mark — he has the makings of a formidable late-game bullpen weapon. It’s a similar skill set to another towering Reds righty, the 6’5″ Luis Mey, though Mey uses a sinker as his primary offering rather than a four-seamer. The Mey/Maxwell pairing could potentially be lethal at the end of Reds games, but both will need to improve their command to reach their ceilings. Mey was optioned to Louisville last night, and Maxwell is taking his spot on the active roster.
Maxwell will be auditioning for a future bullpen spot in the final five weeks or so of the season (while, of course, also trying to help push the team into the postseason). Emilio Pagan is a free agent at season’s end, while other veterans like Scott Barlow and Brent Suter both have club options. The former seems unlikely to be picked up, though the latter could well return, given his Cincinnati roots and the option’s affordable net $2.75MM price point. Either way, there are some potential openings in the 2026 ’pen that could be claimed by some of the organization’s young arms.