The Reds have signed right-hander Michael Mariot to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He has been assigned to Triple-A Louisville.
Mariot, 34, has 44 games of major league experience, which came with the Royals and Phillies back in the 2014-2016 seasons. He has a 5.98 career ERA in 49 2/3 innings with a 20% strikeout rate, 12.4% walk rate and 34.2% ground ball rate.
Since that time, he has been bouncing to various different organizations. He signed a minor league deal with the Phillies in March of last year and was traded to the Tigers in June for cash, though neither club called him to the majors. He made 15 starts and three relief appearances on the year, posting a 4.90 ERA in 79 innings. He struck out 16.3% of opponents while walking 9.3%. He then spent some time with the CTBC Brothers of the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan.
For the past few months, he’s been with the Cleburne Railroaders of the independent American Association of Professional Baseball. He had a 5.06 ERA there but with 29 strikeouts and just five walks in 26 2/3 innings.
The Reds have dealt with a number of injuries to their pitching staff, with Graham Ashcraft landing on the injured list just yesterday. He joined Justin Dunn, Vladimir Gutierrez, Nick Lodolo, Connor Overton, Tejay Antone, Derek Law, Casey Legumina, Reiver Sanmartin and Tony Santillan on the list of Cincinnati hurlers currently on the shelf. It’s unclear whether they plan to deploy Mariot as a starter or reliever but he will give them some experienced non-roster depth either way. If he earns his way onto the roster, he is out of options but has just over a year of service time.