Photo: Aldrin Capulong/Daytona Tortugas
On Thursday we got the Cincinnati Reds 2026 Minor League spring training roster. There were 159 players on the list for minor league camp and among that group there were a few interesting things. The two things that you usually look for are which guys are coming up from the Dominican Republic complex to the US and then you look to see if anyone is making a big position change. It’s the latter one of those that we saw yesterday that was one of the bigger surprises as Logan Tanner was listed as a right-handed pitcher. Tanner, the 2022 2nd round pick by the team out of college, has been a catcher since his freshman season at Mississippi State.
Knowing that pobody’s nerfect I reached out to ask if he were moving to the mound or if it was simply an input error/typo on the roster and it was confirmed that Logan Tanner is indeed transitioning from a catcher to a pitcher this year.
When Cincinnati drafted Tanner in 2022 there were a lot of questions about whether or not he could hit enough. During his college career he hit .285/.385/.476 in 136 games. There was no doubt about what he could do behind the plate, though. He was seen as one of the better defensive catchers college who also had a plus-plus arm.
After being drafted he would struggle to hit. He spent parts of two seasons in Daytona and then the last two seasons in Dayton. He played in 163 games over that time and hit just .189/.305/.310 with 10 home runs, 90 walks, and 187 strikeouts. The defense continued to shine, but the bat just never progressed.
His plus-plus arm strength behind the plate is something that he and the Reds hope will work on the mound after being a catcher only since he arrived on campus in 2019. Coming out of high school, Baseball America had him ranked as the #312th best prospect in the draft where his scouting report noted he had an interesting choice to make between being a catcher or a pitcher. We know which choice he made at this point, but in high school he was throwing 89-95 while also showing a slider and change up.
The position player to pitcher transition isn’t common, but it’s also not unheard of. The Reds were involved in one of the most well known position player to pitcher transitions in history with Hall of Fame closer Trevor Hoffman was drafted by Cincinnati in 1989 in the 11th round but after two seasons of not hitting well between Billings and Charleston he made the move to the mound in 1991. Two years later he had been a dominant minor league closer and was then selected by the Florida Marlins in the expansion draft in November of 1992 and was in the big leagues from 1993-2010 where he racked up 601 saves and was a 7-time All-Star.
One of the more recent success stories in this type of move also happens to be from a catcher. Kenley Jansen signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2004 as a 17-year-old catcher out of Curacao. Over the following five seasons he worked his way up the ladder, reaching Triple-A but he struggled to hit outside of the complex level and during the 2009 minor league season he headed to the mound in late July and never looked back. He’s now in year 16 as a big leaguer and has 476 career saves and a 2.57 ERA.
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