{"id":2051,"date":"2025-05-01T14:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T14:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/2051\/"},"modified":"2025-05-01T14:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T14:48:09","slug":"reds-option-alexis-diaz-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/2051\/","title":{"rendered":"Reds Option Alexis Diaz – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Reds have optioned former All-Star closer Alexis Diaz<\/a> to Triple-A Louisville, per a team announcement. Fellow right-hander Luis Mey<\/a> is being recalled from Louisville in his place. Mey will be making his MLB debut the first time he takes the mound.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a brutal season for Diaz, who already lost the closer\u2019s role in Cincinnati. The 28-year-old righty opened the year on the 15-day injured list due to a hamstring strain. He returned a couple weeks ago but has been pitching with a career-low 93 mph average fastball velocity. He currently has more walks (five) and home runs allowed (four) than strikeouts (three). The result is a ghastly 12.00 ERA, which was inflated heavily by yesterday\u2019s five-run meltdown against the Cardinals.<\/p>\n

Diaz\u2019s decline hasn\u2019t been completely out of the blue. He was an excellent high-leverage arm in his first two seasons from 2022-23, finishing fifth in \u201922 NL Rookie of the Year voting and making the \u201923 All-Star team at the midpoint of a 37-save season. His 2024 campaign, however, was rife with red flags.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s 3.99 ERA wasn\u2019t necessarily a harbinger for significant decline in and of itself, but Diaz\u2019s average heater dropped from 95.2 mph in 2022-23 to 93.9 mph in 2024. His strikeout rate, which had topped 30% in each of his first two seasons, fell to a pedestrian 22.7%. His swinging-strike rate checked in at just 11% last year after sitting at a gaudy 15.6% over the two prior seasons. Diaz has never had good command, walking more than 12% of his opponents even at his peak, which makes the precipitous decline in his ability to miss bats all the more problematic.<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Reds have optioned former All-Star closer Alexis Diaz to Triple-A Louisville, per a team announcement. Fellow right-hander…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1096,5,1627,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-2051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-alexis-diaz","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-luis-mey","11":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114433130737048040","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}