After not being involved in much of anything since acquiring Brady Singer from the Kansas City Royals very early on in the offseason, the Cincinnati Reds have been a bit busier over the last 48 hours. Yesterday the club picked up reliever Roansy Contreras on waivers from the Texas Rangers. Today they are signing reliever Bryan Shaw according to Robert Murray of Fansided. Shaw is being brought in on a minor league deal that includes an invitation to big league spring training.
Shaw has pitched for new Reds manager Terry Francona in the past. The two were together for seven season’s while in Cleveland between 2013 and 2022 (Shaw pitched in Colorado and Seattle for three seasons in the middle of this).
From 2011-2017, Bryan Shaw was a very good reliever as he pitched in 475 games and posted a 3.13 ERA. In three of the final four years of that stretch he led the league in appearances. That stretch also made up the entirety of his 20’s. He left Cleveland after that 2017 season and signed with the Rockies as a 30-year-old free agent. And his career has been mostly on the downswing ever since.
His two seasons in Colorado saw him post an ERA of 5.61 before he was released. In Seattle during the 2020 season he pitched in six games, threw 6.0 innings, and allowed 12 earned runs. He rejoined Cleveland in 2021 and bounced back a bit as he posted a 3.49 ERA and once again led the league in appearances with 81 of them. But in the three seasons since he’s pitched in 103 games with Cleveland and Chicago (White Sox) with an ERA of 5.00. In 2024 he only threw 4.0 innings for Chicago in the big leagues. He made 39 appearances in Triple-A where he had an ERA of 4.14 with Salt Lake while walking nearly as many hitters as he struck out (28 to 34 in 41.1 innings).
You can see the career stats for Bryan Shaw here.
The right-handed reliever is now 37-years-old and has an ERA of 5.12 in his 30’s at the big league level. These days he is mostly working with his cutter and slider (they made up 90% of his usage in 2024), but he’ll mix in a 2-seamer, curveball, and change up every so often.
Earlier in his career he was a ground ball pitcher, but that wasn’t the case in 2023 when he threw 45.2 innings in the big leagues. This past season while throwing 41.1 innings in Triple-A he got back to his ground ball ways and had a 52.1% ground ball rate (42% is about the league average).
There is an old saying about how you can never have too much pitching. And that’s probably truer today than ever before. Shaw represents depth as a just in case there are a bunch of injuries, but Cincinnati shouldn’t and likely isn’t counting on him to play a role in the big leagues given his more recent history.
