Cincinnati Reds acquire OF Dane Myers from Miami Marlins

The Cincinnati Reds spent their Saturday morning finalizing a deal to sign outfielder JJ Bleday, the former 4th overall draft pick and former member of both the Miami Marlins and Athletics of Wherevertheyare. That move added depth to Cincinnati’s outfield, something that was a) vital and b) something that most of us considered a spot where they could truly add an impact player without further jumbling up the roster.

Well, the Reds went back to work on jumbling later Saturday, this time in the form of adding outfielder Dane Myers from the Miami Marlins in exchange for minor league outfielder Ethan O’Donnell. The Reds confirmed the move on Twitter, noting that they’d designated reliever Lyon Richardson for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster.

For the Reds roster, that means that Myers – a former pitcher who converted to hitting full-time after the 2019 season – adds a right-handed bat who’s shown some pretty decent work against LHP in his limited time in the bigs. He’ll turn 30 years old in March of 2026 yet has just 511 PA in the bigs under his belt, though he has managed to hit .297/.360/.456 in 203 PA against southpaws in that time. That paired with his plus defensive ability means he’ll be a platoon option for a club that now sports left-handed options in Bleday, Will Benson, Gavin Lux, and TJ Friedl opposite presumptive RF regular Noelvi Marte.

(In case that paragraph doesn’t emphasize it enough, he’s posted just a .549 OPS against RHP and will turn 30 next year. That’s a non-starter.)

It’s less about what this move adds, however. Myers is a pre-arb guy with team control and a league-minimum salary who, given the rest of the group, should serve some purpose. He also adds a potential seventh outfielder to the mix, and that mix now features a full handful of guys who we’re still not sure really deserve to get regular time out there at all, let alone regularly.

In adding Bleday and Myers the same day – literally a full-time position by platoon – the Reds have gone cheap to ‘complete’ one position on the potential roster, something of a sign that there may not be another major offensive addition actually in the pipeline. For the team that was once connected with the likes of Kyle Schwarber, Ketel Marte, Brandon Lowe, and Luis Robert Jr., among other more ‘notable’ bats, this sure reeks of the club simply copping out on the cheap.

Of course, that’s if they’re totally done, which their even further disjointed roster suggests may not be the case. The bullpen, now devoid of both Keegan Thompson and Richardson today after the Reds entered the weekend already short on options down there, seems to be a spot the team still desperately needs to address, and you’ve got to wonder if now they’ll end up using their surplus of positionless noodlebats they’ve acquired this offseason to try to help that spot via trade somewhere else.

Maybe that means they’ve got a way to unload Gavin Lux and the roughly $5 million he’ll be owed to get an arm for down there. Maybe it means they see Father Time sapping TJ Friedl’s speed and think now’s the time to move him for a legitimate piece with plenty of team control.

Maybe, though, it means the Reds saw a way to cobble together as many AAA-AAAA pieces as they could that still have minor league options remaining – as Myers does – and simply hope they can adeptly rotate through them at precisely the right times each is hot and healthy and at the end of the year they’ll end up with a full season’s worth of decent production. In essence, they’ve built a roster that will require constant substitution and tinkering, putting the onus on both Nick Krall and Tito Francona to manage it absolutely to perfection to extract its maximum value in lieu of, say, simply bringing in a player or two good enough to just dicatate that success themselves.