Cincinnati Reds to acquire Robby Scott from Red Sox

Robby Scott, 29, has spent his entire major league with the Boston Red Sox. He will now, per reports, be headed to the National League to join the Cincinnati Reds.

According to Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic, the Cincinnati Reds are acquiring left-handed relief pitcher Robby Scott from the Boston Red Sox. In a separate tweet, Rosenthal noted that Scott is a waiver claim. Joel Sherman of the New York Post and Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com confirmed Rosenthal’s report.

While the move was originally rumoured to be a trade, it is now become known that the Red Sox will not receive anything in return and instead will have an empty spot on their 40-man roster.

Scott, 29, made his major league debut with the Sox in 2016, and has since appeared in 73 major league contests, pitching to an ERA of 3.91 in a total of 48.1 innings, striking out 44 and walking just 20. Considering he has appeared in 73 games and has just pitched 48.1 frames (making his average innings per outing 0.2 IP/G), he was mostly a lefty specialist for Boston.

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It appears as though he lost that magic in 2018, as lefties, who faced him just 15 times this season, had an OPS of 1.089. Righties fared equally spectacularly, notching an OPS of 1.147 in 25 plate appearances. Still, his 2017 season, which saw him put up a WAR of 0.5, was quite good. In 35.2 innings, he pitched to an ERA of 3.79, striking out 31, but walking 13. His WHIP that season was still a respectable 0.981.

Interestingly enough, Scott is actually a switch hitter, despite having never actually appeared in a big league game as a hitter. While a pitcher of his calibre is certainly never acquired for their offensive abilities, it could come in handy seeing as his new club plays in the NL. That is, of course, if he actually gets into enough games to warrant getting significant at-bats with his new team.

While this is by no means the blockbuster that many were hoping would come out of the winter meetings, Scott could pay dividends for the Reds. He started off quite good, but fell off sometime early this season. Perhaps a change of scenery (and division) could remedy his sophomore slump?

Though the deal hasn’t, at least as of this writing, been officially confirmed by either team, it should soon become official. Scott will likely be added to the Reds 40-man roster and get set to compete for a spot on the major league team in spring training. He will become arbitration eligible in 2021, and exceeded his rookie limits during his solid 2017 campaign.