Cincinnati Reds sign another free agent pitcher who is eager.
The Cincinnati Reds continued to add to their pitching depth on Thursday morning, signing free agent relief pitcher Brooks Kriske. The right-handed reliever signed a minor league contract with an invitation to 2024 spring training as a non-roster player.
Brooks Kriske has spent parts of three seasons in the big leagues with the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, and the Kansas City Royals. In the 2023 season he made four appearances with the Royals and posted a 4.05 ERA in 6.2 innings while striking out six batters. During his stints with the Yankees and Orioles in 2020 and 2021 he struggled, posting a 14.40 ERA in 15.0 innings – giving up 24 earned runs in that span of time. You can see his career stats here.
In the 2022 season the righty headed to Japan where he pitched for Yokohama. In 2023 he returned to the United States and signed with the Royals, but he was released in July and returned to Japan where he pitched for Seibu.
Brooks Kriske’s scouting report shows that he’s a 3-pitch pitcher, throwing a fastball that averages 95 MPH, a slider in the low-80’s and a splitter in the mid-80’s. He mixes things up fairly evenly, throwing the fastball and splitter 36% of the time in 2023, with the slider making up the remaining 27% of his pitch usage. That’s quite a bit different than where his usage was in 2020 and 2021 when he only threw his slider 7% of the time and leaned on his fastball more than 60% of the time.
With the invitation to big league camp for Brooks Kriske, the Reds now have seven non-roster invitees to spring training in 2024. Pitchers Jacob Heatherly, Tony Santillan, and Reiver Sanmartin join Kriske, as does catcher P.J. Higgins and infielders Erik Gonzalez and Mark Mathias. Among that group only left-handed reliever Jacob Heatherly has not played in the big leagues. Heatherly topped out in Double-A last season with the Chattanooga Lookouts.
