The Cincinnati Reds have acquired third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for reliever Taylor Rogers and shortstop prospect Sammy Stafura.
This is a weird trade. The Reds are three games out of the third Wild Card spot, 5.5 and 6 games out of the second and first Wild Card spots, and 8.5 games back in the National League Central. However, there is no one between them and the Padres, who hold WC3, and the teams behind them in the Wild Card chase are all selling. So you
can see the case for the Reds being buyers.
That said, this isn’t your typical buyer move. Hayes is under team control through 2030, with $7 million salaries in 2026 and 2027, $8 million salaries in 2028 and 2029, and a $12 million team option in 2030 with a $6 million buyout. He is under control, for cheap, for a while.
However, Hayes also hasn’t hit at all since the start of the 2024 season. In 196 games since then, Hayes has slashed .234/.381/.290, for a 60 OPS+. Nonetheless, the 28 year old has still tallied 2.0 bWAR and 0.9 fWAR in that span due to his being an elite defender at third base.
The Reds gave up a pretty decent prospect in Stafura in this deal. A second round pick in 2023, he is repeating low-A despite performing well there in 2024 after being promoting from the complex league, and is #7 on the Baseball America Reds prospect list.
More oddly, given the Reds are buying and the Pirates are selling, is the inclusion of Taylor Rogers in the deal. Rogers was acquired by the Reds this past offseason from the San Francisco Giants in exchange for Braxton Roxby. Rogers is in the final year of a 3 year, $33 million deal that he signed with the Giants prior to the 2023 season, and is making $12 million in 2025.
Interestingly, Rogers’ twin brother, Tyler Rogers, a reliever for the Giants, was also traded today, to the New York Mets.
Rogers has a 2.45 ERA this year for the Reds in 33 innings over 40 appearances, though he has a 3.96 xERA and 4.12 FIP. Regardless, one would not expect a team buying at the deadline to send away one of its functional relievers in a trade, and one would not expect a selling team to take on a guy with an 8 figure salary who is a free agent at season’s end.
The Pirates will presumably be looking to move Rogers by tomorrow’s deadline, and given the heavy market for relievers, they likely will have a number of teams interested in him. The Rangers could well be among them — Rogers has closing experience, and Texas could see him as an option to beef of the pen in the late innings. If Texas were to go after Rogers, though, they’d presumably look for Pittsburgh to eat some of his salary, given the Rangers’ desire to stay below the Competitive Balance Tax threshold.
