The Michael Toglia Era in Cincinnati Reds history was short and sweet despite the man, who I’m sure is sweet enough, being anything but short.
The 6’5” former 1st round pick of the Colorado Rockies spent the 2026 season within the Reds organization, plying his trade almost exclusively with AAA Louisville. As the injuries and underperformance mounted at the big league level, however, the Reds turned to Toglia’s prodigious power in August and he ultimately managed to play 10 games for them.
Curiously,
the Reds decided to give him – at age 28 – his first ever career starts in LF during that run. Mostly a 1B by trade (with admittedly experience in RF), Toglia dislocated his right shoulder diving for a ball in LF in an August 21st game against the Arizona Diamondbacks that ended both his season and, as of today, his career with the Reds.
Toglia was claimed off waivers by the Seattle Mariners on Friday afternoon, adding yet another layer of Mariners/Reds personnel overlap during the last decade.
While Toglia went just 3 for 26 with a pair of walks and 12 Ks in his Reds career, there’s plenty of pop in his bat that has played up elsewhere at times. That includes down at Louisville this past season as he socked 22 homers in 97 games for them, and he swatted 25 at the big league level with the Rockies as recently as 2024. So, this move does further dent the depth on the Reds roster, particularly in the power department (which is sorely lacking at just about every level at the moment).
The move means the Reds currently have 37 men on their 40-man roster, though Toglia was one of four Reds currently on the 60-day IL who’d need to be returned to the roster at season’s end (with Hunter Greene, Spencer Steer, and Blake Dunn being the others).
