The Reds announced this morning that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Randy Wynne. Wynne is being brought in to replace righty Carson Spiers, who is headed to the 15-day injured list with a right shoulder impingement. No 40-man roster move was necessary to accommodate the addition of Wynne, though the Reds’ 40-man roster is now full.
Wynne, 32, was signed by the Reds out of the independent Frontier League back in 2019. He’s been working his way through the Reds organization ever since, climbing the minor league ladder and even getting a brief call-up to the majors back in 2023. He surrendered one run in 2 1/3 frames during his lone big league outing and was outrighted off the club’s 40-man roster not long after. Despite that relatively brief stint in the majors, Wynne has remained in the Reds organization as a swingman at Triple-A. He’s done fairly well for himself there in recent years, with a 4.16 ERA in 93 innings last season and a 3.06 ERA across his first four starts of the 2025 campaign.
He’ll take the vacated roster spot of Spiers, who threw 94 pitches yesterday over four innings of relief. The righty has a 6.08 ERA across 13 1/3 innings this year, his third season as a swing man for the Reds. Spiers’s work on the mound for Cincinnati has generally been serviceable but below-average overall, with most of those innings coming last season when he threw 90 2/3 frames of 5.46 ERA ball split between ten starts and 12 relief appearances. The severity of Spiers’s injury is not yet known, but he’ll miss at least the next two weeks as he nurses the injury.
The Reds are unlikely to need Wynne as a rotation piece as presently constructed given that Nick Lodolo should be back from the paternity list soon, meaning he’s likely to fill a similar long relief role to the one Spiers was slated for. It wouldn’t be a shock if the righty’s first appearance came today, given that reliever Brent Suter has been announced as today’s starter. Suter has looked solid this year with a 2.70 ERA despite a 4.52 FIP, but he last logged significant time as a starter back in 2018 and has maxed out at two innings to this point in the 2025 campaign. Given that Wynne is stretched out as a starter, it would make sense if the team’s plan against the Orioles today is for Suter to throw an inning or two before Wynne takes over as a bulk reliever.
