The Cincinnati Reds have signed a former fourth overall draft pick, a player who was once ranked as the 20th overall prospect by MLB.com!
In their seemingly endless search for corner outfield upgrades, the Reds landed on former Oakland Athletic JJ Bleday, who reportedly signed a major league contract with the club on Saturday morning. MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon relayed the news, noting that the team’s 40-man roster is currently full, so a move will be made soon.
As recently as 2024, Bleday was a legitimate bat that would fit well into any lineup in the game. He hit .243/.324/.437 with 20 home runs in 642 PAs that year for Oakland, a season-long effort that was valued at 3.2 fWAR/2.1 bWAR. The discrepancy there is practically a criticism of how his defense was valued at CF, something Oakland/Sacramento clearly had serious opinions about when they effectively started phasing him out of CF and into a corner spot just last year.
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As his defense went down the spectrum last year, his offensive value also went down. He hit just .212/.294/.404 with 14 home runs in 344 PA last year in his new home park, and was even sent back to AAA for a time. The lack of results coupled with his service time reaching arbitration status meant he was non-tendered this offseason rather than accept an estimated $2.2 million salary, though he now comes with a trio of years of team control for the Reds (should they decide to keep him on the roster that long).
The advantages of Bleday are clear. There are many reasons why he was drafted so high, rated so high, and even once traded outright for highly regarded pitcher AJ Puk in the deal that swapped the two lefties between Miami and Oakland. There’s also a chance that last season was a bit of bad luck for Bleday, whose BABIP fell to just .251 (after it was .279 during his breakout 2024 season).
What is clear, however, is that this is a reclamation project the Reds are willing to take on, one that doesn’t even seem like a perfect roster fit at the moment. Bleday is a lefty who has hit RHP better than LHP in his career (with 2025 being the only exception), and that overlaps a lot with players like Will Benson and Gavin Lux. Ideally, if the Reds were to go the cheap route for platooning options in the outfield, adding an LHP-busting righty to complement those two is what they would do. ought we’ve been looking, although there’s a caveat here that Bleday still has an option left.
This isn’t the type of signing that, in theory, would prevent the Reds from continuing to seek further improvement in both the outfield and the offense, but it further muddies a roster that is running out of places to hide these types of positive plays. Perhaps an indication that future trade is in the works to help reduce that glut – Lux is He’s set to make around $5 million in 2026 after a lackluster 2025, or maybe it’s just the Reds getting what they can while he’s available on the cheap.
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Whatever the reasons, it’s another Vanderbilt connection to the Reds that has been lost since Derek Johnson, Vandy’s former pitching coach and recruiter, is on Cincinnati’s staff. Sonny Gray! Caleb Cotham! Curt Casali! Sal Stewart was a Vandy commit! Carson Fulmer! Tony Kemp! Nick Christiani! Draw Hayes!