Caleb Ferguson made his debut in 2018 with the Los Angeles Dodgers and spent the next six seasons with them, although he missed all of 2021 after undergoing Tommy John surgery late in the 2020 season. The Dodgers traded him to the Yankees just before spring training in 2024, who then traded him to the Astros at the trade deadline five months later. Ferguson then became a free agent and signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates for $3,000,000 for one year. They then traded him to the Seattle Mariners at the deadline.
During his career, he pitched in parts of seven big league seasons. He has thrown 327.0 innings with an ERA of 3.66 – which has translated to an ERA+ of 113 (essentially 13% better than league average when ballpark factors are taken into account). The left-hander struckout 365 batters and walked 129.
However, in 2025, his strikeout rate was way down. He started the season with 10.8 strikeouts per 9 innings pitched for his career. In 2025, he struck out 7.0 batters per 9 innings pitched. However, his ERA did not suffer as he posted a 3.58 rating between his two stops (116 ERA+). A big part of that is that he allowed just two home runs in 65.1 innings.
The groundball percentage is above average for his career. In 2025 this was 48.7%. That’s good, but it’s not elite. It’s also not the best figure of his career. Ferguson gave up about 25% as many home runs in 2025 as he had allowed per catch in his career. That’s probably not the best sign moving forward in terms of keeping the ball in the park at the same pace, but he also had a career-best exit velocity of 84.8 MPH.
That said, he drastically changed his field usage in 2025. He threw his 4-seam fastball overwhelmingly. From 2018 to 2023, he threw it 67-78% of the time. In 2024, he started throwing less while adding both a cutter and a sinker. In 2025, he doubled the number of times he threw his sinker, eliminated his slider completely and dropped his four-seam fastball percentage to 32%. So perhaps there is some evidence of him now having better control over the results of his batted ball than in the past. Still, it’s highly unlikely he’ll give up even two more home runs in 2026 if he’s on the mound most of the year.
You can view Caleb Ferguson’s career stats here.
Although the Reds have two left-handers in their rotation, there were only two other left-handed pitchers on the 40-man roster before Ferguson was brought in. Sam Moll, who kept the Reds in the minor leagues for the last month and before the playoffs, and Brandon Williamson who missed the entire 2025 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
The bullpen will likely look a little different for the Reds next season, although the back end could look familiar after the team brought back Emilio Pagan via a free agent deal. Tony Santillan and Graham Ashcraft are both likely to appear in their regular roles as well. But beyond that, things were up in the air for many of the remaining spots. Ferguson should fill one of the empty spots and could be deployed alongside Santillan and Ashcraft in the final innings depending on the match ahead.
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