Ferguson adds a necessary left-handed option to Terry Francona’s bullpen. The Reds have bought out Brent Suter at the beginning of the low season. That left them behind Sam Moll as their lone lefty reliever. He was up and down from Triple-A this year, giving up 16 runs in 18 1/3 MLB innings. Moll gets a decent amount of whiffs and ground balls and was a solid middle reliever from 2022 to 2024, but the Reds couldn’t enter the season relying on him as their best option.
The 29-year-old Ferguson is coming off a solid split season between the Pirates and Mariners. He made 70 career appearances and posted a 3.58 earned run average over 65 1/3 innings. He recorded 14 holds while giving up five leads. Ferguson got a lot of weak contact, but he benefited from an unsustainably low home run percentage and batting average on balls in play. That will likely increase again in 2026, although it’s possible he compensates by missing more bats than last season.
Ferguson has a strikeout rate of 18.9%, which is by far the worst mark of his career. In each of his first six seasons, he had knocked out at least a quarter of opponents. That would be more of a concern if it were accompanied by a decline in his raw stuff. Ferguson’s average fastball velocity of 94 MPH was in line with previous years. He cut back on the four-seam fastball to use a sinker more often against left-handed hitters. The result was, as you might expect, a drop in scents, but a spike in ground balls. Ferguson also fared much better throwing strikes against lefties, holding him to a .184/.261/.204 line with zero home runs in 115 at-bats.
Against left-handed opposition, Ferguson used his sinker about half the time and threw his fastball and four-seam cutter at a nearly 25% clip. He only mixed a trunk with it sporadically. That was a much more common throw for him without the platoon advantage. Ferguson almost never threw the sinker to right, against whom the arm-side run could leak from the pitch back to the heart of the plate. Instead, he mixed the four-seam, slurve and cutter with opposite-handed opponents.
Ferguson is the second addition to Cincinnati’s bullpen this offseason. They also brought in out-of-options swingman Keegan Thompson on a split deal to compete for a long relief role. Their biggest move was to sign closer again Emilio Pagan to a two-year, $20 million contract. He is joined in the late innings by Graham Ashcraft, Tony Santillan and Ferguson. Right-wing rulers Connor Phillips And Zach Maxwell also have the stuff to work their way into leverage roles, though the question is whether either pitcher will throw enough strikes to earn that level of responsibility.
An already meager free left-wing auxiliary class is shrinking. The Pirates finalized their contract with Gregory Soto this morning, while Caleb Thielbar agreed to a new deal with the Cubs. Sean Newcomb, Danny Coulombe, Drew Pomeranz, Justin Wilson And Taylor Rogers are among those not signed.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported for the first time that the parties had an agreement Gordon Wittenmyer of The Cincinnati Enquirer was indicated for one year. Image courtesy of Jordan Godfree, Imagn Images.
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