On Monday I shared the Cincinnati Reds minor league spring training invite list for 2021. There were just over 100 players listed, so there were bound to be a few guys that were glossed over on my initial look. One of those players missing that I didn’t realize was 4th round pick in the 2020 Major League Baseball draft, Mac Wainwright. It appears that he was added to the restricted list in mid-February. That can mean a few different things. I reached out to the organization about this and got the following response from the Reds:
Mac Wainwright, the Reds’ fourth-round pick in the June 2020 first-year player draft, is on administrative leave and is not participating in minor league spring training camp at the team’s player development complex in Goodyear. We have no further comment.
While there’s not much clarification there, it’s something.
Update: 6:15pm
Mark Sheldon of Reds.com is reporting that Wainwright was indicted on two counts each of rape and gross sexual imposition.
Court records show that he was indicted on all charges on November 30th. He posted bail of $10,000 on December 22nd. Wainwright pleaded not guilty. The case remains open.
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Selected out of Lakewood St. Edward High School in 2020, Mac Wainwright was a big upside pick who had missed some time in high school due to injury. With the injury costing him time, and then the 2020 season being wiped out, there wasn’t as much scouting of him as there otherwise would have been in more normal times.
From a scouting perspective you had a guy who had big raw power to tap into. Considered a bit raw, likely due to the missed time on the field, the Reds were hoping to get a player a little lower in the draft that had upside that could be far more than your typical 4th round draft pick. Fangraphs had Wainwright rated 152nd in the draft last season, though he was not rated in the Baseball America Top 100 or the MLB Pipeline 200. That kind of gives you an idea of just how strange the data on him was due to the time off of the field – the variance in his rankings was very big. Those who saw him and liked what they saw were quite high on him. The power was there. He could move well for someone his size. And he had a strong arm that could play well in right field.
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