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    Reds acquire Casey Legumina in a trade with the Minnesota Twins

    Doug Gray 19

    The Cincinnati Reds have acquired right-handed reliever Casey Legumina in a trade with the Minnesota Twins. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic was the first to report that the Reds were trading Kyle Farmer to Minnesota, while C. Trent Rosecans (also from The Athletic) was the first to report that it was Legumina that was coming back to Cincinnati in the deal. He was just added to the Twins 40-man roster this week and will now be on the Reds 40-man roster.

    The Twins selected Casey Legumina in the 8th round of the 2019 draft. By the time he was selected in the draft he had injured his pitching elbow and would undergo Tommy John surgery. That led to him not making his professional debut until 2021. This past season he began the year in High-A Cedar Rapids where he made three starts before being promoted to Double-A Wichita. Things didn’t get out to a good start there and they didn’t really start to improve for quite a while. In his first 15 appearances – 13 starts and two outings out of the bullpen – he posted a 5.69 ERA with 26 walks and 50 strikeouts while allowing nine home runs in 55.1 innings.

    On August 11th the Twins moved Legumina to the bullpen in Double-A. He allowed five earned runs in his first three outings that covered 5.0 innings. From that point forward he gave up just one earned run in 12.2 innings and didn’t give up a run in his final 10 appearances. He struck out 20 batters in 12.2 innings during that stretch and held opponents to a .204/.291/.204 line – not giving up a single extra-base hit in a month.

    Scouting Report

    Following the trade I queued up some video after Casey Legumina moved to the bullpen in Double-A and he showed some interesting stuff. His fastball was sitting at 96-97 MPH and he was consistently working with it at the top of the strikezone. He showed two breaking balls – both looked like sliders,  but one was around 85 and the other one was 77-80. He also appeared to throw a change up in the upper 80’s. I saw a report that he had hit 98 MPH earlier in the season as a starter, too, so there’s plenty of velocity to work with.

    He did struggle against lefties a bit during the season. Left-handed hitters posted a .285/.347/.483 line against him in 191 plate appearances. Right-handed hitters didn’t have nearly the same kind of success, hitting just .228/.320/.345 against him in 194 plate appearances. Righties struck out more than lefties, but also walked more than lefties did against Legumina.

    Stats

    Doug Gray
    Doug Gray is the owner and operator of this website and has been running it since 2006 in one variation or another.

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    19 Responses

      1. Newman played in half the games Farmer did last year and finished with a higher war.

        Moreta could be a better reliever than Legumina who performed well when moved to the pen but he (Moreta) had trouble with the long ball and likely wouldn’t be cracking the major league team out of spring. Cincinnati probably not a good fit for him with GABP.

        What Cincinnati gave up wasn’t much better than what they got today. They stayed in virtually the same spot talent wise, got younger, and freed up a few million in doing so

        Not cut Reynolds a use the then 3 open spots on the 40 man to sign an outfielder, backup catcher, and starting pitcher

        1. couldn’t agree more Bdh. Today was just roster management. We really didn’t lost much and potentially gained an interesting bullpen piece for the future.

          Noone wants to see a player with 5 years of Reds experience and a penchant for being a leader leave for nothing but feelings don’t win games.

      2. Stock – care to quantify “much”. I don’t see it. Plus, Farmer was on the brink of being non-tendered.

        Moretta I was surprised wasn’t cleared for 40-man roster space but he does have MLB experience and some of it passable. But he was probably in the tier of being DFA’ed once we start adding some MLB contracts.

      3. I don’t know if I’ve ever done this, but here is a post from Tom Diesman on RLN that addressed this:

        My initial thought after the deal is that dealing Farmer and bringing in Newman does the following for the Reds to begin next season. Removes Farmer from the 3B picture to open up 2B/3B for the best combo of India/Steer to begin the season. Votto/Moustakas cover 1B/DH. Newman begins the year as the starting SS with Reynolds as the utility man and backup at SS. The Reds can then open the season at AAA with a rotating mix at 2B/3B/SS of Barerro/McLain/De La Cruz (Encarnacion-Strand/McGarry cover 1B/DH). As soon as they decide one of those three is ready with the bat, they move up to Cincy as the starting SS with Newman as the utility man and backup at SS and move on from Reynolds. That way Barerro has to earn his way back to MLB by showing he remembered how to hit and nobody is going to be sad when one of those three replaces Newman (Instead of the much beloved Farmer) at SS after tearing up AAA.

        I was pretty impressed with this thinking.

        Stock I usually agree with you, but I don’t see Farmer being better than Newman, certainly not worth double the salary, and neither is in the starting opening day lineup for 2024. As for Moreta, if memory serves, he had a 5.4 ERA last year and is a fly ball pitcher in a ground ball park. I’d risk trading him straight up for Legumina who may never stick in MLB, or who may be distinctly better than Moreta.

        These were minor deals, but I like both of them. And they obviously dovetail with each other in a seemingly two hour time frame. Moneyball baby!

    6. This has to be a scouting dominated trade – instead of several teenage flyers they really must see something in Legumina. The injury must be well behind him, and the stuff does offer something, so it is more than just a salary dump, and he’s not quite too old, and replaces Moreta to that extent – put him in the group to show up in MLB in 2024 – if enough of them make it, and one or two are stars, it may be a success.

      Not overly bothered by losing Farmer or Moreta; still, doesn’t really move the needle in either direction.

      2. I don’t see them as teenage flyers if they have some validated performance in the last year.

        Pulling a name out of a hat from the Minnesota DSL team would be taking a flyer.

        1. Almost all teenagers are flyers – basically neither a top-100 prospect or a top-10 team prospect. Most 1st round picks are one of those, doubt most other picks are either. Current examples for the Reds are Acosta and Arroyo – Legumina certainly is likelier than either of them to appear in MLB in 2024, but less likely to appear at all in MLB.

    7. Last week they got rid of the lettuce guy. Now they’ve replaced him with the green bean guy.

    8. Should be noted that both Cerda and Duarte have agreed to return on minor league contracts with the reds already. That’s a huge positive!

      1. At first, I found the timing curious. But I read that all of the non-tendered players immediately became free agents. As such, they didn’t pass through waivers where another team could claim them. It appears the Reds approached them both with attractive MiLB contracts prior to non-tendering them. This was a smart move.

    9. The Twins no 27 prospect, after loosing CES, Steer, etc.,

      Casey Legumina probably has a decent arm and spin rate. Who cares where currently is at? He’s 25 and could be in Cincinnati within 18 months.

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