Reds cut six from big league camp including Edwin Arroyo & Cam Collier

No real surprises here, except...

Opening Day for the Cincinnati Reds is just three weeks from tomorrow, yet at dawn on the morning of March 5th they still had 61 players in their big league camp.

That changed by noon, however, as the club made their first cuts of the year. Six players were reassigned to minor league camp, including top prospects Edwin Arroyo and Cam Collier. The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans helped relay the news, noting that Hector Rodriguez, Jose Acuña, Michael Trautwein, and Ivan Johnson had joined them.

There is no huge surprise with any of these players being reassigned at this point in camp, even though there’s a ton of talent and upside with most of them. They simply aren’t in the big league plans at the moment, and there’s too little time between now and Opening Day that’s needed for the folks ahead of them on the depth chart.

If there is a surprise in today’s cuts, though, it’s that youngster Sal Stewart was kept around big league camp. Stewart, 21, was seemingly on the same trajectory as both Collier and Arroyo last year before a wrist injury sidelined him for the second half of the season, and odds are he’ll open the 2025 season with AA Chattanooga alongside them. Still, Stewart has flashed his typically excellent plate discipline so far in camp (3/3 BB/K) and socked a homer, and my best guess is that he’s remaining in camp working defensively all over the infield as the team gets a chance to further evaluate where he may fit best on that side of the ball going forward.

There are 55 players still in big league camp after these cuts.